We have made a ghastly mistake. The unforeseen evils that have come in the wake of Prohibition far outweigh the good. We have never had anything but Poor Man’s Prohibition; and if it is true that those who feel the pinch of poverty have derived benefit from the closing of the saloon--as indeed they have--it is equally true that the moderately well-to-do have had their expenses increased. Used to drinking all their lives, they were not to be whipped into obeying a law with which they had no sympathy. They intended, humanly enough, to continue to get their grog--at any price. And they have done so, even though they afterward had a rendezvous with debt. The poor do not get their liquor, simply because they cannot afford it. I have seen clerks buying beer at seventy-five cents a bottle, which must have made quite a hole in their pay-envelopes. The honest laboring man could scarcely afford that extravagance; and so he goes beerless to bed, not because he wishes to, but because he has to. And you and I, whenever we desire liquid refreshment, know where we can obtain it. If an investigation were made of the savings of the great middle class during the past three years, I doubt if a good showing would be discovered. And is it not of some importance that this great group, who are the mainstay of the Republic, should be laying aside something for the future? The Prohibitionists will say that they have no sympathy with anyone who willfully breaks the law. But you cannot argue with people who count it no sin to disregard a statute. With clear consciences a vast body of people take not the slightest heed of the Eighteenth Amendment. They are simply bent upon getting what they wish, despite the Volstead Act, and nothing will convince them that they are not right. A law is of absolutely no value unless it meets with response from those whom it seeks to improve. After a long trial, anyone but a blind person must see that our Prohibition laws are violently opposed by millions of otherwise good citizens. The situation, instead of becoming better, as the Anti-Saloon League has all along predicted, has become steadily and obviously worse. There are danger signals confronting us. But there is a way out of our mess. That way lies through compromise. The Prohibitionists compromised, as of course they are well aware, when they did not make it against the law to drink in private homes. As I have said, they did not dare go quite that far. Had they done so, serious consequences would have followed. They likewise compromised when they gave us one-half of one per cent of alcohol in our beer. Why even that? To make it a little more distasteful, perhaps.