“ENFORCING THE LAW”

Evening Star, Issue 19942, 11 August 1928, Page 23

“ENFORCING THE LAW”

AMERICAN POLITICAL CONVENTIONS AND PROHIBITION

LIQUOR IH “ DRY " KANSAS [From Our Correspondent.] SAN FRANCISCO, June 25. When one observes that such issues as Prohibition are glossed over in the respective party political platforms in America, one wonders what parties and platforms are for, and is compelled to take refuge in the generalisation that politics in the United States is a form of sport. A curious sidelight was afforded on the subject of Prohibition in commotion with the recent Republican _ National Convention held in Kansas City, when Jay E. House, a reporter for the New York ‘ Evening Post,’ “ covered ” the national event. “As a good reporter, he wrote, “I am_ mindful of my promises. I recall incurring a voluntary obligation to let the people know about the liquor situation in Kansas City. This promise had its inspiration in two incidents connected with ,tho preliminaries of tho Republican National Convention. One was the act of the Republican National Committee in taking its convention away from Detroit on the ground that “ wet Canada was just across the river. Ihe other was the pledge of the Prohibition enforcement unit to make Kansas City bone dry during the convention. Here was something definite, something one could get one’s teeth into. It made fo- a situation worthy of any reporter s steel. “The visitor who walks more than three blocks in any given direction is outside the true convention zone. This matter of social centre zoning doubtless was originally a _ matter of precaution—a safety device for tho protection of visitors. As long as a visitor kept strictly to tho social centre he was fairly safe. So a wise planmng board welded the social centre into compact and convenient shape. Naturally, then, if any of the delegates or visitors are getting liquor they are drinking it within this zone.

LIQUOR PROLIFIC. “ Thus the difficulties of the Prohibition enforcement unit at once became apparent. As I had anticipated, 1 got my first intimation concerning the state of Prohibition in Kansas City from the bellhop who carried my bag upstairs on the morning of my arrival. After he had opened tho window and made the other gestures which endear bellhops to every patron of hotels—after he had pocketed my entirely adequate tip, he asked me if there was anything else I wanted. I did not pretend an ignorance I was iar from feoling. Instead, I went directly to the kernel of the matter. “ ‘ What have you got and what are you getting for it? ’ 1 asked him. He was equally direct and succinct. ‘ 1 can got you anything you want,’ he said. ‘Rye, Scotch, and Bourbon will be 12dol, Bacardi XOdol, delivery in fifteen minutes.’ I thanked him, and told him I would see him later. I have not done so yet, and I think he is despairing of my custom, since ho has solicited me several times without result. I thus reveal that ono of my fears has come to naught. I had from the first anticipated a prico of 20dol a quart. When the Erohibitioii unit spoke I predicted it would go to 25d01. The actual advance has really been only about 33 1-3 per cent. ... My own personal investigations have so far led me into thirty-seven hotel rooms and the private quarters of five or six clubmen and men-about-town. Roughly speaking, I have also declined 715 invitations to ‘ come up to tho room.’ This may have been because I am a teetotaller, and it may have been because I am temperate in all things. “ But my purview of the various rooms and club quarters disclosed the fact that there was an abundance of liquor in all of them. It ran usually to two or three varieties. There seems to be considerable Bourbon in this part of tho country, and Bourbon was supposed to be a lost art. My conclusions, therefore, are that those who do not want liquor and who hate tho accursed stuff can avoid it as easily here as anywhere else in the country. _ Those who do not drink probably think no drhiking is going on, and there is not, so far as they are concerned. But i doubt that anybody who has sampled the free and easy hospitality of Kansas Citv now wishes tho convention had gone to Detroit. Meanwhile, the Prohibition unit is alert and vigilant, and is doing all Kansas City will permit it to ; do, which seems to be nothing at all.”