It would be the most laughable farce comedy were it not the deepest tragedy. I can conceive of a brilliant first act, wherein some doughboys, parched and thirsty, arrive in a German village and for the first time in their lives taste real Münchner beer--the beer of their enemy--learn to like it, decently enough, get the recipe, and decide to take back to their home town the one good and harmless thing the enemy country gave them. Then, as a climax, they arrive, wounded and depressed, a tatterdemalion battalion, glad that the filthy war is over and done, and ready now to drop back into calm, blissful citizenship, with their young wives and families. But no, say a delegation of legislators on the pier (a charming comic chorus this!), with palms extended upright, “You are all wrong, bo, And you really ought to know, That we’ve rearranged the show, And it’s bone-dry you will go, And though honors we bestow, Now, alas! no beer will flow! For we’ve put one over on you-- Pro-hi-_bi_-tion!” (Curtain, amid general consternation.) Now, if a libretto with this plot development had been offered to a Broadway manager six years ago, it would have been turned down at once as impossible. I can see the first reader’s report: “A great deal of whimsical imagination is shown by the author; but the American people are very sensible, and even Barrie and Gilbert could not be allowed to take such liberties with life as it is. Isn’t it too bad that writers do not know the public better? What a pity it is that they cannot evolve plots that will be a revelation of life as it is, not as it might be in a mad, whirligig world of fancy? This is not good, even as satire, for the situation could not exist, even in a realm of dreams.” But see what has happened! This plot would have proved a prophecy and made several fortunes for the author and the manager. “What!” I hear some character saying in the course of the first act, just before the curtain descends, “do you mean to say that the boys who fought for this democracy stuff had no voice in the passing of the law that made it a crime to sip a glass of good beer?” And the answer would be, “Of course not! How behind the times you are! America is a free country, you know. The people who dwell in it boast of their superiority of intellect, and rejoice in their form of self-government--though they abrogate their votes to a pack of politicians who are--well, to put it bluntly, dishonest. For they drink themselves, while they bow to lobbyists who don’t believe in drink--for the other fellow. America, my good sir, is the land of the spree no longer; it is the home of the grave.” (Business of laughter. Solemn music is heard, and the entire chorus of legislators pass with stately steps to the Capitol, dressed in heavy mourning.)