1935 Old Waldorf-Astoria Bar Book

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OLD WALDORF-ASTORIA BAR BOOK

together with what was quantitatively described as "beau– coup cognac." When the survivors of the War and its at– tendant gustatory campaigns got back home, it was to a country all set for strict Constitutional sobriety, legally en– forced. America was to be dried up. Of course, no such thing happened, except in theory. Sumptuary legislation has always proved repugnant to free men and difficult to enforce. Instead of becoming alcoholi– cally arid, the United States grew wetter and wetter as the years passed. The bootlegger, once among the most despised members of society, became important-as impor– tant in his way as the Missing Link might be considered by ethnologists and anthropologists of the Darwinian school. Indeed, he proved a missing link. He bought mag– nificent motor cars or high speed motor boats, amassed fortunes, grew into might and acquired a definite and even respectable status as an indispensable member of so– ciety. More than one read his name in some Social Roster, -though it had probably been printed there before he turned outlaw. The racketeer and the gangster, protected by the politician and even in collusion with the revenue officer, waxed powerful and became superior to the law. The average American who wanted liquor bought from one or the other. What he got was their business, not his. True, persons with long purses might purchase what was "good stuff" according to pre-war standards, but mis– takes were made. The rest of us often paid fancy prices for labels: Stimulated by the very difficulties created by the law and encouraged by the ease with which those dif– ficulties could be surmounted, as well as by the temptation to break a statute that was never popular in large centers of population, an appetite for strong drink spread among