AMERICAN PROHIBITION

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19759, 9 April 1926, Page 9

AMERICAN PROHIBITION

DEGRADATION OF THE LAW. TACTICS OF “FIXERS” DESCRIBED. (Press Association —By Telegraph —Copyright.) WASHINGTON, April 7. (Received April 8, at 5.5 p.m.) The Federal Attorney in charge of prohibition enforcement in New York, Mr Buckner, testified before the Senate inquiry. . He said, “ ‘Fixers traffic openly -i justice in the New York Federal Buildings. In the course of a year at least 50,000 bar tenders, peddlers, and ‘fixers’ through the corridors. There is an air of ol lusion there. I have been told that jurymen have been bribed.” Senator Reed asked what he meant by “fixers.” Mr Buckner said • “1 mean t'.io- who traffi. in justice—those who hang ild the corridors of buildings to buy jurymen and influence the memory of witne-res with money.” ’ Mr Buckner declared that, if the right kind of machinery were set up, prohibition might be enforced, but with jury trials in such a congested community as New York it .was impossible, r he P> e Commissioner was receiving 15,(KX* complaints of infringement monthly. Three thousand prohibition cases were awaiting hearing.—A. and N Z. Cable