The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1919-08-27
Want it to Bridge Period Between End of Wartime Law and Beginning
 of Drought.
$50 A GALLON ON
 WHISKEY; AS MUCH
 A BARREL ON BEER
Leaders in the House Op. posed to Legislation and Think Tactics May Lead
 to Reaction.

Washington, Aug. 25.-The Anti Saloon League has a tentative plan to prohibit the manufacture and sale of all intoxicating liquors between the time the President issues a procla- nation of peace and the demobiliza- ton of the army and the day the Fed eral amendment becomes effective by levying prohibitive taxes. It is pro- posed to put Q tax of $40 or $50 a gallon on whiskey and a similar sum on a barrel of beer.
 Wayne B. Wheeler, legal represen- tative of the league here, refused to give figures but admitted the tax plan is to be pressed if it looks like an early proclamation from the White House.
 "we can bridge the space between a proclamation which would elimin- ate wartime Prohibition and the time of the operation of the consti- tutional amendment by laying heavy taxes on intoxicating beverages" he said. That is to be the programme of the Prohibitionists."
 MT. Wheeler is reckoning without his{ leading supporters in Congress. HeNmAy be able to send through the Enforcement Bill that is now in the l1ate for wartime Prohibition ami that on the statute books, bJI III of Congress shows a strong sl It against any proposition to
 the manufacture and sale of
 Ing liquors after the peace
 ktion has been issued. "Tmovement on the part of the Anti-SaIoon League to prevent the sale of liquors in the event peace is declared and wartime Prohibition nullified will meet with such stout
 +- that the proposed legislation would be so long under consideration that it could not be of any service were it ultimately passed. The time is not sufficient for tax legislation to prohibit the handling of liquor.
 Representative Fordney, Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, and Representatives Kitchin, ranking Democrat on that committee, would resist any bill to place a prohibitive tax on whiskey or beer.
 '"The tax is too high now" said MT. Kitchin. "TVe never will pass any tax bill to prevent collectable taxes I am opposed to any such proposition. If we change the law we will not make the tax prohibitive."
 Representative Webb of North Carolina and Barkley of Kentucky, two of the most active Prohibitionists in the House, said any proposition to tax intoxicating liquors for the interim would fail in the House. There Is much dissatisfaction among Prohibi- tionists in Congress over the persistent nagging of the Anti-Salloon League. Many sincere Prohibition advocates thinks the Department of Justice that a reaction may set in.
 The Bureau of Internal Revenue is in a nervous panic over the early prospect of having the enforcement act thrust upon it. Regardless of the protest of Commissioner Roper against the provision that makes his bureau responsible for enforcement he thinks the Department of Justice should have that task.
 It is understood here that when the Anti-Saloon League has competed It's programme of enforcement legislation it will turn it's attention to the inter- national situation. Approximately s25.OOO,O 900 will be raised in this and other countries to make the world dry.
 It has been suggested repeatedly that the demobilization of the army would be followed by a prompt proc lamatiou of the President to that ef- feet and that wartime Prohibition would expire. But it has been stated at the White House that there can be no proclamation of peace until the treaty is ratified.