Douglas daily dispatch., 1926-01-24
ATTORNEY GENERAL SARGENT
SEES LOGIC in MAN WHO is PAID TO
VIOLATE One LAW, BREAKING ALL

NEW YORK, Jan. %. = Attorney
General Sargent has studied the re-
lationship of prohibition and crime
waves, and has reached the con-
clusion that there is logic in the
position by the person who, paid a
bribe by respectable citizens fol-
breaking the liquor laws, continues
| with a career of crime. In his first
public discussion Of prohibition en-
! forcement since taking charge of the
department of justice, Sargent asked
the members of the New York State
Bar association whether 1T is any
wonder that banditry, murder, bril-
berry and corruption flourish, when
decent citizens constantly are paving
the cri1ninally inclined to take the
risk of violating other laws
The eighteenth amendment and
the Volstead act, he said, are settled
laws of the land and must be en-
forced, and he urged the lawyers to
give thought to the problem how
enforcement may be accomplished.
The attorney general added that he
would not be drawn into discus
sion of other phases of the question,
inasmueh as congress had acted on
the whole matter, but desired to talk
over the situation with view to
solving the enforcement problem, :"
by finding the real root of the trou
ble''
His discussion had nothing to do
with offenses against the law com-
mitted from motives of jealousy, an
ger, revenge passion and ill-will to-
CT,
every citizen had come to regard it
as a duty to aid in the detection and
punishment of such offenders, and in
correcting the conditions which make
them offenders.
But no one engages in the liquol
traffic from any such motive" he
declared.
Every person who sells LIQUOR does
it solely and only because some one
will pay price high enough to
make a profit sufficient to offset
the chance of detection, conviction
and punishment. To put it differ
emily every such sale is the direct
result Of the offer and payment by
the purchaser of a brlbe to commit
the offense. Is there any escape
from this as logical conclusion?".
'Now why do otherwise respecta-
BILE citizens engage in such bribery?
Because, they say, the law inter-
feres with their personal liberty, in
that they have an inherent right to
drink whisky or any other liquor
if they choose. That 1t is nobody's
business but their own whether they
shall or shall not, injure themselves,
and therefore no one may decide for
them whether the use of liquor is
or is not injurious.
''Now, what are the portion of the
community who would prefer diff
ferent policy, a different law, going
to do about it? When / ask this
question, 1 refer to that portion OF
the substantial, self-respectingya de-
cent citzenry, who in all other
things are law abiding; the citizenry
who in all other matters-and in
deed in many things which flow from
their conduct in this respect.-de-
1nand the protection of the law and
it's agency.
"Can any such citizen say I will
paw a bribe to any one who will
violate this law of my country?'
Let us carry the matter little
further. If he does say that, or
saying, or not saying or thinking it,
does offer and pay the bribe, and
so induces some one to violate the
law and make a forbidden sale to
provide what he desires to drink, can