"Bourbon!"

Indiana "Hoosiers" known to every proverbial schoolboy include Authors Tarkington, Nicholson, Ade; Politicians Marshall, Beveridge, Ralston, New, Hays, Watson. But when the banker thinks of Indiana he thinks of Evans Woollen, a banker whose fortune is moderate, whose perspicacity unsurpassed. Friend of authors and confidant of politicians, Mr. Woollen is an expert in Midland* diagnosis.

Last week he came to Manhattan and, as President of the Trust Com-pany Division of the American Bankers Association, warned his fellow-bankers against the sin of bourbonism. Said he:

"We need understanding between those who have and those who have not; those who employ and those who are employed. ... but understanding is impossible between the bourbon and the radical. Our contribution is the avoidance of bourbonism. . . .

"With the Bourbon who holds that property right, unchangeable in all its aspects, is not discussable in any respect, there is no chance for understanding. There is chance for clash. He promotes the class consciousness that is his danger and the danger of those whose business it is to conserve property into the future.

"If we who believe in our political and social institutions recognize this fact, that free speech, short always of incitement to law breaking, is the right of those whose ideas we dislike not less than those whose ideas we like, we promote the chance for understanding.

"Indeed, let us go further and say that we had better abate somewhat our zeal for repressive legislation."

Evans Woollen has a reputation for counting ten before he speaks. When he cried "bourbon" to the banker it was received more as an indictment than as a figure of speech.

*Word used by Booth Tarkington in his new novel, The Midlander (TIME Jan. 21), to indicate the States of the Middle West.