BACK TO LIQUOR

Southland Times, Issue 22192, 7 December 1933, Page 7

BACK TO LIQUOR

UNITED STATES END OF PROHIBITION PROCLAMATION ISSUED AMENDMENT RATIFIED (United Press Assn.—Telegraph Copyright.) (Rec. 7 p.m.) Washington, Dec. 5. The United States’ amendment repealing prohibition was officially proclaimed early on Tuesday evening by the Acting Secretary of State, Mr Phillips. After Utah had ratified the repeal amendment Mr Roosevelt signed an official proclamation at 6.55 in the evening, eliminating the last vestige of national prohibition. Pennsylvania and Ohio early this afternoon were the thirty-fourth and thirty-fifth States to ratify repeal in State Conventions. Utah followed later. The City of Washington itself incidentally will remain dry until Congress, which administers the city, acts. The Eighteenth Amendment also remains in effect in Hawaii, Puerto Rico and other Federal territories until Congress passes new legislation. Hours before the repeal of prohibition restaurants showed filled whisky bottles over their bars and liquors were being openly served in the most reputable eating places. As speakeasies have now been freely operating a long time without the slightest molestation, it was all really nothing new. Liquor Exchange Busy. The American liquor exchange was busily trading in all well-known brands in its quarters in Park Avenue to-day similar to the Stock Exchange on Wall Street. Restaurant proprietors announced preliminary prices, which ranged from 25 to 35 cents, for a cocktail to 45 to 60 cents for a drink of “scotch” and five to eight dollars for a bottle of champagne. The police promised to-night to shut up 8000 “cordial” shops, sly grog shops where inferior liquors are sold in bottle quantities for consumption off the premises.

From Washington came the news that the Government was considering a plan to release all medicinal liquor stocks totalling 5,000,000 gallons of wines and spirits for beverage purposes immediately after the proclamation of repeal. Confusion in New York.

During the day prohibition proponents made a last ditch legal fight, petitioning the Court in Washington to declare the ratification methods of the States illegal, but the Court refused the request. A later report states that in New York the utmost confusion prevailed as people tried to celebrate the end of prohibition, but legal liquor supplies were inadquate. A few shops sold limited amounts of bottled goods before eight o’clock closing. Hotels, restaurants and cabarets tried to carry on as best they could with what stocks they could get. Meanwhile, the speakeasies are operating in full blast in an effort to make a profit while they can. The publication of last minute statistics of the prohibition era in the United States included some interesting facts and figures. Two hundred and fifty persons were killed during enforcement and 45,549 persons died of alcoholism between 1920 and 1932. NEW YORK CELEBRATES “OLD MAN PROHIBITION” HANGED. THE PRESIDENT’S APPEAL. (United Press Assn.—Telegraph Copyright.) (Rcc. 7.40 p.m.) New York, December 5. Throughout the early evening curiosity seekers thronged Times Square, a section more apparently to see what might happen than to indulge themselves, as comparatively few licensed dispensaries were operating. Later, however, stores began arriving from bonded warehouses and the merry-making started. Effigies cf “Old Man Prohibition” were hanged ceremoniously. The crowds were orderly early and the police reports indicate comparatively little intoxication. Gradually throughout the evening liquor deliveries increased in volume and hundreds of heavy lorries, protected by armed guards, started from New York to neighbouring States. Reports from States where local prohibition laws still hold declared that people wer. celebrating anyway, heavily patronizing speakeasies and apparently getting satisfaction from the fact that while breaking the local laws they were no longer violating a constitutional amendment. Mr Roosevelt’s repeal proclamation is a stirring appeal to the people to cooperate to make the new laws successful. “I enjoin upon all citizens to cooperate with the Government in its endeavour to restore greater respect for law and order by confining purchases of alcoholic beverages to dealers duly licensed by a State Government or the Federal Government,” he said. “The observance of this request, which I make personally to every individual and every family in our nation, will result in the consumption of alcoholic beverages which have passed Federal inspection. I ask for the wholehearted co-operation of all citizens to the end that this return to individual freedom shall not be accompanied by the repugnant conditions that obtained prior to the adoption of the Eighteenth Amendment and those that existed since its adoption.” POPPING OF CORKS MODERATE CELEBRATIONS. (United Press Assn.—Telegraph Copyright.) (Rec. 11.50 p.m.) Washington, Dec. 6. More than a score of States remained dry under their own statutes. Mr Roosevelt, in his proclamation, urged no State to permit the return of the saloon. A very confused situation existed in many States with no machinery created to handle the sale of liquor. The end of the “drought” was generally celebrated in a modest way. In shiny new bars of restaurants and hotels, wherever the State law did not prevent it, there was a popping of corks In Hollywood the picture stars did not attend the public celebrations, stating that they had to get up too early in the morning.

National prohibition became effective in the United States on January 16. 1920, though war-time prohibition, to continue throughout the period of demobilization, had been adopted by Congress on November 21, 1918. The Senate voted to submit the Twenty-First Amendment, which cancels the Eighteenth Amendment, to State conventions, on February 16 of this year, a month before the bill allowing 3.2 per cent, beer to be sold was passed. In only 10 of tlie 13 years between these dates, according to an authoritative estimate, the American people spent more than 36,000.000.000 dollars for bootleg and smuggled liquor. Many bootleggers became wealthy men. and some were sent to goal because they did not make full returns of income for taxation. Scores, if not hundreds, of bootleggers and enforcement officers were killed. Thirty-two thousand "speakeasies"—again an estimate —

sprang up in New York City alone. The Federal Government spent many millions o£ dollars on enforcement; and Rum Row. a line of ships loaded with liquor waiting outside the 12-niile limit for the bootlegger's motor-launches, came into existence. The first blow to this huge illegal traffic came on April 3, when Michigan became the first State to vote for repeal, and others followed in quick succession, until a month ago Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Utah completed the 36—three-quarters of the total states —required to make a constitutional amendment effective. The nature of liquor control laws and their interpretation have been widely discussed in all the States which expect to be “wet " Efforts to prevent the return of the old-time saloon, to break up the alliance between the liquor interests and corrupt politics, to eliminate the bootlegger and the speakeasies, and to keep the liquor industry from growing so strong as to be a social menace have occupied the attention of thinkers throughout the country, according to the New York Times. One of the most important provisions of New York State's new control law aims at protecting the public against political influence by putting the entire power to issue and revoke liquor licenses in the hands of the State Alcoholic Beverage Control Board. This is expected to do away with the situation which existed before prohibition, when scandalous conditions in many New York drinking places could not be corrected because of the influence the liquor interests had through political leaders upon the lower courts, m view of the law that licenses could not be revoked without court convictions.