The Bismarck tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, N.D.) 1916-current, 1923-12-22
BY HARRY Il. HUNT
NEA Service Writer

Washington, Dec. 22.-The boot
legger's Nemesis is not Izzy Fin
stein, Gotham's demon prohibition
sleuth.
Nor is it "Lone Wolf" Asher
whose nose for synthetic gin has
located the lair Of countless rum
caches.
1t is not even Roy Haynes, crusad-
ing prohibition commissioner, nor is
it any of his staff.
Instead, it's brown-haired, brown
eyed little woman Of 81, who admits
her age, possesses firm chin and
abundant energy and has head full
of ideas and the keen intelligence
with which to apply them effectively.
Her name is Mrs. Mabel Walker
Willebrandt. Officially she is an as
sistant attorney general of the Unit
ed States, in charge Of the legal end
Of enforcing the prohibition and tax
laws.
Mrs. Willebrandt would be the
first to disclaim the title of boot
legger's Nemesis. She'd tell you
instead, that the prohibition law is
NOT being enforced; that there is
steady and torrential flow of Ii
quor into the United States; that a
vast quantity of alcoholic beverages
is being produced commercially with
in the country; that bootlegging has
come to be one of the big businesses
80 &
hundreds of millions annually.
Amply Qualified as Nemesis
And right there, because she re-
cognizes the futilty of present eff
forts to enforce the law, and instead
of maintaining that enforcement is
progressing finely has set to work to
develop methods for less spectacular
but more effective enforcement, is
where she qualities for the title of
the rum-runner's Nemesis.
For Nemesis, as you know, was the
Greek personification Of retributive
justice. And Mrs. Willebrandt not
only proposes more severe prison
sentences for the ringleaders in pro-
hibition violation, but would seize
for Uncle Sam millions of dollars
from estates built up by profits from
illicit liquor sales.
eve can never enforce prohibition
by 'pinching the pints'," she de-
clares. enforcement has got to
start back of the retail distribution.
The first problem is to stop the
sources Of supply, and these are,
chiefly, two.
81. The smuggler.
"2. The man who, under cloak of
apparent legality, withdraws alcohol
on permits for industrial or other le-
gal uses and diverts it into boot
logging channels.
"Pint- Pinching Futile"
"Prohibition officers now waste
their time milling around on little
cases of a pint or few quarts at a
time. Meanwhile the big commercial
organizations, flooding the trade
with liquor, operate comparatively
undisturbed.
"In dealing with smuggling, the
government should look to existing
agencies-the coast guard, the rev.
enue service and the customs SER
vice. @z
"The job can't be done by any one
branch of the government. There
must be coordination not now ef-
fective. There must be an interlock-
ing exchange of information and as
sistance. A definite objective must
be set up, with a definite method Of
attack; not the scattered, disor-
ganized effort now applied.
when the police and the prohibi-
tion agents have failed, a tax in
vestigation is one Of the best
methods of attack against the big
Mrs. Willebrandt says. "In
these we uncover all the mans bank
his investments in stocks.
bonds, mortgages and other securi-
ties. In many cases these have
mounted far into the MILLIONS in a
short year or two"