It is because I love America so, that I do not wish to see her make a complete fool of herself--as she is doing every day now. And I say it as loudly as I can, that these pernicious laws, this spirit of _verboten_, is only making the world safe for De-mockery-cy. It was Montaigne who said that he was “of the opinion that it would be better for us to have no laws at all than to have them in so prodigious numbers as we have.” And that was how long ago? What would he write and think of America if he could live among us today? And further he said, knowing human nature as few of us know it: “There is no man so good, who, were he to submit all his thoughts and actions to the laws, would not deserve hanging ten times in his life.” Yet the silly law-makers go on with their silly codes, piling Pelion on the top of Ossa, till all sight of man’s frailty is lost. “A little folly is desirable in him that will not be guilty of stupidity.” Yet the letter of the law must be upheld, and the very men who make our statutes continue to break them. The joke may go too far. The American people may remember that “eternal vigilance is the price of liberty” and be willing to watch and wait, lest that most precious of all things be taken away from them. There can be no disputing the fact that a law that is not enforced is worse than no law at all. Law and order--that is the phrase. But America is a country of law and disorder; and the worst of it all is that the reformers refuse to stop where they have. They are preparing to plunge us into even deeper gloom. Why should they rest, having been so eminently successful already? We used to laugh tolerantly at the compulsory military service of the Germans, under the Kaiser; but isn’t a compulsory seat upon the water-wagon just about as autocratic? “Dry Country, ’Tis of Thee,” should be our national anthem--since we are seriously looking for one to take the place of the too-difficult-to-sing “Star-Spangled Banner.” But no; the words would not ring true. For there is a wetness all around us, and the lyric of a national anthem should at least seek to express the ideals and aspirations of a people, in terms of truth. Yet before Prohibition, who would have thought of picking out America as the wettest of all countries? We were just moderately so. We had no desire to get a reputation for excessive dampness. It is the drys who have given us that reputation--against our will. And the pity of it is that the tag will remain--even after we are sanely and becomingly wet again. The reformers wish no going back to even a semblance of the old ways and days. They wish us to conform, sedately, forgetting that Emerson once wrote, “Whoso would be a man must be a non-conformist.” And somehow I go on believing in Emerson.