Omaha daily bee. (Omaha [Neb.]) 187?-1922, 1919-12-20
When the Dry Movement
HIT NeW York
From tho Brooklyn Eagle.


New York City, on the eve Of absolute and
complete prohibition and already in the grip
of wartime prohibition which the supreme court
OF the United States says may not be lifted, il
nevertheless the greatest repository OF distilled
ing to estimates by Brooklyn liquor dealers.
1T dazes me even to conjecture the vas!
amount of whisky in bond In New York now
said Bernard J.. Feely, president Of the United
Liquor Dealers association Of Kings county
Il know that every bonded warehouse in Man
haitian Is filled to capacity and that space has
been at = premium for long time. New York
City is dry enough but potentially 1t is the wet
test spot on the globe.
Unless something Is done to relieve the
situation the whole country, and particularly
New York, will feel the effect of the resultant
financial upheavel. It is impossible to simply
annhiate hundreds of millions of dollars worth
Of property, the ownership of which is distrib-
uted all over the country and not cause trouble.
I'VE are hopeful, family hopeful, that is,
that President Wilson yet will exert his pre-
rogative and end the wartime prohibition act
by proclamation OF peace. That seems to be
our one chance"
The murk of gloom created by the action of
the supreme court did not hang long over the
scattered banks and financial interests generally
eUnced desperate interest born of immense
loans made on bonded liquors-loans which will
be altogether unprotected by convertible COL
lateral unless sale of the liquor stocks is al
lowed. A group of prominent Wall street op-
orators and New York bankers was said this
morning to be organizing to go to Washington
as a unit and seek to lift the ban for at least
two weeks prior to January 16 when the con-
stitutiopal prohibition amendment becomes op-
erative.
1t has been estimated that the loss resultant
from the continued enforcement of the wartime
act will pass the billion dollar mark by hun
dreds of millions, reaching total so staggering
that it can be estimated vaguely. 1t is estimated
that the governments loss from taxes alone will
will be suffered by owners of hard drinks, light
wines and beer
The liquor dealers today were considering
the institution of civil suits against the govern
ment to protect themselves from this loss if
the worst comes to the worst. One plan widely
discussed is to organize all of the dealers in
the country for concerted action in the civil
courts along this line, on the ground that the
government has no right to condemn property
the legitimacy of which it has recognized by
taxation.
Dealers say that the possibility of disposing
of their stocks abroad is very remote because
of the impossibility of obtaining ship space for
export with so little time remaining. After the
prohibition amendment becomes operative it
will be impossible to export. Moreover there
abroad it appears.
Isaac Rosenfeld, vice president of the
Sunnybrook Distilling company of Louisville,
KY, formerly one of the country's largest dis
teries, has just returned from abroad where
study of the situation at first hand convinced
him that no market existed there for American
made whisky.
1--WE have $4,000 barrels of whisky, or about
100000 gallons, in bond" said Mr.. Rosenfeld
"The supreme courts decision apparently
means, in effect, that we have no alternative
to destroying this property. Either we must
DESTROY NJ he hv Iap
airy 1o and I have definitely established the fact
in my own mind that there is little possibility
of selling American whisky abroad"
At the offices of the United Food Products
corporation, formerly the Distillers corporation
one of the largest whisky concerns, it was said
as it had seen ahead and long ago began the
of its plants and resources to the
of food products and now had only
a relatively small stock of hard liquor on hand.