The Books: The Fun of It: Stories from The Talk of the Town, edited by Lillian Ross; ‘As Millions Cheer’, by Helen Cooke, Charles Cookie, Clifford Orr, and Harold Ross

Next up on the essays shelf:

The Fun of It: Stories from The Talk of the Town (Modern Library Paperbacks) is a collection of “The Talk of the Town” pieces in The New Yorker, grouped by decade, which is a lot of fun because you can see how the “voice” of the magazine developed, and how “The Talk of the Town” has grown and changed over the years.

It’s no great revelation that the 18th amendment, which prohibited the sale and production of alcohol in the United States, helped instigate and entrench the criminal element in American society, making crime big Big Business. The amendment was ratified in 1919, and put into place in 1920. It is a perfect example of the Law of Unintended Consequences. Pushed through by a groundswell of support from religious and moralistic opinion-makers, the amendment was supposed to keep our country sober and upright. Clearly, it had the opposite effect. Of course because alcohol became illegal, people started concocting all sorts of liquor-esque drinks, some of which were frankly poisonous. They caused seizures, blindness, death in some cases. Remember Joaquin Phoenix in The Master drinking jet fuel? That was part of what was going on in the 1920s. Deborah Blum covers all of this beautifully in her entertaining book The Poisoner’s Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York. Doctors were terrified at the cases being brought in. Why were these people guzzling lighter fluid and motor oil? It was an overwhelming problem. And, of course, crime became Organized, mainly because of the prohibition of alcohol sale and transport. It was a violent deadly decade.

The 18th amendment was repealed in 1933, and another amendment was passed (the 21st). The 21st amendment is the only amendment whose sole purpose is to repeal a former amendment.

Naturally, the moralizers were horrified, but in general, Prohibition was a terrible idea. Get rid of it. Good riddance. If you’re going to drink, you might as well be safe while you’re doing it. There will always be drunks, and those who are helpless in the face of alcohol, but going out for a couple of cocktails (made of vodka or gin and NOT motor oil) is not going to bring about the downfall of society. And those who believed it would bring about our downfall had a very shaky faith in our society in the first place. Also, the bootlegging business became a far greater problem than drinking ever was!

SO. Now to this really fun “Talk of the Town” piece, from 1933. A bunch of writers contributed, even though the piece is short (as all “Talk of the Town” pieces are).

It is about the first shipments of liquors to come into the country post-repeal of 18th amendment.

The Fun of It: Stories from The Talk of the Town (Modern Library Paperbacks), edited by Lillian Ross; ‘As Millions Cheer’, by Helen Cooke, Charles Cookie, Clifford Orr, and Harold Ross

Even as you read this, the first large post-prohibition cargo of liquors, cleared frankly and legitimately for this repentant land, probably will be at sea, churning westward. Reports from Liverpool were that the loading had been completed early this week and that the ship was expected to sail Thursday, the nineteenth. It’s an eight-thousand-ton freighter, chartered by Park & Tilford, and bound for San Francisco. It is expected off that port about December 1, and the captain is instructed to lie twelve miles offshore until he gets a certain signal and then to rush right in as fast as his little propellers will carry him. A second ship, of twelve thousand tons, will shortly start loading 150,000 cases of potables for New York; and a third, and others, probably. The two boats mentioned by tonnage are chartered by Park & Tilford, our enterprising sellers of liquors, who have been doing all the full-page newspaper advertising lately. They are American boats, and the owners were so happy when they were hired that they exuberantly offered to repaint both ships any color Park & Tilford wanted. The San Francisco ship wasn’t redone, because there wasn’t time for the paint to dry, but the New York boat will be repainted in some appropriate color not yet decided upon and, to boot, will probably be renamed the Park & Tilford. It will be off New York by December 1 and P.&T. hope it will be the first liquor boat to land here, but expect a race, for at least one other importing company is known to have chartered a special ship for the deadline, and probably others have, too. There’s quite a bit of mystery about the business.

We learned the foregoing when we called at Park & Tilford’s central office to inquire about prospects in the liquor business and the results of their big advertising campaign. They wouldn’t give us the figures on the advance orders they have received as a result of their advertising, but they did tell us that they considered it a terrific success and that they now intend to continue it right up to December 6, the date upon which they hope to land their first liquid imports. And it would have done your heart good to see the activity about the place – a dozen customers in the reception-room waiting to place their orders and make their deposits of ten dollars a case, and scores of clerks in the order-room with mail-openers, typewriters, adding machines, etc., receiving orders and lovingly filing memos for future deliveries.