The Missouri herald., 1922-06-30
THE DREGs OF HYPOCRISY.

United States Treasury Departm ent
rules that the sale Of liquor on
American ships outside the three.
mile zone is permissible. The stor-
age Of liquor within the three-mile
zone and in port for sale on the high
seas is legal; so is the transshipment
of liquor through American terri
tory for sea sale, although all other
transshipments through American
territory are illegal and subject the
liquor to confiscation.
1.-THE Treasury has not yet ruled on
the legality of the purchase in
| American territory of moonshine
whisky from bootleggers for sale at
sea. The wine cards Of Government
ships list American moonshine at 80
cents a drink, five cents higher than
Scotch whisky, because it is illegally
obtained. This will be declared le-
gal in time. We predict that the
Government will go the whole hypo-
critical hog to save the merchant
marine.
This exemption of American ships
| which need the profit of bootlegging
to keep going, will not, however,
interfere with the drastic enforce
ment of prohibition against ordinary
bootleggers and plain citizens on
land. The agents provocateurs
and shopping enforcement officers of
the Government 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 whisky, or
who sell these alcoholic beverages
on land. The American landlub-
bers must be saved from their de-
Fpraved 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
IGovernment abandons it's funda-
mental principles and gets into the
prohibition mess Of tyranny and
hypocrisy it must be prepared to
sound the depths of moral and po-
litical infamy.
We do not envy the Federal Judges
1 ,ho ct To-, It'd inf I'M
pose heavy sentences of fine and i'm
prisonment on those miserable
wretches-plain, unprivileged citi-
| zens-who make home brew or pos
sess or sell liquor of any kind, while
moonshine is purchased and all
kinds of liquor are possessed in
port and sold on the sea by the Gov
| ernment, on Government owned
ships. We do not envy the prohibi-
tion officers who disguise themselves
to lure and provoke bootleggers to
sell them a drink or bottle and
| chase bellboys and walters and bar
tenders for possessing and selling
moonshine, while aprOned bartend-
ers and walters and cabin boys sell
1t without limit on Government
ships, for the profit of the United
States Treasury.
While it is illegal, immoral and
disgraceful to make or drink Amerl-
can beer and wine on land, the Gov
| ernment promotes the profitable
making Of foreign beer and wine
and makes profit by selling them on
ltits own ships. 1t is pro-German, ac-
cording to Chairman Lasker, for an
American brewer to protest against
the prohibition 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 German beer on
its own ships and prohibit the max
| ing or selling of American 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 hypocrisy and moral and po-
llitical degradation that we may be
saved from drinking a drop of al
| cohol-on land.-Post-Dispa
-Chautauqua-