Aspects of Jewish power in the United States — Text and Context

whisky” had a much more respectable connotation than it has today. There was a time when to use whisky and even to make it, were customs sanctioned by the better class of public opinion.

It is a common explanation of the difference between _then_ and _now_, that people of the latter period became more sensitive morally than their forbears, that whereas the previous generation guzzled its whisky, innocently oblivious of the evil in it, the latter generation developed a stronger moral discrimination and banned the custom.

The truth is this: the people did not become better; _the whisky became worse_. When the entire story of the people’s justifiable indignation is written, the competent historian will trace along with the people’s rising disgust, the whisky’s decreasing quality.

Attention to this matter will materially assist an understanding of the fact that Jews and bootlegging are so continuously and prominently connected in the public prints these days.

Readers of the old romances know how proud the master was of his wines. Vintages ripened under certain skies, on certain hills, where certain waters flowed, with cellarage in certain soils, had a faculty of aging gracefully, mellowing to a smoothness and purity and desirableness that made for cheer and health without the alloy of sordid inebriety. The bouquet of wine, the perfected essence of the grape subjected to the further courses of nature, has been a theme of praise for centuries. If it were uttered today the source of the utterance would be suspected, and very probably with good reason, of being in pay of the “wets.” For the vile stuff which civilization threw out is not at all the wine of popular custom and century-long esteem.

Nevertheless, it is not difficult for even a modern to grasp the fact that there was an art in making wine and strong drink, in which art men took pride. That art required time, experience, a love of good quality.

It is a little difficult to speak of this art in connection with whisky—wine being a more poetic word—yet it is a matter of knowledge that three places in the world have devoted to the production of whisky the same spirit which France and Portugal devoted to their wines. These three districts are Glenlivet in Scotland, the region of Dublin in Ireland, and the Blue-Grass region of Kentucky. Why in these three regions? First, because there were men—non-Jews, of course—who were willing to wait ten years to produce a good article. Second, the waters of these regions are of a quality which is beautifully adapted to the making of pure goods. Pure whisky, it should be remembered, is a vegetable product matured by natural forces and no other. Grain, water and time—not even artificial heat added, nor any other thing—completes the best whisky product.

In older times in America there were men who were as choice of their whiskies as of their horses or books. There was then such a thing as quality. But there was no such thing as delirium tremens. That came later, with the disappearance of pure whisky. A distiller seldom grew rich—he was too engrossed in maintaining the quality of his product; and it consumed much time.

There were certain brands known nationally because of their mildness and purity—purest wine of the choicest grapes, aged in the best adapted cellars, was not more mild or pure. There are names that remain until this day—Pepper, Crow, Taylor, and others—the names of men who took time and pains, whose names became “brands” which guaranteed quality and purity. These men were distillers in the true sense, not manufacturers nor compounders, but _distillers_ in a time when distilling was both a science and an art, and not a mere name to conceal a gigantic fraud on the public.

In time to come, when the people’s justifiable moral indignation will permit a study of the steps by which the reputation of whisky came to its present low degree, they will see how much better it would have been, how much more efficacious and clarifying, if the attack on whisky had included an exposure of the men who had driven whisky out of the country and were selling rank poison as a substitute. The saloon, the brewer, the man who used strong drink were all of them made the target for attack; the Jews who demoralized the whole business went on collecting their enormous and illegitimate profits without so much as their identity being revealed.