Am.  Jour.  Pharm. 
June,  1920. 
Editorial. 
365 
Mr.  Merle  Thorpe,  the  editor  of  the  Nation's  Business,  the  magazine 
pubHshed  by  the  Chamber  of  Commerce  of  the  United  States, 
dehvered  a  most  enlightening  discourse  upon  the  ethics  of  business. 
Taking  as  his  title,  ''Business  is  Business,"  his  audience  was  treated 
with  a  presentation  of  the  modern  methods  of  the  model  man  of 
commerce  and  a  view  of  the  expanding  field  of  commercial  enterprise 
and  export  trade  in  various  lines  open  to  the  industries  of  the  United 
States.  He  closed  his  discourse  by  reading  a  poem  to  Spring,  whose 
serio-comic  lines  filled  his  audience  with  visions  of  the  happy  days 
when  they  were  "filled  with  Juniper  and  Sassafras"  and  left  them 
convulsed  with  mirth  and  enjoyable  delight. 
Prohibition  Commissioner  John  F.  Kramer  then  addressed  the 
meeting  on  the  subject  of  the  work  of  the  prohibition  enforcement 
division.  The  prohibition  of  the  liquor  traffic  for  beverage  purposes 
was  not  only  a  radical  but  also  a  very  sudden  change  in  the  policy 
of  this  Nation  and  the  work  of  organizing  a  governmental  department 
to  enforce  the  legislation  enacted  was  a  gigantic  task,  a  big  job  for  any 
man,  but  they  were  going  to  get  away  with  it.  The  progress  already 
made  was  satisfactory  and  the  attitude  of  the  people  of  this  country 
showed  that  prohibition  was  here  to  stay.  He  expressed  his  sym- 
pathy with  pharmacists  upon  whom  the  Volstead  Act  had  placed 
greater  responsibilities  as  the  sole  dealers  in  alcoholic  liquors  at 
retail.  He  was  of  the  opinion  that  the  liquor  dealer  as  a  handler  of 
beverage  spirits  was  a  thing  of  the  past  and  that  the  treasury  laws 
and  regulations  should  be  modified  so  that  the  title  of  "Retail  Liquor 
Dealer"  would  not  be  retained  for  the  pharmacist  who  was  granted  a 
permit  under  the  Enforcement  Act  to  use  and  sell  non-beverage 
spirits  for  medicinal  purposes. 
He  expressed  himself  as  gratified  as  to  the  attitude  of  helpful  co- 
operation with  his  department  that  had  been  shown  by  representative 
men  in  pharmacy  and  the  drug  trade  organizations  and  appealed  for 
universal  assistance  from  the  druggists  as  the  class  of  men  whose 
interests  were  the  most  affected  by  prohibition  legislation. 
Immediately  following  Commissioner  Kramer,  Mr.  William  L. 
Crounse,  Attorney  for  the  National  Wholesale  Druggists'  Associa- 
tion, read  a  carefully  prepared  paper  on  "Alcohol — Its  Importance 
in  Science  and  Industry."  In  this  the  writer  declared  that  alcohol 
was  the  most  essential  chemical  raw  material  known  to  science. 
He  criticized  the  attitude  of  the  prohibition  zealot  and  the  ignorance 
of  this  class  who  were  continuously  guilty  of  gross  misrepresentation 
