PROHIBITION AND POLITICS

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LV, Issue 17061, 20 September 1929, Page 3

PROHIBITION AND POLITICS

WHY ENFORCEMENT FAILS ‘ ‘ UNDERWORLD VOTE’ ’ NEW YORK, August 7. “Politics, from (lie county courthouse an! city hall lu the national capital and Ihe White House in Washington, have been most responsible for the failures of prohibition enforcement.’’ This statement, is made by Mrs Mabel Walker Wilichrandl, former Assistant United .Stales AtforneyGeneral in charge of prohibition, in an article published in the Now York Times. Bo powerful are the politicians who protect violators of the liquor laws, she says, that they were aide to reach the President of the. United (States to urge him to exercise clemency on behalf of George Remus, the notorious “King of the Bootleggers.” They are also able to force high prohibition officials to ignore their duly on pain of losing their positions. Mrs AVillnbram.lt reveals that a powerful politician who was a United States Senator recently died, leaving £ijio,ooo in tt safe deposit vault, which his heirs released, to another politician equally powerful. The money was used, she charges, practically to control the Government of the entire State in which prohibition enforcement had been and still is most lax. The law enforcement officers danced when this politician pulled the string, she asserts, and those who benefited as a result readily contributed largo sums of money to influence votes and political appointments. Mrs Willcbrandt says that “you can neither coax, scold, nor nag” people into observing a law to which so many are unfriendly, and the only course for the authorities is for orderly and strictly legal methods of enforcement bv highly trained and intelligent; men, backed. up by Washington. ’ Enforcement cannot be orderly, however, slit' admits, because periodically it must be relaxed to secure the “umlervyorld vote.” Politics and liquor are, still in alliance, she says, and she does not expect to live long enough to see the day when it will bo broken.