Judge — November 21, 1925 — page 15: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

Editor, Norman Authony. ree elected a dead man District Attorney. ee et ee Other triumphs for representative government in the recent elections: Al Smith knocked ’ ‘em cold once more; Detroit, Buffalo and Louisville licked the Klan; New J : licked the Anti-Saloon League; V licked both the Klan and the Anti-Saloon League. ed All of which is greater cause for Thanksgiving th year than anything that has happened outside of Locarno. Unholy Humor Proumitios, more than any other one thing, supplies our national life with iis overtone of irony. Yet the Methodist Board of ‘Temperance, Prohibition and Public Morals has decided that Prohibition is not a legitimate subject for humor. At least, so we interpret. the late waming of the Board, issued from its brand new palace “just across the street from the National Capitol.” In this it advi Will Rogers, Sam Hellman and other humorists to “eliminate booze arguments from humor, fiction and other neutral territory. Mr. Hellman, it appears, “under cover of the remarks of a fiction character by the name of Higgins,” has been supplying a Sunday paper “with about a foot and a half of argument... in favor of the nullification of the Prohibition Amendment,” and Mr. Rogers has been fillng his “tobacco advertising with Anti-Prohibition argument.” Which means, of course, that these gentle- men, like at least 95,000,000 of their fellow countrymen, have simply been cracking jokes at the expense of our sacred cow. It is this the Board calls “foul tactics.” “The people.” it s ve a right when they pur- novel not to find it ted with propaganda, when they go to a show to find it inoffensive, and when they read ‘humor’ to find it humorous and nothing ¢! It is refreshing to learn from such an organization that the people have any rights. But while we’re on this sub- ject, how about the right of the people to enjoy the kind of jokes they prefer, minus the dictation of the Board of Temperance, etc., etc? We agree that the Prohibition joke is worn thin and grown stale and resembles humor about as closely as near-beer does the genuine article. Nevertheless, it is still popular, or neither Sam Hellman nor Will Rogers would be handing it out. And the reason is plain enough: Prohibition is still as much of a social irritant as it ever was, and to make fun of it is our national method of enduring it. We advise our pious «Associate Editors, William Morris Houghton, William Edgar er, Phil Rosa. Dramatic Editor, George Jean Nathan. friends to abolish Prohibition if they would end the tor- ture to their sensibilities of having it laughed at. Thanks A™ Prohibitionists are apt to confuse the perfectly legitimate ridicule of Prohibition with “booze argu- ments,” “nullification propaganda” and “incitement to crime.” They seem to regard not only the Eighteenth Amendment but every last word in the Volstead Act as sacred law, subject neither to discussion nor to repeal or Of course, no man-made Jaw is sacred to degree, and least of all the experimental and, so far, ecessful national prohibition law. 7 id before, but he finds it necessary to repeat, that in poking fun at Prohibition it is not his pur- pose or desire to promote violation of the law. It is his purpose and desire to promote its repeal cr modification. It is no more his duty to “accept” Prohibition and sey nothing than it will be to remain silent if and when the nation prohibits the manufacture, distribution and sale of tobacco, or the teaching of evolution. Rather it is his duty, convinced as he is that Prohibition is a clownish and ghastly mistake, wrong in principle and ridiculous in practice, to say so in seven different languages, including the Scandinavian. To paraphrase the remarks of the Board of Temperance, “the people have a right when they ‘humorous’ weekly, to find it has a mind of its own is not afraid to express it.” “When Anti-Prohibition argument,” “fs put into the mouths of fiction char: characters, vaudeville actors, ‘humor’ foul tac This means merely that ridicule is the weapon the fanatical reformer fears most of all. JupGeE is not insen- sible of the compliment. Hee, Haw ! the Board, ers, cartoon writers, ete., it is x ed it in our own press we are indebted to the Sphere, an English publication, for the following item: “The evolution controversy in America has now spread from Dayton to the bulb growers of Indiana. Mr. A, E. Kundred is an expert in hybridizing gladioli. He has just. been expelled by the elders of his church because they maintained that if the Almighty had wanted the gladiolas hybridized he would have made them that way.” The Sphere prints a picture of Mr. Kundred, so we suppose the incident must be authentic. The thought saddens us, for we can foresee in the reasoning of the church elders a Constitutional amendment that will deprive us of the mule. W. M. H.