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CHAPTER EIGHT: CORRESPONDENCE AND INVITATIONS
Perfect Behavior |  |
CORRESPONDENCE OF PUBLIC OFFICIALS
CONGRESSMEN and other public officials are as a rule more careful correspondents than are men whose letters are never to be seen by the public at large. There is a certain well-defined form for a letter meant for public consumption which distinguishes it from correspondence of a more private nature. Thus a Congressman, writing a "public letter," would cast it in the following form:
A Correct "Public Letter" from a Congressman
Vice-Pres. Washington Co.. "Better Citizenship" League,
You have requested that I give to the Washington County Better Citizenship League, of which you are an active vice-president, some expression of my views upon the question of Prohibition.
Sir, can there be any doubt as to the belief of every right thinking American citizen in this matter? The Eighteenth Amendment is here and here, thank God, to stay! The great benefit which Prohibition has done to the poor and the working classes is reason enough for its continued existence. It is for the manufacturers, the professional class, the capitalists to give up gladly whatever small pleasure they may have derived from the use of alcohol, in order that John Jones, workingman, may have money in the bank and a happy home, instead of his Saturday night debauch. In every democracy the few sacrifice for the many—"the greatest good of the greatest number" is the slogan. And I, for one, am proud to have been a member of that legislative body which passed so truly God-bidden and democratic an act as the Eighteenth Amendment.
I beg to remain, with best wishes to your great organization,
A Correct Private Letter of a Congressman
Tell that fellow on Mulberry Street that I will pay $135 a case for Scotch and $90 for gin delivered and not a cent more.
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CHAPTER EIGHT: CORRESPONDENCE AND INVITATIONS
Perfect Behavior | |