“Sana, you spoke of such things getting our ‘goat.’ That reminds me of a good story. I do not believe you know this, but my brother Pat was in the saloon business. He was quite prosperous, too, and a law-abiding citizen in every respect of the word. He never did a mean trick in his life and was a respected member of our church. Then came prohibition--which by the way was rather a surprise to the returning soldiers. They had been wined in France, to their heart’s content, but when they returned to their own country they found they had criminal intentions if they tried to get a drink. Well, Pat went broke. He couldn’t be honest and make a living at the only trade he knew. And what made him so sore was that, as he expressed, the biggest bootlegger put him out of business. You remember that there was a time when dear England had her back against the wall and was crying to America for men and ships. It is a matter of history as to how willingly and well we responded to that plea. Well, as a matter of gratitude, England, greatly against her will, allowed us to keep, for ourselves, a few former German vessels that had been tied up at our docks during the war--they were not allowed coal for quite some time prior to our entering into the war so they didn’t get away. Well, we got those boats and, of course, we had the privilege of retaining and using the wooden boats we built during the war. That was about all we got for the billions of dollars we loaned and the thousands of lives that were lost on the fields of battle. And what good were those boats when we could not successfully cope with vessels flying the flags of other nations? That is where Uncle Sam turned bootlegger. The boats running under foreign registry carried liquor--that was the whole situation in a nutshell. Americans would not travel on ‘dry’ boats when they could get liquor on others. So it came to pass that American vessels were allowed to carry liquors for the convenience of the passengers. And it was a good idea. It kept American money where it belongs--in America. “But it didn’t last for long. Complications arose so that Washington ruled that our American vessels must not have liquor aboard. “But while it did last, Uncle Sam was a bootlegger--serving the interests of a few--the ship owners, and Pat and the rest of us footed the bill, by paying heavier taxes to make up for the losses incurred by the Government when the closing of the breweries, distilleries and saloons wiped out many millions of dollars income in the way of internal revenue. And making law breakers of honest citizens.” “Why don’t the people protest against such reactionary laws?”