Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1922-06-29
The Dregs of Hypocrisy.
(st. Louis Post-Dispatch., :,

(St. Louis Post-Dispatch.)
Necessity knows no law, go the
United States Treasury Department
rules that the sale of liquor on Ameri-
can ships outside the three mile zone
is permissible. The storage of liquor
within the three mile zone and in
port for sale on the high seas is legal;
SO is the transhipment of liquor
through American territory for sea
sale, although all other transship-
ments through American territory
are illegal and subject the liquor to
confiscation.
The Treasury has not yet ruled on
the legality of the purchase in Ameri-
can territory of moonshine whisky
from bootleggers for sale at sea. The
wine cards of Government ships list
American moonshine at 80 cents a
drink, 5 cents higher than Scotch
whisky, because it is illegally obtain
ed. This will be declared legal in
time. We predict that the Govern
ment will go the whole hypocritical
hog to save the merchant marine.
This exemption of American ships,
which need the profits of bootlegging
to keep going, will not, however, in
terfere with the drastic enforcement
of prohibition against ordinary boot.
leggers and plain citizens on land.
The agents, provocateurs and snoop-
ing enforcement officers of the Gov
ernment will have blind eyes for
bootlegging on the docks and the sea,
but thousand eyes will be turned on
the poor devils who want beer or
wine or whiskey or who sell these
alcoholic beverages on land. The
American landlubbers must be saved
from their depraved appetites at any
cost to their liberty and pocketbook,
while the American seagoers can go
to the devil at handsome profit for
the Government.
This is as it must be. When Gov
ernment abandons its fundamental
principles and gets into the prohibi-
ton mess of tyranny and hypocrisy it
must be prepared to sound the depths
of moral and political infamy.
We do not envy the Federal Judges
who sit in solemn judg and inn
pose heavy sentences of fine and
Imprisonment on those miserable
wretches- plain, unprivileged citizens
who make home brew or possess or
sell liquor of any kind, while moon
shine is purchased and all kinds of
liquor are possessed in port and sold
on the sea by the Government, on
Government owned ships. We do
not envy the prohibition officers who
disguise themselves to lure and pro-
woke bootleggers to sell them drink
or a bottle and chase bellboys and
walters and bartenders for possessing
and selling moonshine, while aproned
bartenders and walters and cabin boys
sell it withou limit on Government
ships, for the profit of the United
States Treasury.
While it is illegal, immoral and dis
graceful to make or drink American
beer and wine on land, the Govern
ment promotes the profitable making
of foreign beer and wine and makes
profit by selling them on its own
ships. 1t is pro- German, according
to Chairman Lasker, for an American
brewer to protest against the prohi-
bition of American beer and the sale
of German beer on American ships,
but it is 100 per cent American for the
American Government to sell Ger
man beer on it's own ships and pro-
hibit the making or selling of Ameri-
can beer.
These. we repeat, are the fruits Of
prohibition folly and fanaticism. They
are bitter fruits, full of the acrid juice
of dishonor, dishonesty and shame
We must drink the dregs of hypo'
crisy and moral and political degrade.
ton that we may be saved from drink
ing drop of alcohol-on land.
Harrison Tells of c.. o. P, Plan to Buy