Silk Hat

Dr. Raymond Pearl, famed biologist of Johns Hopkins University, was born and reared in Farmington, N. H. He well remembers two outstanding facts about New Hampshire society as he knew it during his young years:

1) There was a State prohibition law, desired and admired by the leading citizens:

2) There were plenty of saloons, run openly and comfortably, desired and patronized by the leading citizens.

After pondering these facts maturely and examining certain statistics relative thereunto, Dr. Pearl wrote a paper, published in the December American Mercury, called "The Psychology of Prohibition." The statistics he examined showed that:

1) As more and more of the U. S. population was brought under State prohibition laws between the years 1870 and 1917, total consumption of alcohol in the U. S. increased almost three times as fast as the population.

2) During the same period, per capita consumption of alcohol was multiplied more than two-and-one-half times.

3) The deathrate from alcoholism,* the only index to per capita drinking when the sale of liquor is illegal, was at its lowest point in 1920, the year after national prohibition became effective.

4) After five years of national prohibition, the alcoholism deathrate had more than tripled, surpassing its 1918 level, almost regaining its 1910 level, when only 16-96% of the U. S. population lived under prohibition.

Dr. Pearl drew a psychological conclusion: the people of the U. S. want both things at once, a Prohibition law and liquor.

Dr. Pearl made a psychological explanation: "To call our people names, and accuse them of hypocrisy because they want both prohibitory legislation and liquor too is the favorite attitude of Europeans generally, and of a good many persons in this country as well. But . . . the American psychology regarding Prohibition is basically only a form of the sort of make-believe and dressing-up that every child indulges in. No one would think of calling a child a hypocrite because he dresses up as a cowboy or a policeman. Other peoples are, in other respects, just as childlike and naive in their psychology as the Americans are about Prohibition. For example, consider the problem of why Englishmen wear silk hats. (They still do.) It is apparent to the meanest intelligence that a silk hat, considered as a hat, is a poor and ridiculous thing. It is uncomfortable, it is ugly, it is easily damaged by the elements against which it is supposed to be a protection. Why then do Englishmen generally, and American undertakers and politicians in particular, wear it? For a simple reason. The silk hat is a symbol of respectability. Expensive as silk hats are, they still offer the cheapest of all known ways to achieve the outward semblance of respectability.

"In a precisely similar way national Prohibition is the silk hat of the American people. It ensures our respectability and has never so far interfered with the desired consumption of alcohol. We are psychologically not a realistic people, but on the contrary a naively idealistic folk."

* Not to be confused with the deathrate from wood or denatured alcohol poisoning.