But nothing is being done about anything. The American people, whipped into obedience, as Prussians were never whipped, take their medicine (from which all but one-half of one per cent of alcohol has been extracted--and why this modicum should be permitted to remain is only another joker in the whole stupid business) and obey the law. Only, they don’t. They go out and break it to bits, as I have shown; and our legislators wonder why they have so many bad children on their hands, and isn’t it a strange world, and why is it that folks won’t be good and do as they are told, and what are laws for, anyhow, and this disrespect of the law is awful and must be punished, and someone has got to go to jail, and why is Bolshevism growing when we are all so happy? Ah! there is the answer in one word! We are not happy--every one is decidedly, unequivocally, wretchedly, miserably, gloomily, stonily, fearfully, terribly unhappy! And why? Because one has to fight so hard for his fun nowadays. A lot of laws have been passed, and more are threatened, which blast one’s hopes of the simplest kind of good times. These laws are based on a complete misunderstanding of poor old human nature, which needs, every now and then, say what you will, an escape from the dreariness, the tedium of life. The harmless diversions which in childhood take the form of playing ball and cricket and tennis experience a metamorphosis as we grow older--a perfectly natural metamorphosis; and we crave just a tinge of excitement after the harsh, unyielding day’s work. Most Americans work hard--there is no doubt of that. Except for a Cause. But, seriously, American business is a strenuous, glorious thing--a delightful game, if you will; but it is also a serious note in the scale of our national consciousness. We need relaxation after eight or nine hours at a desk; and the lights of a great city are the lure that lead us forth--not to get drunk, God knows, but to get just that fillip the weary body and brain need when an honest day’s work is done. The people who don’t understand this, and who are trying to rule and run America, are in a class with those who fail to understand the psychology of Coney Island, or any other simple pleasure resort; who are unable to distinguish between a happy sobriety and filthy gutter intoxication; who never heard Stevenson’s line about Shelley, “God, give me the young man with brains enough to make a fool of himself.” How a glass of light wine or beer is going to hurt a fellow is more than I, for the life of me, can see; and if he takes his wife along, as he usually does, or wishes to do, there is precious little danger that one will ever fall over the terrible precipice of intoxication and go down into the bottomless pit of complete disaster. One might say to the reformers that for the most part our ancestors imbibed a bit; and here we are, thank you, and doing very nicely.