Nonsenseorship Part 4

Three cheers for Health and Christian Love!

But, Andrew dear-- Say, now, look here!

You're not including wine and beer!"

Then Andrew Volstead squared his chin And answered briefly, "Sin is sin."

No compromise With the King of Lies!

Both liquor thick and liquor thin We'll cease to tax And use the axe Invented by the Man from Minn.

For right is right and wrong is wrong-- A spell has cursed the world too long.

The curse of drink-- Stop, friends, and think How, reft of spirits weak or strong, My Nation will be purified Of all corruptions vile.

The lamb and lion, side by side, Will smile and smile and smile.

The workman when his day is o'er Will hurry to his cottage door To kiss his loving wife; He'll lay his wages in her hand And peace will settle on the land Without a trace of strife.

The criminals will cease to swarm, Forgers and burglars will reform And minor crimes will so abate That lower courts--now open late-- Will close and let the magistrate Go to the zoo Or read _Who's Who_.

In short I do antic.i.p.ate A thinner, cooler human race, Its system cleansed of every trace Of inner fire And hot desire And pa.s.sions spurring to disgrace.

"'Tis simple," said the Man from Minn., "To cure the world of mortal sin-- Just legislate against it."

Then up spake Congress with a roar, "We never thought of that before.

Let's go!"

And they commenced it.

III--_Tone Picture's Suggesting Conditions in U. S. A. Some Two Years After Alcoholic Stimulants Had Been Legislated out of Business_

1

Grandma's sitting in her attic, Oiling up her automatic.

Mid-Victorian is her style, Prim yet gentle is her smile As she fits the cartridges One by one, and softly says:

"Grandson is a Dry Enforcer.

Grandpa is a Legger-- All for one and one for all-- I'll never die a beggar.

Bill brings booze from Montreal, Grandpa lets him through-- Oh, life's been rosy for us folks Since the red-light laws went blue."

2

Pretty Sadie, aged fourteen, To a lamp-post clings serene.

"What's the matter?" some may ask.

On her hip she wears a flask Labelled "Tonic for the Hair"-- "Hic," says Sadie, "we should care!"

"Father is a corner druggist-- Why should I abstain?

Brother is a counterfeiter, Printing labels plain.

I can buy grain alcohol As all the neighbors do; And if you treat me right I'll lend My formula to you."

3

Sits the plumber, man of metal.

Joining gas-pipes to a kettle.

'Neath the bed his wife is lying Rather silent--she is dying From some gin her husband gave her.

He's too busy now to save her.

"Things," he sings, "are looking upward; I am making stills.

Soon we'll cook the stuff by wholesale, Running twenty 'mills.'

What we make and how we make it Doesn't cut no ice.

Anything you sell in bottles Brings the standard price."

4

In the gutter, quite besotted, Lies the drunkard, sadly spotted.

People pa.s.s with unmoved faces-- Why remark such commonplaces?

Just another Volstead duckling, Rolling in the gutter chuckling:

"Over seas of milk and water, Angels' wings a-flappin', Now we're purified and holy, Things like me can't happen.

Liquor's gone and gone forever-- Even the word is lewd: Otherwise there's somethin' makes me Feel like I was stewed."

IV--_Finale--A Short Interview with the Human Stomach_

Last night as I lay on my pillow, Last night when they'd put me to bed I spoke to my dear little tummy And wept at the words that I said:

"My sensitive, beautiful tummy That once was so rosy and pure!

My dainty, fastidious tummy-- O what have you had to endure?

"You once were inclined to be fussy; You turned at inferior rye; You moped at a dubious vintage And shrieked if the gin wasn't dry.

"But now you are covered with bunions And spongy and morbid and blue; You bite in the night like an adder-- O say, what has happened to you?"

Then my sullen and sinister tummy Rose slowly and spoke to my brain; "Say, boss, what's the stuff you've been drinking That fills me with nothing but pain?

"Today you had 'c.o.c.ktails' for luncheon-- They tasted like sulphured cologne.

They--were followed by poisonous highb.a.l.l.s That fell in my depths like a stone.

"I am dripping with bootlegger brandy, I ooze with synthetical gin; And the beer that you make in the kitchen-- Ah, dire are the wages of sin!

"The cursed saloon has departed, And well we are rid of the plague; But I'm weary of furniture polish With the counterfeit label of Haig.

"Yea, gone is the old-fashioned brewery And the gilded cafe is no more...."

Here my tummy jumped over the pillow And fell in a fit on the floor,

THE CENSORSHIP OF THOUGHT

[Ill.u.s.tration: Robert Keable urging the Automaton called Citizen to turn on his oppressor.]

ROBERT KEABLE

I knew a man, about a year ago, who published a novel upon which the critics fell with such fury this side the water at least, that whether in the body or out of the body, such was ultimately his state of bewilderment, he could not tell, and if I am asked to discuss "Prohibitions, Inhibitions and Illegalities" it is natural that the incident should be foremost in my mind. True, it is becoming increasingly the fashion for a parson to preach a sermon without announcing text, but modern preaching, like brief bright brotherly breezy modern services, does not seem to cut much ice. Therefore we will hark back to the manner of our forefathers and take the incident for a text. It affords an admirable example of nonsenseorship.

As is always done in approved sermons (but humbly entreating your forbearance, which is less common) let us consider the context, let us review the circ.u.mstances of the case in point. Our author left the lonely heart of Africa for the theatre of war in France. He left a solitude, a freedom, a beauty, of which he had become enamoured, for that a.s.semblage of all sorts of all nations, in a c.o.c.kpit of din and fury, known as the Western Front. He expected this, that, and the other; mainly he found the other, that, and this. Being desirous of serving the G.o.d of things as they are, he pondered, he observed, and, his heart burning within him, he wrote. He had no opportunity of writing in France, so he wrote on his return, away up in the Drakensberg mountains, alone, with the clean veld wind blowing about him and the nearest town an hour's ride away, and that but three houses when he reached it. He had seen vivid things and it chanced he was able to write vividly. There were twenty chapters in his novel and he wrote them in twenty days.

The novel finished, the MS. of it was despatched to nine publishing firms in succession, who silently but swiftly refused it. It only went to the tenth at all because there is luck in a round number, and it found a home because it found a free man. On the eve of its appearance, it was hung up for a month because it was felt that whereas the booksellers might display a book containing a certain pa.s.sage which referred to a woman's bosom, they would not do so if it contained a plural synonym. (I offer abject apologies for these dreadful details.) And when it finally appeared, the main portion of the English Press cried to heaven against it, and a smaller section clamoured for disciplinary action. For a hectic month the author, who had simply and plainly written of things as they were, honestly without conception that anyone existed who would doubt their truth or the obvious necessity for saying them, sat amazed before the storm.