Life, 1919-09-18 · page 45 of 48
Life — September 18, 1919 — page 45: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This is satirical verse about Prohibition, which began in January 1919. The poem depicts a household desperately seeking alcohol during the new ban. The humor centers on a cook named Mary who possesses "cooking sherry"—a common loophole people exploited, as cooking ingredients containing alcohol weren't technically prohibited. The household staff conspires to get Mary drunk so she'll provide the sherry, with increasingly desperate pleas ("Let's all make merry / Let's all make Mary / Serve the cooking sherry"). The final section shows the absurdity: Mary refuses to be fooled, and they face consequences ("Hell for cooking sherry"). This captures the public's immediate defiance of Prohibition through creative workarounds and the social chaos the policy created. The satire mocks both the law's ineffectiveness and people's determination to circumvent it.
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Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
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