New-York tribune., 1922-08-14
Busch Resumes
Attack Against
Liquor ON Ships
Brewer, Back From Europe,
Says Government Should
Look Out for Industries
as II Has for the Marine
Would Amend Dry Law
Asserts Trip Across Is Max
ing Americans More Bit
ter Toward VoIstead Act

August A. Busch, president of An
heuser- Busch Inc, who started blaze
of investigation and talk two months
ago by calling attention to the sale
Of liquor on Shipping Board vessels,
stirred the embers a bit yesterday
with few supplementary remarks
based on what he learned on the way
back to this country on the George
Washington, which docked here Friday.
Prefacing his comments with the report
of large accession of anti-Volstead
ties to the American colony in Paris
and the statement that Americans who
have tasted the old freedom abroad
are coming home more anti-Volsteadian
than they went over, he plunged right
back into his favorite topic. He de-
clared that it is unfair for the govern
ment to sell liquor at sea on the ground
must 60 bankrupt, unless the govern
ment is willing to grant the same right
to hotels and brewers, who are likewise
facing failure.
"It was my primary object, in my
recent correspondence with Washing
ton officials relative to the sale of
liquor by the government to passengers
on its steamships" he said, "to ac-
quaint the American people with the
fact that the United States could not
operate its great shipping enterprise
and comply with either the letter or
the spirit of the prohibition law. The
government goes right on ignoring the
prohibition law on the sea, while MAX
ing some inffective efforts to enforce
it on land
HOUita a pDD,ho~ of +ba Coo~o.
Washington passengers discussed the
proposition of buying a quantity of
Liquor from the government on board
the steamship, taking a government re-
celpt for it, and then inviting the gov
ernment to arrest and prosecute them
when they came ashore. 1t might bring
up an interesting legal issue as to
whether the government could buy
liquor with money taken out of the
Treasury Of the United States, sell
this liquor, at a profit, to an American
citizen and then prosecute him for
having possession of property the gov
ernment had sold him.
Private business enterprises of vast
proportions have been confronted with
exactly the same conditions that the
government found in the operation OF
its steamships. But, unlike the govern
ment, these business men are unable
to set aside the prohibition law in
order that they may successfully oper-
ate their properties. The aw-abiding
/ hotels of the United States, in their
restaurant service. complain that they
cannot compete with the many restau-
rants that are reputed to be prospering
by the illegal sale of liquor.
There are some seventy or eighty
industries in the United States that
from the brewing industry 1t would
seem to be rational policy for the
United States government to under
take to build up its privately owned
American industries just as it has un-
dertaken to build up its own shipping
industry-with this exception: Instead
Of violating the prohibition law, as
the government does in its own busi-
ness, it should amend the Volstead act
In the interest Of common fairness to
American business and American citi-
zens."