Greenfield High School - Evergreen / Exponent Yearbook (Greenfield, MA)

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12 THE EXPONENT nence. Two great waves of state-wide prohibition have swept this country. The first began with the enactmenr of a prohibitory law by the Maine Legislature. Other states followed Maine in the next decade, and we find thirteen states with such laws on their statute books. However, attention was diverted from this question by the Civil War, and a great majority of these laws were repealed. Our own state of Massa¬ chusetts had in force from 1852 to 1868 a law prohibiting the manu¬ facture and sale of liquors. The second wave began in 1907 in Georgia and spread throughout the South, finally culminating in the Eighteenth Amendment to the Con¬ stitution ratified on January 16, 1919 by thirty-six states. Though the Civil War was instrumental in diverting attention from laws of this nature, the World War had the op¬ posite effect, and on its crest a pro¬ hibitory Amendment went through. The first nation-wide prohibitory measure by an amendment was first proposed in 1876 by Henry W. Blair, a member of the House of Representatives from New Hamp¬ shire. His resolution did not come to a vote. As Senator from the same state for two terms, Blair in¬ troduced a similar resolution in the Senate; this was referred to a com¬ mittee who reported favorably on it, but again it failed to come to a vote. Evidently Congress had no desire to debate on it, for it had been before them for fourt.eeh years. In 1913 the Anti-Saloon League launched its campaign for national prohibition. An Amendment, ap¬ proved by the League was intro¬ duced in the lower house and in the Senate. The Amendment was debated and voted on in the House of Representatives, about a year later. Failing to secure the neces¬ sary two-thirds vote, however, it was lost. In the Senate it never came to a vote. In each Congress following, similar resolutions were proposed, but it was in the 65th Con¬ gress in 1917 that it passed with the necessary two-thirds vote. It was submitted to the states for rat¬ ification and on January 16, 1919 it became a part of the Constitution. As Eugene Benge in his Annals of the American Academy, truth¬ fully says, “The prohibition move¬ ment is very old and is not a freakish development of the last decade.’’ G. M., ’27. IVY ORATION FRIENDSHIP,—DO YOU NEED IT? Friendship! What varied ideas that word brings to us. But of all those ideas there is one which has remained steadfast. It is the one thing We all need on our journey through the world. We come into the world alone; we pass out of it alone; but none of us can live his life alone. It is true that there are things in all our lives that can be known only to ourselves and God. It is true that there are times in all our lives when God alone can comfort us. It is true that the hour will come when the love of a dearest friend will fail us. But it is also true that the love of a friend is the dearest thing in all the world, and, that no man is so happy, and no man is so miserable, that he can scorn or reject it. In happiness and sorrow, too, the heart of a friend is our common need. When our burden is greater than we can bear, our friends will share it with us. When our life is pleas¬ ant and easy, they will increase our happiness. The friend we choose in early life, whose life is linked with ours in the days when we are building up our interests, will grow dearer and dearer. The cares of life will knit us more closely, and out of our sorrows, if sorrow should come. Time will weave a bond between us that Time itself can never break. Sorrow brings out friends as night brings out stars- and there are no friends truer than those who have shared our griefs, have known our fears, have help ed sustain us in all the storms that come. “The friends thou hast, and eir adoption tried. Grapple them to thy soul with

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THE EXPONENT 11 effect we do not know, but it shows that alcohol was recognized as an evil in the Celestial Kingdom. The desire of the ancient Greeks for prohibition is revealed in their sym¬ bolic attempts to keep Bacchus, god of wine, away from the door, and the Koran explicitly forbids the Mo¬ hammedans the use of alcohol. The earliest explorers and set¬ tlers brought alcohol to this coun¬ try, and we find that Henry Hud¬ son and his brave crew celebrated their safe landing by getting glo¬ riously drunk; the neighboring In¬ dians also participated in this ca¬ rousal and thus learned the invigo¬ rating properties of John Barley¬ corn. The Mayflower carried spirits in her cargo, along with the Puri¬ tans and the numerous antiques which have come down to us through the • years. But the prohibition movement keot abreast, for in 1619 the Virginians enacted a law against drunkenness and in 1631 passed an¬ other law to prevent cler men from becoming intoxicated—evidently the clergy of that colony was not noted for its abstemious habits. In the early days of their existence most of the colonies prohibited the sale of liquor to the Indians; though this was doubtless a protective measure, for strong drinks imbued the noble redman with a desire to fight, and the hated white man was a foe he dearly loved to kill. The good citizens of New York were outraged in 1691 when the enemies of two men, by name Jacob Leister and Jacob Milborne, succeeded in getting the governor to sign their death warrant after he was thor¬ oughly drunk. Thus the progress of the move¬ ment went on during the years while we were subjects of the Crown. The method usually adopted to pre¬ vent the sale of liquor to drunkards was to post their names in a public place, and anyone found guilty of selling to them was fined, but as the bootlegger was not unknown to our ancestors probably no one was really compelled to go without his dram of rum for any great length of time. The first real prohibitory action occurred when Virginia. Maryland, and Pennsylvania enacted laws to ston the distilling of grain in 1778 because of the necess ' tv of feeding the Continental soldiers. During these years laws were being continually enacted to close saloons on Sundays, at reasonable hours at night, and to stop the sale of liquor to minors. In 1808 the first temperance soci¬ ety was organized in Marean, New ork, by Dr. J. B. Clark. Previous to this, in 1805. the Sober Society had been formed in New! Jersey. These two organizations were the forerunners of the multitude of their kind which were to follow. During the next generation these societies became common throughout the United States, and lectures, temper¬ ance songs, and sermons were used to show the people the baneful ef¬ fects of alcohol on the mind, body, and spiritual nature of man. Not- with-standing all these righteous at¬ tempts, the use of alcohol continued to be fairly widespread. These small community societies gradual¬ ly enlarged the scope of their mem¬ bership until nation-wide organiza¬ tions came into being. Of these the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, founded in 1874, and the Anti-Saloon League, dating from 1893, are good examples. Both these societies have become tremen¬ dously powerful in their war on al¬ cohol. Today the Anti-Saloon League, which, as its name implies, is the bitter enemy of the corner saloon, has a powerful lobby in Washington, and sends forth propa¬ ganda in its own magazines, pa’ ’ h- lets, posters, bulletins, and books. This society has organized the lead¬ ing Protestant Churches of the coun¬ try and through them and its other highly organized means it struck a death-blow to its ancient foe, the saloon, with the Eighteenth Amend¬ ment. But it has replaced the above-board saloon with the greater evil, the worst thing in the way of iniquity the degenerate mind of man has ever conceived, the blind tiger. In connection with these societies it is interesting to note the gradual change in meaning the word tem¬ perance has undergone. The peo¬ ple of the early nineteenth century understood its meaning as being the moderate use of alcoholic liquors. By 1820 it meant the temperate use of mild liquors and total abstinence as regards ardent spirits. By 1830 it was used to mean total absti-

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THE EXPONENT 13 hoops of steel.” Althoug h Shakespeare’s idea was right, we should hold our friends by bonds more enduring than steel, the bonds of sacrifice each for each, of perfect reliance upon each oth¬ er’s strength, of perfect trust in each other’s love. Each will give to each the strengthening and un- lifting things that all of us need. In perplexity there will be coun¬ sel, in fear there will be courage, in all great enterprises there will be wise encouragement to splendid ends. And there will be always the steadying force of friendship, the restraint of wisdom, the love thar would be sure that right is right. The wise love of a friend knows when to urge and when to check. It will not surrender great ends for smaller things. It will not de¬ termine great issues by small con¬ siderations. It will not oppose it¬ self to natural circumstances and natural development, but will seek to guide them wisely and to grow with them. And we, on our part, should welcome the affection that bids us pause, that would be doubly sure before it sees us plunge into some great enterprise. It is wise to know many people. It is wise to seek the company of those who are interested in the movement of the world. There is not much room in the world for dull neople, and there is no room in your mind for ignorant people who will not learn. Pity them and teach them wisdom, if you can, but we should seek the inspiration of those who feel that the world is real; tha t everything about us matters: and that the march of the world depends upon us, under the guidir hand of God, Every year with ex¬ panding vision, we should widen the circle in which we move. In this broadening circle we may choose a closer circle of friends. They will come into our hearts, and we shall open the gates of our soul to them. We may see by the following statements that friendship is re¬ garded in other countries even as. it is in our own. These definitions can not be found in any book. They were written by a foreigner, Haig Adadourian, who visited a friend of mine several years ago. A friend is a harbor of refuge from the stormy waves of adversity. A friend is a balancing pole to him who walks the tight-rope of life. A friend is a watch which beats true for all time, and never runs down. A friend is a permanent for¬ tification when one’s affairs are in a state of siege. A friend is one who loves the truth and you, and will tell the truth in spite of you. A friend is the triple alliance of the three great powers—love, sym¬ pathy, and help. A friend is one who multiplies joys, divides grief and whose honesty is inviolable. A friend is a jewel whose lustre the strong acids: of poverty and mis¬ fortune cannot dini. A friend is a bank of credit on which we can draw supplies of confidence, coun¬ sel. sympathy, help and love. A Greek poet wrote: “For Death, he taketh all away. But them he cannot take. He tak¬ eth all away” but the love your friend bore you: the sweet memory of it will live through Time after Death. CATHERINE MAYER, ’27.