Having thus considered the real forces making for Prohibition, it remains for us merely to mention some of the more prevalent bits of claptrap which formed the stock-in-trade of Prohibition advocates. There were such statements as that the “wine” at the marriage in Cana of Galilee was unfermented! When the present writer was serving a term in the New York State Legislature, this was solemnly urged upon him by a Prohibition lobbyist. The imaginary picture of the ancient Jews, and of our Blessed Lord, fiddling about with benzoate of soda or some such stuff needs no comment. There was pseudo-scientific gibberish on the subject of “alcohol”; it was sought to show that it was a poison. The comforting thought was at once suggested that it must be a very slow poison, inasmuch as all our ancestors for countless generations had daily consumed fermented liquors containing appreciable amounts of it. The argument was on all fours with the vegetarian claims as to meat being poison. It was also sought to show that “alcohol” was incompatible with work; the same might have been said of sleep. There was a crop of wild statements having to do with the “working man,” considering him not as a fellow creature of like passions with ourselves but as a strange monster transmogrified by the middle-class imagination. It was alleged that “drink” caused the creature to beat his wife even upon occasions when she deserved nothing of the sort. It was claimed that when the “working man” was deprived of his chief recreation (which was admitted to be “drink”) the result would be increased prosperity and good temper in his family circle. The slightest acquaintance with Mohammedan countries would have been sufficient to disprove such stuff. These “working man” fantasies are eloquent testimony to the barrier built up between the classes of the community by centuries of Protestantism. Together with the rest of the Prohibition claptrap, they deserve to be recorded in triple brass in order to be the laughter, or the pity, of generations to come. Our generation has made a fine art of anonymity and the use of “dummies” in finance. Therefore it is impossible at this time, and will probably remain impossible, to expose the true sources from which the twentieth century puritans got their propaganda fund. It is common knowledge that many, if not most, of the large employers of “labour” sympathized with the Puritan cause ... as in the sixteenth century. It is believed that the Rockefellers gave enormously, and the fact that they are the most prominent Baptist laymen in the country, if not in the world, makes the belief seem probable.