AMERICAN PROHIBITION

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19065, 10 January 1924, Page 8

AMERICAN PROHIBITION

NEW WASHINGTON SCANDAL. FASHIONABLE APARTMENT RAIDED. Pmh Association—By Telegraph—Copyright WASHINGTON, January 8, (Received January 9. at 7.10 p.m.) The Capital’s second liquor scandal within a fortnight haa resulted from closures by the police who raided a fashionable apartment where a group of socially prominent persons and Government officials were attending a party. The police obtained the names, but as in the bootleg syndicate scandal of December 22, they refused to disclose their identity, and they also declined to divulge the identity of the host. A Treasury intelligence officer stated: “IVe know everybody who was there, and we will bring justice to everybody concerned.” —A. and N.Z. Cable. A Washington message of December 22 last stated that an illicit liquor scandal, threatening to touch the most exclusive and highly connected circles there, had been revealed. The Federal Grand Jury had been asked to investigate and return indictments against three men, already arrested, and a large number of others, both sellers and purchasers of intoxicants, under the conspiracy section of the Volstead Law, which provides pun ishment for both parties in such transactions. The police report that part of the stock of liquor being sold was under the protection of a foreign legation, and preliminary attempts at seizure were negatived by protests, claiming diplomatic im.munity. A syndicate of bootleggers had ■a central office at which they received . telephone calls which were relayed to awaiting automobiles which sped to the enpply station and thence made deliveries • which have for a long time baffled the police. ENFORCEMENT IN MARION. RAIDS LEAD TO SERIOUS RIOTS. NEW YORK, January 8. (Received January 9, at 9.50 p.m.) A telegram from Marion (Illinois) says "that the continued activities the Federal agents, aided by the Ku Klux Klan .in raiding illicit liquor establishments have resulted In a situation so serious that the Government sent two companies of militia upon the sheriff’s request in order to prevent rioting. The agents made bO arrests to-day. In the so-called “Bloody Williamson County, the scene of the Herrin massacre, 236 persons have already been arrested, but immediately upon their release on bail they re-opened their establishments, arming themselves heavily and resisting the enforcement officials. The law officers during the trial of one offender .to-day brought two machine guns to the court room for tho purpose of withstand- : ing a possible attack. The defendants armed their adherents, who surrounded the building.—A. and N.Z. Cable. A previous despatch from Marion, stated that a small group of Federal agents, without information from local authorities, enlisted the aid of a large posse of the Ku Klux Klan and raided many liquor resorts, making 75 arrests and engaging in gun battles in which four persons were seriously shot. SEIZURE OF RUM-RUNNERS. BRITAIN BECOMING DIPATIENT. WASHINGTON, January 8. (Received January 9, at 8.35 p.m.) Great Britain has made representations against the United States’s seizure of the schooner Kwasing, an alleged rum-runner, the seizure of which was virtually unreported. The authorities attempted to minimise the occurrence which took place on January 3. The Kwasing, following damage on a sandbar, put into Wilmington (Delaware) where the United States seized her while she was undergoing repairs. The representations assert that such a seizure was not justified since international custom accords a vessel the right to seek a haven without prejudicing its status. It is understood that the constantly recurring seizures are creating a delicate situation among the British authorities who are surprised by the seizures which still lack treaty sanction.—A. and N.Z. Cable.