The Evening Star FRIDAY, DECEMBER 19, 1930. PROHIBITION.

Evening Star, Issue 20671, 19 December 1930, Page 8

The Evening Star FRIDAY, DECEMBER 19, 1930. PROHIBITION.

The finding of a Federal judge that the Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution is invalid directs attention onco more to the of Prohibition. It would bo rash to anticipate any alteration of tho status quo. Evidently an appeal to United States Supreme Court is pending, and legal argument on a judgment comprising 15,000 words, buttressed with over 100 legal precedents, will bo prolific of lawyers’ arguments, and maybe of majority and minority findings by what corresponds to our Court of Appeal. Reputable visitors from tho States to this country aro mostly in the habit of saying that Prohibition will never be repealed in their country, a favourite reason with them being that white people in the Southern States will revolt rather than allow alcohol to bo legally placed again within the reach of tho negroes. Repeal is rather a different matter from action on a discovery that enactment was originally a legal blunder and a delusion. Yet the astuteness and political power of the Anti-saloon League can bo looked to with confidence to block or delay almost indefinitely, not the legal reinstation of the saloon, but the substitution of some such system as has replaced Prohibition in Canada. Tho provinces of Canada have taken tho liquor business under Government control. There is no public drinking, and there are no saloons; the profits go to the State for such useful purposes as the building of roads, bridges, canals, and the extension of tho benefits of electricity. Gang rule has become a serious menace in American liic, and it has brought many like Mr C. H. Tuttle, the former District Attorney in New York and Republican candidate for Governor, to declare themselves “ wet,” though they are personally “drys.”

Thus lor some time to come one may expect matters in the States to go on much as at present, unless the bootleggers strain a rather long-suffering nation’s patience beyond limits, limes with them also arc becoming hard and fiercely competitive. ‘ The Times ’ American correspondent reported very recently:—“Bootleggers in general are not looking forward with much confidence to the coming winter. These are hard times in America, One cannot walk many yards in some cities without being beset by beggars. Money will bo scarce in the country this winter, and there will not be so much to spend on beer and spirits. Prices are already coming down, and many of the gangs have large stocks on hand, of which they are anxious to bo rid. There is likely to bo much strife among them over the marketing of their stocks. This reason has been given in many quarters as the cause of the fresh outbreaks of shooting recently among the gangs. They are engaged in a bitter struggle with one another to increase their sales. It is a reason, too, for their increased activities in other directions—their ‘ rackets,’ by winch they collect toll from all manner of respectable traders and business men. These ‘ rackets ’ are now becoming so numerous in tho large cities that in face of the continuous evidence of tho power and stranglehold exercised by tbo gangs oyer the community the public is determined to bo rid of the nuisance. That can only be accomplished by taking tho liquor business out of their bands, and the opinion is growing that this cannot bo done while tho country remains dry.” Bootleggers comprise all sorts of characters in all sorts of places. The best known in America is George j. Cassiday, popularly known as “ The Man in the Green Hat.” It was at the instigation of two Congressmen from the South—both of whom voted for the Eighteenth Amendment and the Volstead Act—that the Man in the Green Hail becaim; a bootlegger. “ Could Air Gassiday supply them with liquorf'” Air could, and did, and was off on his

career. The two legislators introduced him to others, who introduced him to more. Before long business had grown to such proportions that Mr Cassiday set up a base of operations inside the House Office Building. There ho stored his liquor and prepared it for distribution. Ho was arrested four times—iu 1922 while delivering liquor to a Congressman's apartment, in 1925 at the House Office Building, and in 1029 and 1930 at the Senate Office Building—but these were inconveniences rather than tragedies. They did not destroy his business. Laws passed and flagrantly broken iu the House of Legislature itself are respected as little in private houses. Tho editor of a well-known English Sunday newspaper, on a visit to America, asked a business man how ho got to know the bootleggers. He pul Ice out his card case. It was tightly packed with cards bearing the names and telephone numbers of the nion who offered to supply him. “ Every business man in New York,” he explained, ‘‘ lias to turn out Iris card case once a week and throw them all away. They come so last that you'd need a card indexing system to keep track of them.” Many of them aro recruited from tho Prohibition enforcement staff, and, not surprisingly, they make tire best bootleggers. So one is disinclined to doubt the English editor’s conclusion that il Prohibition has done nothing else it lias broken dow i tho morale of a line body of police. The police work baud in hand with tho bootleggers and the “ speak-easics, ' keeping “ mum ” for a reasonable reward. On tho authority of another English observer, a contributor to the ‘ New Statesman,’ there arc .said to bo 50,000 speak-easics in New York, good, bad, and indifferent, though more conservative estimates place the number at about half that figure. They aro never interfered with except in case of disorder, which is rare. At any one of them liquor may be consumed on tho 'premises or taken away. Bottles of whisky remain expensive and perhaps still dangerous, but synthetic gin of a purity and flavour high enough to satisfy all but the most fastidious of cocktail shakers can bo obtained in unlimited quantities at a price a little lower than is current in England. Business and professional men of the very highest' standing entertaining _ a visitor will as a quite natural thing invito him to lunch at a speak-easy, where alcoholic refreshments of almost all kinds will bo served with the meal Food and drink alike aro excellent, and relatively to the price of food a whisky and soda or a liqueur brandy costs no more than it would cost in London or I* a ris. And naturally there aro no closing hours. If a post-midnight cocktail party runs short of supplies it can replenish them in a few minutes. If the party is in a private home the householder philosophically admits tho risk run in bringing in supplies—-confisca-tion of car, cargo, and fine or imprisonment—placing such risk below losing caste in his social circle. In the words of one: “ You can t have people to your house without offering them a drink. Not nowadays in America. You’d bo socially ostracised. That’s the queer thing about tho whole business People who never thought of drinking before are drinking now. They accept it and offer it as a matter of coarse. That there is a change of some sort pending may bo gathered from the following extract from tho article by ‘Now Statesman’s’ contributor: “It is not tho political empiricists who are being affected. They long ago doubted tho expediency of Prohibition iu practice. It is the groat Puritan heart of unsophisticated America that is beginning to doubt; and to doubt not merely the expediency but even tho fundamental righteousness of tho Eighteenth Amendment. Between tho beginning of such a doubt and its inevitable conclusion there need bo but a short interval. The obviously evil effects of Prohibition—the increasing general disrespect for law, the excessive drinking amongst flask-carrying youths and maidens, the enormous financial resources placed by Prohibition in tho hands of the lowest and most dangeious section of the community, tho bootlegging gunmen and gangsters all these Puritan America was prepared to face as long as it remained sure that it was fighting for righteousness. But if even about the motive of tho great struggle there can bo a sincere doubt, if, indeed, law cannot give life, then plainly tho fight must stop. No doubt some fanatical Prohibitionists will continue to urgo that if force has not yet, succeeded in stamping out tho evil of alcoholic liquor, thou more force and more must ho used. And certainly on the other side tho vast bootlegging industry, with its myriad organisations, will fight'to tho last against repeal and the loss of wealth and power which repeal would mean to it. But it will bo a losing fight. The churches do not really believe in force, and they are swinging over, not to anything like the old saloon system, but to some rational system of State Control and distribution impossible under the Eighteenth Amendment. Some say repeal will come within twelve months. That during tho past summer and autumn the moral pillars of Federal Prohibition havo collapsed there can be no doubt at all.”