New Britain herald., 1926-05-25


 Christian woman with a high pur- pose, and was successfully presented on May l, 1925 before an audience of about 500.
 In the spring of 1925 your com mittee held a good many interviews and conducted a large correspond ence in behalf of the enforcement bills that were proposed by Judge George ". Wheeler. chief justice of the supreme court of Connecticut, in cooperation with the states attor- neys. The secretary Furthermore addressed each pastor of the city requesting that they carry out Judge Wheeler's suggestions:
 l. That he preach a sermon on law enforcement. 2. That each congregation vote, approving of the proposed new bills which were de- signed to strengthen the law against illicit liquor trades. 3. That each church be represented officially at the hearing on April 9th.
 We know that this request stimu- lated some strong words on law en- lorcement by local pastors; but there was no adequate pressure brought by Christian churches, either in New Britain or elsewhere in the state, and consequently these righteous bills failed. When q prominent attorney can stand up in such hearing and plead his own breaking of the gambling laws. as an excuse for opposition to these bills, without raising the righteous indignation of the pulpits of the state, it looks like altogether too low state of public opinion in Connecticut.
 During the year we secured the cooperation of the L. $. distric. attorney in Hartford in moving against a Chicago concern which was attempting to distribute gamb- ling devices in New Britain through | the mails. We also secured the cooperation of the local police in moving against a local distributor of gambling tickets. On this ques- ton of gambling We have noticed gratifying decrease in the num- Der of clubs and societies who offer prizes of a gambling nature. "On the matter of purity, your committee had occasion to present to the Atlantic Monthly" on their moral slump in publishing a poem involving profanity, as well as i'm purity. It is well 10 note that on ! this subject of Obscene Publications l the United States is now a party to | the interseCtional agreement of May l i, 1910. relative 10 the suppression 1 of the circulation of obscene publi- l cations. A new convention opened Tor signatures at Geneva on Sep temper 12, 1923 supplements the 1910 agreement and brings it Up to | date. The United States partici- 1 patcd in this conference of 1923 and l the convention was signed by 43 states. It has been ratified by six i states and adhered 10 by two. II | Is in line with the policy of our government for the past 15 years. yet the administration lags in it's ] support and later l will offer q 1 motion that this meeting respectfully 1 urge the secretary of state to recom- mend 10 the president that the ! United States become q party 10
 lhls convention, with the advice and ! consent of the senate.
 Your committee had occasion to commend one of the local judges l for announcing that henceforth he 1 would send 10 jail any man con- yictcd before him of driving an automobile whi,e under the infIu- ence of liquor. We had by letter urged this action on all of the local i judiciary. In this connection we can recall but two men sent to jail from New Britain this past year on q l liquor case. Court records show i that Connecticut is far behind the rest of New England in this mat i ter of jail sentences. The average ] sentences in Connecticut courts in liquor convictions i only 1.GG days. against 11.S days for all New Eng 1 land, and 1882 days for the entire country. In Maine the jail sentences average 64.91 days-almost six times as many days as all New Eng land. In Connecticut the sentences run mostly into fines, where the average runs as high as S2&6.23. against $1S4O7 in all New England. ! This fine method of dollars rather than jail sentences amounts in prac- tic to little more than the old licensing system, and the bootleg- ger so looks upon it, as so clearly pointed out by Attorney General Sargent. This notable address of the Attorney Generals was so much to the point, that We distributed 400 copies of same 10 the ministers, city officials lawyers, etc, of the city. Aside from the ordinary trunks, th local records show a sharp de- cline in the number of liquor cases coming before the court. This shows q steady drying up of the state. not withstandinc the big noise made by those who are crying for a drink.
 or striving for profit on same. It
 must be understood that those
 drunks, which now appear more or
 less frequently in the court, would .noyer have appeared there, for the
 most part, in the old wet days. Then no drunk was arrested unless
 he was also creating q breach of
 the peace. Now drunkenness itself is
 a breach of the peace, and all such
 are arrested when seen by an of
 ficer.
 Al least twice this year we have
 momorialized our senators and
 representatives in congress in behalf
 of tho following bills: l. Providing
 civil service for all prohibition en-
 forcement agents, 2. Deportation ot
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