Judge — February 27, 1926 — page 15: what you’re looking at

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

Editor, Norman Anthony. Hallelujah! ORTUNATELY it is still true thal you can’t fool all the Fiver all the time. Gradually the dupes of the Anti-Saloon League come to, look about them, jump up in consternation and renounce the faith. And the longer the awakening is delayed the more thoroughgoing it be- Thus the Federal Council of Churches, on reaching the conclusion a few months ago that Prohibition was a costly failure, made comparatively mild recommendations that the churches should no longer put their re upon it but return to their ancient standby, moral suasion. Now, however, the Temperance Society of the ‘opal Church, on seeing the same light, stages a much more violent revolt. To the recommendations of the Federal Council of Churches it adds a demand for light wines and beer. We are not surprised that this bomb should have driven the dry hirelings in Washington franti They can look for more and worse. With fifty bills in Congress for modification of the Volstead law, it is not too much to hope that good Americans now beyond middle age, provided the joy of the prospect is not too much for their blood pressure, will live to see the Government of their country return to minding its own business. Meanwhile our hat is off to the Rey. Dr. Empring- ham, author of the Temperance Society's report. Dr. Empringham was at one time New York ate Super- intendent of the Anti-Saloon League = “I have long championed the cause of Prohibition,” he s ‘and to confess that [have misled others is very humiliating. It makes me feel like a fool.” Cheer up, Docte t is only when we attain wisdom that we know enough to feel like fools. comes. A Notable Conversion TT Propensity of the Prohibition issue to split. wide open parties and denominations hitherto united is excellently: illustrated in the row over the report of the Episcopal Temperance Society. Endorsement and repudiation, both equally passionate and vehement, have been showered upon it from within the fold. In New York State alone we find Bishop Fiske, of Central New York, applauding both its findings and its recommenda- tions without reservation, while Bishop Manning, in New York City, condemns them. Bishop Manning, indeed, has taken a leaf from the tactics of Wayne B. Wheeler in sneering at the authors of the report as the ¢ Mr. Wheeler, characteristically, dismisses them as Ne Yorkers, Bishop Manning as unrepresentative and unim- Associate Editors, William Morris Houghton, William Edgar Fisher, Phil Rosa, Dramatic Editor, George Jean Nathan portant. For some years past.” says he. “the Church has scarcely been aware of the existence of this society and it has not been regarded as having weight and influence in the Church.” Strange, because the Temperance Society, founded fifty- one years ago by an act of the General Assembly of the Church, now numbers twenty of its bishops as officers or directors. Moreover, William Jay Schieffelin, possibly the most prominent layman in the denomination since the death of the elder J. Pierpont Morgan, is the Society's treasurer. If an organization of such official standing and personnel can be regarded as having no influence in the Church, then the Church itself must be numb. see ee B" the Bishop's extravagance convicts him of hysteria. And this is the more unaccountable since before the passage of the Eighteenth Amendment and the Volstead law, unless we are grossly mistaken, he openly deprecated Prohibition. As recently as a few weeks ago he is quoted ving. “I never believed in Prohibition.” Even now “8, “I do not hold that to drink wine or other intoxi- cants in mode and he admits the growth of grave abuses under the present régime. He is chock-full of heresies and not at all a prohibitionist in the degree that afflicts Mr. Wheeler and his satellites. then, should he find the report of the Church Society in favor of light wines and beer so Can it be that his ambition to complete his 5,000,000 cathedral has something to do with it? Mind you, we are not making the accusation: we are merely raising the question which, in view of his sneers at the Temperance Society, seems amply privileged. Has the fact that he must depend for a large part of his building fund on the generosity of those who believe that Prohibi- tion is good for the other fellow anything to do with his present stand? Let us try to be sympathetic. Here the Bishop is com- mitted by his own ambitions to the completion of the huge cathedral on Morningside Heights, and $15,000,000 n enormous sum of money to collect. Yet when its collection seems in a fair way of being accomplished along comes this Temperance Society with its wet report. One can just visualize the tight-fisted old ladies who had been on the verge of willing the cathedral project substantial sums recoiling at the thought that in some way they might be lending their support to the encouragement of drinking: and the large employers of labor, sworn enemies of the workingman’s tipple, using a like excuse to close their purses. It’s enough to make a prohibitionist even out of a bishop. Wo MI. tion is in itself a sin ‘Tempera istasteft comicbooks.com