Atlanta semi-weekly journal. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1898-1920, 1919-04-11
BY THEODORE TILLER

WASHINGTON, April 1O.-The alleged I'M
warranted activities. of Virginia's dry
agents in opening collins, ransaCking Pullman
cars and subjectipg interstate passengers to
indignities in the frenZied search for liquor,
is likely to react against the radio prohibi-
ton movement when congress returns.
Two departments of the federal government
today have under consideration complaints
against the undue zeal, or persecution, OF the
Virginia dry agents. Congress is yet to pass
bill for the enforcement of the wartime
prohibition rider, which is effective July l,
and for putting into effect next year the con
current jurisdiction Of the national prohibi-
ton amendment. One point at issue IS
whether the new prohibition enforcement laws
shall CT ntain search and seizure" clause-a
clause to which numerous conservative pro-
liDitionist3 in and cut of ----,5ress
2dy opposed.
Recent happenings in Virginia, it is be-
lieved by many, do not tend to justify the
bestowal of blanket authority upon dry
agents, whether of the state or federal govern
ment.
The opening of a coffin containing body
en- route to Norton, Va, the double killing on
the Valley of Virginia Pike, followed by the
assembling of mobs and their threats against
the prohibition officers, and the complaint
filed with the United States railroad admins
tration by the mayor of Wilmington N. g.,
are events which focus attention upon the
alleged roughshod methods of unrestrained
prohibition detectives.
Assistant Attorney General Frierson has
| before him today a letter addressed to the
attorney general by Judge John Barton Payne,
chief counsel of the railroad administration
| Judge Payne recently received from Mayor
! Moore, of Wilmington, a letter protesting
! against the searching of women passengers on
trains passing through Virginia. Subsequent
ly there has arisen the case of coffin at
! Roanoke. This coffin contained not liquor,
| but the body of Robert e. Chapman, which
was being shipped to his family.
| 1t is understood that Judge Payne advises
| the department of justice that the railroad
administration has many complaints against
Virginia's dry agents, who are accused OF
rifing baggage and humiliating respectable
passengers, including women, in interstate
journeys. Before he left the department of
| Justice Attorney General Gregory said that
no agent of that department was authorized
to search baggage without proper search war
rants.
| However, the Virginia state agents appar-
emily have not been Curbed and the chief
counsel of the railroad administration seeks
an expression from the department of justice
on the entire situation. Writing Governor
| Davis of Virginia, Judge Payne asserted that:
Nothing is doing so much to injure the
! good name of Virginia Z. the conduct of the
prohibition officers. There has been pointed
out to you the serious loss which the railroad
administration has to suffer by such acts"
the latest furry in official circles in Washing
| ton when he wrote Director General Hines, Of
| the railroad administration, saying +hot Zone
| of our most prominent women,---,waS
awakened in her berth, by thugs in the guise
of officers and with a searchlight and pistol
in her face the demand was made if she had
any whisky Another lady Of this city, re-
turning from the north, had the indignity of
having her grip searched and her lingerie re-
moved in a supposed search for whisky"
The mayor adds that when no whisky was
found the lingerie was appropriated anyway.
'"These dastardly acts are perpetrated, I I'M
derstand, between Washington and the North
Carolina line" wrote the mayor.
There has been general discussion in Wash
ington within the past few days of the action
of the dry officers at Roanoke in opening the
casket containing the Chapman body. Dis
approval is intensified by the report that the
raided coffin was then put on the wrong train
and diverted from its direct route to the home
of the deceased man.
With wartime and national prohibition yet
to be made effective by enabling acts, the acts
of prohibition agents in the state ast across