It looks that way. Yet no law can control people’s innermost feelings. No request--amounting to an order--can coerce a nation to do something it is not impelled to do, of itself. One remembers a sad time, not so long ago, when we were begged to remain neutral in thought, word and deed; and notices were printed in theater programs, urging us to make no demonstration when the troops of the Allies crossed the screen; to give no sign when the German army did likewise. Yet there was a burst of applause or a burst of hisses, just the same. The minds of a people cannot be controlled. It is nonsense to try to control them. Now the fanatics would seek to rob us of the joy of laughter. For of course they despise and detest laughter. Laughter--ridicule--is a sword that can be used against them. We can make this whole business of Prohibition so ludicrous that we can laugh it out of the statutes. Guffaws have disturbed many a solemn meeting; and a single cartoon has broken many a promising politician. One may be able to stand up against a serious argument; but lampooning has destroyed even men of genius. All was to be well the moment the Eighteenth Amendment became a fact. Everyone was going to sit still and take it very seriously, just as the Prohibitionists had planned. The lid was on, and on it would remain--forever and ever. Puritans have no sense of humor, or they would not be Puritans. They had not dreamed that someone would overturn the can on which the lid was placed, and, through sheer joy of living, shout and sing as of old. The habits of generations cannot be changed in a moment. We who had been accustomed to decent drinking did not intend to stop at once. We would “taper off,” as the topers put it. We had laid aside a little supply of jollity, and the word would go about that So-and-so had a large enough and deep enough cellar to permit him to entertain for at least three or four years. One of the strange things about Prohibition was the fact that, with its coming, everyone imagined that everyone else would turn miser concerning treating. But here again the human element was forgotten. Everyone seems more anxious than ever to prove that his bootlegger has an exhaustless supply; and a certain pride is taken in handing out innumerable drinks. An aristocracy has arisen that even serves liqueurs after coffee--as though a plethora of _crême de menthe_ and yellow and green chartreuse were in the land. The proverbial generosity of the American was never more in evidence. Where one was niggardly, perhaps, in the old days, one can scarcely afford to be so now; and those who accept drinks without returning them are frowned upon as unworthy. They are the outcasts of a new society, the lowest form of hanger-on. Of course they are not nearly so numerous as of old; therefore they are more conspicuous.