Evening star., 1925-05-22
BY WILLIAM P. HELM, JR.

More Coast Guard ships are on the
"ay--many more-ships enough to
swing a rum-proof Gordon around the
entire coast line of the United States
atlantic and Pacific. They are COM
ing fast now from the builders yards
and are going quietly into service as
they come. Hardly day passes that
the Coast Guard armada isn't
strengthened. There1l be ships
enough to make America dry from
the sea, in the opinion of officials,
when the last Of the fleet takes the
water.
Not wholly dry, perhaps, but dry to
all lntents and purposes: dry save for
the occasional rum runner. who,
through luck, daring or skill, pierces
the tightening Gordon. Eighteen
months ago the Coast Guard told the
Treasury that, given the boats, it
could stop liquor smuggling from the
sea. The Coast Guard got the boats.
Not exactly what 1t wanted, for 1t
was given destroyers, and old ones at
that, when II asked for new cutters,
but close enough to the reQuisition to
enable 1t to redeem its word, virtually
in full.
Three hundred foreign ships are in
the liquor-carrying trade. Vary that
number by half a score, more or less
and you have the strength of the
whisky armada that. at one time or
another. has rocked saucily at anchor
off the American coast. Names of
these vessels, their owners and
masters, their habits and strategy.
are known to the Coast Guard.
Numbers Equalized.
When the new feet is fully in action
there will be a Coast Guard vessel of
some description. destroyer, patrol
boat or picket. for every rum carrier
ever seen off our shore. Boat for boat,
the smuggler viii be matched. OF
swift 75-foot patrol boats alone there
will be sufficient in the new govern
ment armada to station one Of them,
II necessary, every so miles of the
10000 bathed by the oceans east and
west.
1t Is not the present plan to string
out the new armada, superior though
IT be in speed and seamanship, in any
such tenuous line. Rather 1t will op-
crate in squadrons. efficient. quick and
patient. The blockade of that part of
rum row which stretches from New
England down to the Delaware line
is sample Of the tactics that will
be followed under the present plan of
campaign.
What has been done already in
spectacular fashion Off this section Of
the coast Is but the opening of a new
campaign. From so to 100 rum car
riers, mostly from West Indian and
Canadian ports, have tended bar along
the line recently put to rout by the
new Government feet. That has been
the richest market, perhaps, and has
attracted more floating saloons than
any other.
Campaign Expanded.
Numerous though the rum sellers
have been off this section Of the coast
they are outnumbered more than two
10 one by smugglers operating along
other sections. Along the South At.
lantic littoral, down through the
Florida Keys, doubling around the
Gulf to the Mexican line, off Southern
California, along the farthest north.
western tip of the country-here the
waters all have washed rum carrier
keels.
1t is part Of the new campaign to
smash rum row at these points, too
Newly arriving vessels of the Coast
Guard fleet are swelling the Govern:
ment's armada to the point where II
can swing into this secondary phase
of the fight. Long before the Sum.
mer wanes the memory of the assault
on rum row, OF New York, Will fade
into the picture of a greater and far
ther-fung assault on rum row wher-
ever found.
New York and New Jersey are get.
ting virtually no liquor now from the
sea. South Atlantic and Gulf ports
will feel the drought in their turn
soon. So will Pacific Coast cities. Oc-
casional runners there doubtless will
be who land cargo now and then,
large or email, but the flood tide of
LIQUOR SInuRgled from the sea-a tide