Americana: The Beat Goes On

"Hypocrisy is the homage that vice pays to virtue," observed 17th century French Moralist François, Duc de la Rochefoucauld. Two modern examples:

Residents of Abilene, Texas, voted 14 times in 76 years to ban the sale of alcoholic beverages. But the wets won the latest referendum by a milliliter with 50.2% of the ballots. The biggest impact will be on nearby Impact, Texas, a wet, 47.3-acre town that used to supply Abilene all the liquor that the town's 43 "private clubs" could not provide.

Henryetta, Okla., on the other hand, maintained the town's purity by voting to keep a 1957 ban on public dancing. But Gary Moores, a would-be disco owner, staged a public "party" at which scores of revelers Hustled the night away. There were two dozen arrests, on charges ranging from drunkenness to assaulting a police officer, but none for dancing. Instead, Moores was charged with violating a second ordinance that prohibits holding a dance within 300 ft. of a beer parlor. In Henryetta, the beat goes on.