﻿Personal Liberty 
 
Insofar as I fear the alcoholic content of the Volstead act is too high for the good of the country and its many gifted drinkers. I beg leave to tackle this unpopular subject from its most baneful angle . . . we would do almost anything to arrive at an understanding of this extra issue that interlinks itself—may I say intrudes itself —into our most urgent affairs. We do not fear a subject just because it may be unpopular. 
Alcohol is a too highly concentrated food. 
And should not be used excepting for emergency purposes—never for sociabilities sake. 
The ingredients of alcohol, in the form of grasses, may be eaten by man or mule with moderate success. 
Its ingredients, in a more concentrated form such as seeds, grains, etc., may be eaten either as whole grain or as powdered grain baked into bread. In fact, the latter process of imbibing of the ingredient of alcohol is the custom most in vogue among those that desire to intoxicate their stomach with an occasional meal. And, true, it is that the eating of bread was the first step away from the natural foods provided by mother earth—nuts was the first spree—for people would overstep the bounds of sobriety and propriety. . . 
But the distilling of grain, further concentrating this food (down to its very spirit) was a reckless experiment carried to its farthest extreme—and an “extreme” isn’t food, it’s a remedy. 
A remedy for what? 
A remedy for the first spree, the nuts, the grains, the seeds—the highly concentrated foods that enables you to do three men’s work 313 days per year. A horse cannot haul big loads on hay diet—hence outs.  
A man cannot work well on grass diet—hence the wheat, corn, barley and rye—and, if you undertake to do five or six men’s work you will find a stimulant, of the very spirit of food, will not only be acceptable but necessary. So much for alcohol and its few ingredients. 
Now, the Volstead act. 
It is argued that it does not effect our “personal liberty.” That we have no such rights that could thereby be offended. Tearful columns are splashed in front of us, not by drinkers but by writers—men and women that don’t know the difference between a glass of lemon extract and a shot of moonshine about wrecked homes and suffering children. Ye Gods! Their fathers are not dying because of less than 3 per cent “alcoholic content,” they are dying because of 78 per cent moonshine, plus pure poison. They are going blind, crazy, degenerate—personal liberty. 
Is it true that this liberty is left us? And shall we avail ourselves of its beneficient proportions—quick glory ? 

Did it ever occur to Volstead to remove the triple yoke from our neck and thereby remove the necessity for all but very mild stimulants, such as pies, eggs, T-bones and so on— would not that come under the head of personal-liberty? 
I fear Volstead has had no flash of such a thought and I’m scared stiff that we ourselves must organize and lay two extra yokes by the wayside—for future references—in order that once again we may sober up. 
We can, in that way, help to enforce the 18th amendment. 
The earnestness of some writers bucking light wines and 3 per cent beer leads us temperance in the form of prohibition. 
They have not. 
They have given us the most damnable concoctions ever conceived by human depravity. . . I’m not in favor of 3 per cent. I want none of it, but if I was to choose between the present liquor regime and the free and unlimited distillation of food products, I would unhesitatingly choose the latter—3 per cent cannot compete with the full hundred proof harvest “moon.” Put that in your pipe. 
Like everything else, our standard of simulation has been lowered. As to the legality of drinking, it is clearly against the law and drinkers are law-breakers (I’m a writer). But please bear in mind, that men who drink the present concoctions were desperate before “moonshine” was substituted for “aged in wood;” else they wouldn’t have the hardihood to drink it. 
What are you going to do about them extra yokes we are packing?