The Waikato Times. With which la Incorporated The Waikato Argus. MONDAY, JULY 1, 1929. ENFORCING PROHIBITION.

Waikato Times, Volume 105, Issue 17751, 1 July 1929, Page 6

The Waikato Times. With which la Incorporated The Waikato Argus. MONDAY, JULY 1, 1929. ENFORCING PROHIBITION.

The cause of prohibition is not likely to be helped by the increasing acts of violence on the part of those attempting to enforce the law in the United States. These acts have become so frequent that Congress and President Hoover have been obliged to take notice. The fatal shooting of three supposed rum-runners by the law’s agents was reported in a cablegram of June 13, and it was stated that bitter debates were proceeding in Congress on the use of firearms in this manner. Later developments reported on June 18 included the following; In Georgia a constable was held on a charge of firstdegree murder for killing a youth whom he had thought to be in possession of liquor; in Arkansas a sheriff in custody in a similar case had been placed in the State prison In order that he might be safe from the mob’s fury. In the two preceding months many newspapers had been publishing strong protests against the deeds of the prohibition enforcement agents. The New York Nation of April 17 gave the following account of the incidents of a short period: “In Illinois a woman was shot dead, her husband beaten into insensibility, and her twelve-year-old son made liable to prosecution for criminal assault during of prohibition agents on her home. In South Carolina a twelve-year-old Negro girl, unable to pay a fine for carrying a bottle of whisky across the street, was sent to gaol for 30 days. In Michigan a woman was sentenced to gaol for life for having in her possession a pint of gin. In Minnesota a man was ordered by a prohibition agent from his sick bed and taken 130 miles in an automobile to St. Paul, where he died In a hospital of double pneumonia, supposedly contracted on the trip.” A few days later bitter feeling was aroused by the shooting of a young man, the driver of a truck which was later found to have been carrying liquor. When the incident was mentioned In a speech in the House of Representatives the “dry” Congressmen present broke into applause. Their jubilation was bitterly resented. The Chicago Tribune called it “nothing less than horrifying. . . an outbreak of brutal and perverted bigotry in the highest legislative body in the land." In this case it was apparently a real lawbreaker that was killed, but the case of the Illinois woman who was put to'death, as mentioned above, is very different. An officer had accused her husband, a Mr de King, of selling him liquor, but the charge was disbelieved and the officer Indicted for perjury. Yet nu action was taken against those responsible for Mrs de King’s death- ue_

dared by the grand jury to have been an “accident” of the raid her home.

The killing of people in this cause is made truly disgusting by the reports of disregard of the law by lawmakers themselves. Mr Morgan of Ohio, a member of Ihe House of Representatives and an irreconcilable Dry, was recently accused by Customs officials of bringing spirits into the country in violation of the Volstead Act, and Representative Michaelson, of Illinois, was indicted for smuggling liquor into the country in a trunk. Senator Cole Blease, of South Carolina, a Dry State, declared openly, “If a friend of mine to-night should ask me to his home for a drink, I'd be delighted.” In some cases, as in the sinking of the vessel ‘l’m Alone’ and the shooting across the Canadian border, prohibition agents’ violence has taken on an international phase. Fortunately good feeling and good sense have prevailed over the resentment that has been aroused by such conduct. The British, American and Canadian Governments are apparently determined that this purely American law shall not become the occasion of an international quarrel. The British Ambassador at Washington has made a notable contribution to goodwill by voluntarily forgoing the diplomatic privilege of importing liquor. America must be left to work out her own solution of the liquor problem. Some papers are demanding a nationwide referendum on the question. There seems to be good reason for the demand. In any case no good can come of killing a few people for breaking a law which tens of thousands break almost openly.