Cobb on "Corn"

RED LIKKER--Irvin S. Cobb--Cosmopolitan ($2.50).

Kentucky is the State once proud of its whiskey, women and steeds. Of his native State's whiskey from the pioneers to the Prohibitionists, Author Cobb betrays some knowledge. Excerpt: "Just about the time they first began making red likker here in Kentucky, which was back in pioneer days, there was a craze on for French names among our people. As a result there's a Bourbon County and a Fayette County and a town named Paris and a town named Versailles . . . so maybe they named it [red likker] for Bourbon County."

For distilling any drama from the subject Author Cobb is not the man. Had he written Uncle Tom's Cabin he would have omitted the bloodhounds. Here is as much of his story as hangs together:

Col. Bird lavished all his paternal feeling on humorless grandson Morgan. Yet when Morgan wanted to go to the War, the Colonel did not restrain, rather he encouraged him. Morgan returned with a French bride. Soon after, Prohibition and its consequent troubles forced old Bird to set his distillery afire. Soon after that he died. Morgan opened a grocery store. Bird home became a Hebrew orphan asylum. Thus ends the pointless tale.

The Author. Although Red Likker may sell well, Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb is no booklegger. Cautious not to offend Cobb-clients, he leaves the great Prohibition novel a thing yet to be written. But Mr. Cobb in action is less cautious than Novelist Cobb. Says he, lately elected Chairman of the Association against the Prohibition Amendment:

"If Prohibition is a noble experiment, then the San Francisco fire and the Galveston flood also should be listed among the noble experiments of our national history."