AMERICA'S DISGRACE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18532, 17 October 1923, Page 9

AMERICA'S DISGRACE.

PROHIBITION EVASION.

CONTEMPT OF CONSTITUTION.

AN OUTSPOKEN SENATOR. By Telegraph— Association— Copyright. -; (Received 6.50 p.m.) ;, A. and N.Z. NEW YORK. Oct. 15. Tho 'conference adopted a resolution asking the President to use all available naval, craft and full power of action to. suppress liquor smuggling, and urging the Governors of States to enforce the prohibition laws rigidly. At the Prohibition Conference, Senator W. E. Borah declared that the -wealthy propertied classes had rendered prohibition unenforceable because, while they respected the Constitutional amendment safeguarding property, they, nevertheless, ignored the prohibition amendment, thus fostering the bootleggers' traffic. Mr. Borah concluded: "I would count myself a whining hypocrite to insist on the enforcement of the prohibition amendment while remaining silent concerning disregard for the free speech amendment. If I do not respect the Constitution as a whole, I am unfit to speak on. behalf of any part of it."

Sun. I NEW YORK. Oct. 15. Mr. Pinchot, Governor of 'Pennsylvania, addressing the , Prohibition Conference, declared that two facts stood out. One was the steadily incxeasing_ determination of decent people to have the prohibition law enforced; tho other was the steadily increasing violation of ihe law by criminal elements. It was idle to suggest that the law could not be enforced.

The essential reason "why bootlegging and' defiance of the law were increasing was because the position had not been grasped with; a strong hand. -

" Politics were responsible for the black disgrace which had overtaken the nation, The present eruption of law-breaking politics • came from two causes— the enforcement of the law was poor; secondly, bad whisky, with beer, was helping to supply the sinews of war for politics, which must reciprocate.