The Idaho Republican. [volume] (Blackfoot, Idaho) 1904-1932, 1920-12-20
DRY FORCES WILL
ASK AID CONGRESS
Flood Of Contraband
Overwhelms Enforce
ment Officers

ment Officers
WASHINGTON. ~ q ooch" survey
ors view the New York with uncer-
tainty. "Dry" law enforcers are set
to make their game an exceedingly
hard one to play. Daring exploits OF
bootleggers, conceived and executed
with q cunning that almost defies
detection, have made prohibition al
most q farce. So farcical has prOhi-
btion become, both In the eyes OF" the
law-abiding and the lawbreakers,
that Government officers, in a frenzy
of dismay, are ready to propose to
Congress amendments that will vir-
tually Danish whiskeyl making 1t
practically impossible of sale for
beverage purposes.
Bootleg liquor now flooding the
country has its source in such wet"
strongholds as Pennsylvania, Mary
land, New York, New Jersey, Ohio
and Illinois. Dry law chiefs here ad-
mitted, with lack of police coopera-
tion and adverse public sentiment in
those sections, they are making los
ing fight, and their efforts in future
are doomed to failure, unless Con-
gress tightens up the dry law.
Wiping away of many of the So
called liberal" provisions of the law,
extending wide latitude to dealers
who obtained permits for sale and
distribution of intoxicants, will be
sought by Internal Revenue Bureau
officials. Amendments contemplated
would mean virtually complete re-
vamping Of the Volstead law, as the
loopholes through which liquor seeps
out to the public are inextricable,
woven into the laws provisions.
Police Are Apathetic
Police apathy in prohibition cases,
prohibition officials declare, is re-
sponsible for not only a large pro-
portion of evils that have sprung up
in the dry era, but have lent en-
couragement and support in the var
led schemes now carried on daringly
in defiance of the dry law, and with
enormous profit to the schemers.
Commissioner Kramer cited the
record of cases covering enforcement
work in the State of Illinois. 1t is but
a simple out of a lengthy list of states
and offers some eloquent proof of
the boldness of liquor law violators,
and the ease with which they get
away.
In Illinois alone dry law officers
have secured only fifty convictions
since national prohibition became
law. This, in spite of the fact that
dry law agents gave Federal district
attorneys "cocksure'' evidence in
1,725 cases. Jury hostility is the
answer, officials said.
Can't Get Convictions
"a bootlegger. or an illicit distil-
Ter, or smuggler of whiskey, as
things now stand, has odds of 10 to
hat he will gain an acquital," said |
Kramer and his aids. Sin some of the
wet centers there is scarcely ghost
If chance to land these evildoers in
all. Jail them. even the worst of
hem, and they are out like flash
through the aid of professional bonds
men and quick-witted lawyers, who
hrive upon that kind Of practice"
Kramers records now show that
ome lawyers have almost overnight
become immensely wealthy through
ees made from practice devoted al
most exclusively to defending boot
eggers. Since January lawyers in
titles, including those of the size of
New York Guy, Pitts
'urgh, Chicago, Baltimore, have
cleaned up" all the way from $780,
90 to 100000 in fees since Janu-
ry 16, when the dry lid was laid.
ome lawyers, he was advised, think
poor day that does not wind upi
With few 500 fees from bootleg
ers.
Many Liquor Permits
The whole train of evils of every
ind growing out of lax enforcement,
-ramer asserts, is directly traceable
t the present stage Of the game to
he indiscr1minate Withdrawals of
quor from bonded warehouses, with
,gal sanction. So many thousands of
gal permits are out among dealers
lat officials themselves do not ac-
tally know the number outstanding.
his occurs by virtue of the fact that
rior to national prohibition thou
ands of dealers, acting as the inter-
lediary of bootleg rings" had OBJ
lined permits from revenue collect
rs under the old time war prohibi-
on law, and but few of such per-
its have been revoked. In truth,
le records of the prohibition officials s
e so incomplete and confused that 1
ley confess they have no conception ;
the extent of operations among :
lch class of permit holders. /,