Dry Rebuttals

Many Dry women, some Dry men, most of them amateurs, appeared as witnesses before the House Judiciary Committee last week, sought to prove by their arguments in behalf of the 18th Amendment that the old earnestness, ardor and oratory of their cause had not diminished in the decade since it was put into the Constitution. So vehement were their pleadings that an uninformed foreigner, conducted into the hearings, might well have imagined that the committee favored the pending wet bills and that the dry witnesses were striving to change their views.

From the troop of indistinguishable names that filed before the committee, a few stood out as real characters. Among these were:

Mrs. Lucy McGill Waterbury Peabody of Beverly, Mass., tall, grey-haired, motherly chairman of the Woman's National Committee for Law Enforcement, who leveled her lorgnette imperiously at the committee to announce that her organization represented 30 nationwide groups with a membership of 12,000,000 women.* She insisted on speaking without interruption by committee members. When New York's Wet Congressman LaGuardia tried to break in upon her for crossexamination, he was hissed by women spectators. After her own appeal, Mrs. Peabody sat down in the front row to coach other Dry witnesses with "Stick to your statement," "Don't answer that," "Don't give any names." Her asides, discovered next day in the stenographic transcript, precipitated such a ruction within the committee that Chairman Graham had to adjourn the meeting for the members "to cool off."

Mrs. Peabody presented Dry law endorsements from Mrs. Thomas Alva Edison and Mrs. Henry Ford, echoes of the endorsements their husbands gave fortnight ago (TIME, March 17). From Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt, famed feminist, she offered this statement: "In my circle of friends, with two exceptions, I have found no man, woman or child who drinks, brews, smuggles, purchases, sells or distributes any form of alcoholic liquor. These enormous dry circles appear to me to represent the climax of normal civilized growth. Those who still crave alcohol must acquire self-discipline before they attain the civilized standard. For them Prohibition is necessary."

Mrs. Peabody presented a Dry credo of 14 points. Excerpts: "We believe in the Volstead Act which limits alcoholic content to one half of one percent. No other standard would be safe for children"; "we believe the buyer is equally guilty with the seller in illicit transactions in liquor"* "we believe that the press . . . ought to give fair representation of the views of law-abiding citizens rather than continue attacks on the law" "we believe there is no authority for submitting the Constitution, in whole or in part, to a national referendum."

Mrs. Richard Aldrich, New York socialite, was introduced as "a woman of leisure." Said she: "The contention of the wet and noisy minority is only the voicing of self-indulgence. ... Its arguments appear very childish. . . . The statement that Prohibition has worked no changes in railroad discipline is quite childish. . . . The wet minority of leisure, occupied in establishing social bootlegging, is now alarmed lest the lives of its illegal employes be in danger. Hosts and hostesses have only to be less childish and there will be an end to the strange alliance between liquor and ladies."

Amos Alonzo Stagg, athletic director at the University of Chicago: "Since Prohibition hundreds of thousands more children have had a fairer start in life than before. The saloons were our substitutes for the movies, the theatres, the motor car, the radio, the seashore, reading and all. ... I can state with absolute confidence that drinking is not a problem at the U. of C., that only a very small percentage of the students drink at all."/-

Rev. John Callahan, "Bishop of the Bowery," chaplain at Manhattan's Tombs Prison: "There were 44 saloons in the Bowery ten years ago. There isn't one today. Hundreds of men there were homeless and friendless. Today they' ve got homes, wives, children, bank accounts, automobiles, radios and life insurance. I hope and pray to God Almighty that the 18th Amendment will be kept in the Constitution."

Col. Raymond Robins of Chicago, oldtime Bull Mooser: "Even the Wets piously declare they do not want the saloon, but a rose by any other name is still a rose. . . . The saloon is simply a place where men drink liquor, even if we painted it white, sold lilies at the door and had Uncle Sam for a bartender."

As a final snapper to their side of the argument, the U. S. Drys, Consolidated, prepared to close their case this week before the Judicial Committee with such professional advocates of Prohibition as Clarence True Wilson, lobbyist for the Methodist Board of Temperance, Prohibition & Public Morals, and Dr. Francis Scott McBride. lobbyist for the Anti-Saloon League of America.

*Wet critics disputed this figure, contended that such memberships overlap.

*For a canvass of U. S. magazines' attitudes on Prohibition, see p. 42.

/-This statement was disputed at the University of Chicago. Declared Dexter Masters, editor of Phoenix: "About 40% of the men on the campus drink liquor. Women drink in almost the same proportion." In 1927 the university authorities complained to the U. S. Prohibition Unit against the ease with which students secured liquor.

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