Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1919-10-24
PROHIBITION COMES NEARER
WITH THE ENFORCEMENT ACT
Private Hoards Are Safe, but the Sale OF
Intoxicants Will Be Perilous
Business After Next Tuesday

BUSINESS SNlNC' 'NSNh 'sSSS"y
THE prohibition enforcement bill given
L into the hands of the President yester-
day for signature is the result of months
of stormy debate in Congress.
1t gives realistic form and definition to
prohibition principles, fixes penalties and
carries an appropriation Of S2,lOO,OOO for
the work of search and prosecution. 1t
sounds the kncll Of 2.75 beer for the pres
cnt at least. 1t calls for the elimination
of all liquor signs from public view.
Yet the act is one that need not worry
those who already have gathered private
boards of liquor, large or small. for their
own use or the use of their bona tde
guests" Its provisions are ominous for
the Keepers of speak-eases and for the
venturesamc saloon owners who have
been furtively marketing the strong
drink which they had in their cellars
prior to July !.
Any one who is suspected of having
Intoxicating liquor for sale after the law
becomes operative may be visited at any
hour of the day or night by a federal
agent with search warrant. An eXcep-
ton is made for private dwellings,, which
arc immune from search unless they are
known to be used for open violation of
the law. Penalties under the act are i'm
prisonmcnt and fines ranging from SlO0
to $1,000.
Prophets and seers who were ranged
with the prohibtionists or against them
a few months ago must have found many
| things to astound them in the course of
events since July /. The more ardent
| advocates of a wide-open country pre-
dcted woefully that risings and riots and
general tumult we're sure to occur at
the moment when the workingman was
| deprived of his liquor.
Theirs was not pretty argument. "lf
you want peace" said they, "let US keep
the workers drugged in "a state of i'm
aginary contentment!'
Prohibitionists, on the other hand, as
sured ecstatic audiences that when the
rum fiend was driven from the land we
should have tranquility everywhere and
wage-earners walking sedately in the
country with their families on Sunday
and admiring the scenery for the first
time in history and putting their money
III DdnhS OF III TlOlOTCdISs
We have had no risngs and we have
no peace Those who used to patronize
saloons appear to be Judging the issue
dispassionately, and they seem to have
realized for the first time that heavy
drinking was an amazingly costly pas
time. The transition from "wet' to
"dry" state has been relatively painless
so far.
While good many bitter-enders are
still insisting that prohibition is the re-
suit of sort of transient fanaticism that
would be possible nowhere else than in
the United States, Scotland-Scotland of
all places!-is arranging for a dry"
referendum and Czecho-Slovakia is tell
ing the world that just as soon as its
boundaries are fixed it will enact dry"
laws modelled after those soon to be en-
forced in the United States.
The enforcement laws devised by Con-
gress are rigorous, yet not so rigorous
as the "dry" advocates would have made
them. For example, there is no limit to
the amount of intoXcants that a man
may keep in his own residence for his
own use or the use of his friends. ANY
one may store enough whisky to last him
unto death-he may have fifteen or
twenty barrels--and the federal authori-
ties will not question him unless there is
strong evidence to indicate that he is
selling the stuff.
A citizen may make Intoxicating bev-
erages for his private use so long as he
uses only fruit juices as base. He may
make this beverage as strong as he de-
sires it. But, admitting this right of
every aw-abidng citizen, Congress
hastily wrote into the enforcement act
| a provision making it illegal for any
one to publish, sell or circulate formulae
for the making of intoXicants of any
sort.
An intoXcant under the new definition
is any beverage having more than one
half of / per cent of alcoholic content.
The suits instituted to defend the legality
of 2.75 beer and the injunctions already
granted in favor of those brewing and
selling that novel product will be rem
dered nconsequential when the act is
signed by the President. "Two-seventy-
five" beer, like all other beverages de-
clared Intoxicating, is subject under the
act to seizure and destruction by govern
ment agents when there is evidence to
show that it is held for sale.
There was a riot of debate in the Sem
ate about the rights of citizen to move
his private hoard from one place to an
other when he changed his residence. 1t
was finally decided that such removals
may be made with certificates of authori-
cation issued by the commissioner of in
ternal revenue. Interstate shipments
probably will be allowed under similar
restrictions, though the new law>is bit
ambiguous in relation to that question.
| All movement of Intoxicating beverages
will have to be made with the consent of
| the revenue officials.
None of the 55OOOOOO gallons of