The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

+ desire to discuss. "can shock somebody sciences abhor. 2 WINNETKA WEEKLY TALK, SATURDAY, JANUARY 20, 1923 PROHIBITION CALLED SUCCESS BY RICHARDS (Continued from Page 1) boast or scold. But neither did it try to hide itself. It just sat there while the hearts of men went up to it in gladness. The light not under a bowl but on the stand is not con- ceited or self-conscious in any way. It is merely frank and fearless. It is merely fulfilling its own nature and intent. "Even so, even so," says Jesus, "let your light shine, that men may give glory, not to you, hut to your Father who is in heaven." Types of Cowardice There are many different types of cowardice. Some persons are afraid to be a bit like anybody else. They have a passion for uniqueness. They fear being caught in any of the drift- ings and surgings of our common humanity. They stand outside all popular enthusiasms and alarms. We call them queer, fanatical, freakish. Their lives seem to us to run thin and shallow. But there are other and more num- erous persons whose cowardice is of an opposite kind. Their fear is of be- ing different from anybody else. Their passion is for similarity. They are afraid of being caught one-tenth of a second out of step with the crowd. Whatever the seemingly majority practice of their set, that they will do. To call them queer or fanatical or freakish is to wound them to the quick. No "Thus saith the Lord" from the life of any Old Testament prophet, no "Verily, verily I say unto you" from the lips of Jesus ever means as much to them as the phrase "Everybody is doing it" spoken by a pretty girl or a well-dressed man. In my opinion this more common type of cowardice (which often seems most plentiful in the urbane, polite society) is the worse of the two--more retard- ing of human progress, more blasting to personal character, more altogether cowardly. It puts out the light of the life. It even hides the city on the hill. Again, some are afraid to let it be known how bad they are. Probably no one of us is free from this fear. I suspect of self-deception or of dis- honesty the man who says there is no habit and no mood in his life that he is not perfectly willing to lei the world know. But others are afraid to let it be known how good they are. They study to appear worse than the tacts. They are tickled when they They are proud to bg thought a little tough. think it amsaii to he suspected of some hat their own inmost con- infantile such bravado is nor the harm it does in the degradation of the moral tone of the community, in the way it oils the paths on which others slip, in the essential treason to idealism and conscience that it in- volves. If the kind of cowardice that avoids showing how bad we are is understandable and at times even wholesome and useful, this kind of cowardice is altogether bad and hurt- ful. I don't know how many good causes would leap to immediate triumph, I don't know how many evils would die within a week if, avoiding all display for its own sake, we only 'had the courage to seem good as we are and let our light shine. The Amendment Now, my friends, this is really the whole substance of what I want to say today in conection with this mat- ter that many of you have known my Next Tuesday is the anniversary of the eighteenth amendment to the Constitution of the United States, commonly called the prohibition amendment. It is an amendment that has not been allowed to seem as good as it is. It is pro- claimed in some quarters to have been hastily passed. I do not know that. Of course, the war mood had some- thing to do with it. But I cannot re- call any other law of the last fifty years so long or so publi¢ly agitated or that cast the shadow of its coming 80 clearly and so far before it. It would have come almost as quickly without the war as it did with it. It is proclaimed in some quarters that it was on injustice to our sol- diers to pass it in their absence. I do not know that. I do not know that the presence of a few million young men, many of them below vot- ing age and many more too young to have much political influence, would have changed the action of one hun- dred and ten millions of people, even if all the soldiers had been against the amendment, especially when that action was not by popular vote. And I do not know that they were against it. I do not know that they were any wetter than those who had to stay at home. Indeed, I sometimes suspect a gratuitious insult in the assumption that they were. Not All Bad It is proclaimed in yet other quar- ters that the amendment has wrought all harm and no good. I do not know that either. Indeed, our calm- est social students are telling us it has done a brilliant amount of good. I have talked with employers literally from one ocean to the other and been surprised at the size of the ma- jority among them who say it 'has done vast good in the rank and file of They | They do not see how | our people. Studies In 17 typical American cities of families where drink has contributed to their falling into the care of charitable agencies have shown a shrinkage in the num- ber of such families all the way from forty percent to one hundred percent, with an average percentage of ninety. So cool a periodical as the New York Survey recounts that among 308 insti- tutions of learning thirteen report an increase of the student use of strong drink since the amendment; 35 are non-committal; 16 say they never had any drinking; 111 say there has been no increase, and 123 report a decrease. The students among whom there has been an increase number 45,000; those among whom there has been a de- crease number 181,000. Even in Chicago--which I think no one would call exactly dry, but still damp, or moist--the official fig- ures are informing. They show al- most a halving of the admissions to the House of Correction and a heavy shrinkage in felonies, misdemeanors and quasi-criminal cases. They show a lightened docket in the morals court and an increase in restitutions by paroled prisoners from $40,000 to $278,000--even with much fewer pris- oners to parole. They show a de- crease in the death rate and especially among alcoholics. Remember this when the Tribune prints a skull and bones for a death from illegal liquor, although it did nothing of the kind for the more numerous deaths from legal liquor. Moreover, the figures show a sharp drop in deaths from the many diseases where alcohol is death's best helper--in pneumonia, for instance, where the fall is from 7,000 to 2,100. It's a pity, just in the name of honesty, it's a pity the eightenth amendment is not allowed to seem as good as it is! The Trouble Nevertheless all is not roses and laughter with that amendment. It was to be expected that certain ruffian ele- ments would try to disregard this law, just as they try to disregard every law that interferes with their con- venience. But at what we commonly call the other extreme of society, among the educated, the prosperous, the privileged, there is an equal deter- mination to disregard it! Here, not in the slums, not in the wilderness of the great cities, not in the Kentucky mountains, but here the real issue is to be determined. And do we clearly understand what that issue is? Do we grasp the fact that the eighteenth amendment is just as much a part of the Constitution as any other sentence in it, and that therefore to undermine it is to undermine the whole Consti- tution of the United States; to dis- regard it is to be wore radical and. revolutionary than most socialists and communists; and the infantile argument that we'll do this thing just because we are told not to and to show we won't let anyone invade our "personal liberty" divests us of all answer to those who set our houses on fire or take our property without due process of law and excuse them- selves by saying they do it because they are told not to and to show they won't let anyone invade their "per- sonal liberty?" Do we understand these things? Of course we do when we take thirty seconds to think. There is no need of talking. We know it. There is no need of argument. We are already convinced. The only real need is to act on our conviction-- to seem as good as we are! The Local Situation So far we have been treating this matter as a question of public law. Now let us come nearer to our local situation and in so doing realize it is also a question of private ethics. It is a question of public law locally as well as nationally. When persons talk as if these questions were remote from us, I disagree. The enormous influence that Winnetka business men have in Chicago, the enormous in- fluence that North Shore social life has on the city, the fact that we are an educated, prosperous, privileged community, mark us as at the very storm center of this question. If we tear this part of the Constitution to pieces because we can, Wwe have nothing to say to any other type of community or any other sort of peo- ple who are lawless in any other way because they can--nothing to say, ex- cept to ask forgiveness for furnishing a leadership so evil. A Feud But here let us recognize it is also a matter of private ethics. And when it comes to that I always like to tell frankly why I take the position that I do. My position has long since ceased to be the doctrinaire position taught me in some classes as a boy. I early felt the unreality of that and revolted against it. Not on the stri- dent exhortation of fanatics, but on personal observation do I take my stand. Do you recall that exquisite phrase in the Bonnie Briar Bush, where we are told of William McClure, the doc- tor of the glen, that for forty years he had had a "feud with death?" That is a fine phrase to describe the work of a physician. And why had he a "feud with death?' Because he had sen it and seen what it did to the homes and families of the Scotchmen he loved. I have a feud with strong drink for the same reason. In college I have seen 'it turn some of the finest men God ever made into mere cari- catures of human kind. I have seen first hand the bitter burden it lays upon the poor, and especially upon the mothers and children. I have spent too many hours ransacking saloons of a great city, seeking a man not too drunk to call me on the telephone, but too drunk to tell me where he was, and found a son of God turned into a beast of the sty; I have talked with too many parishioners through prison bars; I have stood too often with the disgraced beside the graves of sui- cides, to have anything but enmity in my breast for Johnnie Barleycorn. Nor do I think the influence of their experiences has been stronger than the influence of another experience. I mean the observing of men who uever came to any public disgrace, but whom drink has turned from first rate men into second or third rate men, the keen edge of a rare intellect made dull, the fine sentiments of a large heart coarsened, the majestic grasp of a firm will made too falter- ing for the greater crises of life. Whenever I think of this matter at all, the pathetic company of such men--my friends-- comes before me. Thees are the reasons that I have a feud with drink, an either John Barleycorn or I will have to change a lot before I can make peace. A Warning I said a few minutes ago that the amendment has been slandered. Now I want to say that Winnetka has been slandered too. There has heen much loose talk about this town the last few weeks. I know it. I know it directly. In the many talks T have had on this subject and the letters that have come to me, I have more than once had the same event de- scribed by three or four honest per- sons and had these accounts so dif- ferent that if any one was true none of the others was within gunshot of the truth. Stories have seldom lost, anything in picturesqueness by pass- ing from mouth to mouth. I could not speak of this matter at all without warning you against accepting even the most circumstantial tales at their face values, without telling my shame that busy tongues have dealt with some fair reputations among us as no reputations should be dealt with, without recording my assurance that, in this particular at least, Winnetka | resourceful and quick-wittei--a regu- is not as black as she has been paint- ed and ought to be allowed to seem as good as she is. The Remedy But, all is not roses and laughter. A real moral issue of the first magni- tude is upon us as a community. Smoke comes from fire and some of the glowing coals are easy to discover. And what are we going to do aout it? Only one thing is necessary. Seem as good as you are. The heart of this community is clean and sound. Its average members know the right and love it. The only trouble is that sometimes we are cowards. We are afraid to be different from our set. We have the infantile idea that it is smart to seem worse than we are. We lack the nerve calmly, unboasting- ly to be like the city on the hill and the light upon the stand. I have not expected this morning radically to change the thinking of this community. 'rnat were too pre- sumptuous a hope in a matter so linked with prejudice as this. But, oh that I might persuade some men and women--men and women--to put subtle cowardice aside and seem as good as they are! If you don't really believe in tipping, be true to your conviction. If you don't really be- lieve in putting stumbling blocks in the way of others. keep the social paths that lead through your homes level and clear. If your hearts are really sickened by indulgence, stop laughing about it, repeating it, en- larging it. If you believe in a sober, law-abiding community--and God knows you do--quietly say so and act so without pride, but without fear. That would be almost all that anyone could ask. Let your light shine. Don't wave it around. But let it. shine. Seem as good as you are. CONWAY TEARLE STAR AT FRIDAY'S MOVIES It is a strictly up-to-date story that is unfolded in "One Week of Love," the Selznick production that will be seen at Winnetka Community House Friday evening, January 26. The heroine is a modern | Model Hero any more. girl--brave, lar fighting flapper. Miss Elaine Hammerstein, star of "One Week of Love," says that the role of Beth Wynn is one of the most interesting and certainly the most exciting she ever has played. As for the hero, he is not 100 per cent perfect American manhood. Women movie fans don't like the And so the leading man, played by Conway Tearle in "One Week of Love," is a Bad Man. In fact he is a Cave Man. Naturally, in the final fade-out, he wins the girl. Of course, "One Week of love" has rlenty of action because it depicts 1 cl sh of two strong wills. This mclodramn has its beginning in an unusual situation. Beth Wynn de- cides to ald one mo e adventure to her already dash'ng creer. So she wagers one of her many suitors that she can beat him in an aeroplane race. But, as she is flying over the Western desert, she loses control of her plane. The plane crashes through the roof of a mining shad. Inside, are three men, three desperate gam- blers. One of them is a white man but lower in his brutality than either of the half-breeds. The Beast he is called, wins Beth at cards. The story of his remarkable wooing and the struggle to gain back his soul forms the basis of the rest of the plot of this absorbing story. . Postoffice Force Honors Mr. Adams, Their 'Chief' Elmer E. Adams, Winnetka post- master, had the surprise of his ever- young life, Tuesday evening of this week, when the entire force of the local postoffice stormed into his home for the express purpose of giving him an old fashioned surprise party in recognition of the first anniversary of his entry into the postmastership. In addtion to plenty of excellent "eats," the assemblage engaged in a pleasant evening of cards and other games. : The postal force achieved a splendid record in the recent holiday rush of mails, the Winnetka office at that time, enjoying the busiest season of its history. 6 Prouty Annex Winnetka 686 and 155 Ride Right IN A ANNOUNCEMENT merly belonged to the BROWN & WHITE We have purchased the Willys-Knight Cab, and the Telephone number, Winnetka 155, which for- CAB COMPANY We feel sure that this new addition will increase our service and efficiency. HESE are the T comfort. 6 Prouty Annex Ride R Black & White CAREFUL DRIVERS --AND GOOD CLEAN CABS! Low Rates things that make our Taxi Service the best on the north shore. Drivers who are not only efficient but careful of your safety and Use BLACK & WHITE CABS. They save you time and money. They are safe, comfortable and always available, igh Black & White Winnetka 686 and 155 a