San Antonio light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1911-1993, 1926-04-05
BRUCE CHARGES
DRY LAW BOON
To CRIME
Senator Says Statute Has
Ruined Happiness and
DECEASED Morals.

WASHINGTON. April 5.-CP)
Prohibition has had no effect. on the
whole, except that of blighting human
happiness. debasing human morals and
diScrediting human laws, Senator
Bruce. Democrat of Maryland. de-
clared today in opening the case for
the vets at public hearings before a
Senate Judiciary subcommittee.
Appearing in support of his consti-
tutional amendment TO permit gov
eminent manufacture and sale of
liquors in those states or subdivisions
which were wet before ratificn ton Of
the eighteenth amendment. Senator
Bruce brought scathing indictment
against the VOlstead act.
CHURCH IN POLITICS.
"The yolstend act" he said. "has
placed human happiness in more than
one vital particular under the irritat.
ing and harassing domination of a
sour. corrosive and narrow-minded
Puritanism. which does not hesitate
10 avow its enmity even to such in.
nocent recreations as smoking and
dancing.
ut has for the first time brought
the church deeply into politics.
at has established a settled COM
merce between worthier and the I'M
worthiest members Of the community.
ut has created an underworld al.
most rs thoroughly organized as the
respectable world about it.
LAWS IN DISTRIBUTE.
ut is responsible for the unprecp-
denied phenomenon Of thousands and
thousands Of reputable men and wom-
en-. including ministers of the law it.
self. living in habitual disregard of
the Constitution and law.
at has tended To bring all laws.
including itself, into more or less dis
repute.
at has transferred distilling and
brewing operations from the distillery
and brewery TO the home.
1T has displaced the temperate. re-
freshing glass of beer with the fiery
pocket flask.
at has fostered deceit. perfidy.
espionage and tyranny. in some of
their meanest and most hateful as.
poets.
CORRUPTION CHARGED.
at has lowered the prestige of the
federal government"
Asserting that worst Of all is the
extent to which the federal service has
been defiled by corruption Matched by
it, he presented figures as TO the
number Of men dismissed from the fed.
cral enforcement unit for corruption
pointed to convictions Of state and
municinal police. and dpclarpd that
oven the coast guard. shat nursing
mother Of brave and devoted men,"
had failed to escape "the contamina.
tion Of prohibition"
last year it took two Pullman cars
to transfer to Atlanta the convicted
policemen and prohibition agents cor
rallied in a single roundup in Ohio"
the senator added.
QUOTES STATISTICS.
I'm May, 1925. special grand jury
in Morris county. New Jersey. was
reported in the press as returning at
one time 2s indictments against cnun-
ty officers and others for violations of
the VolStead act"
Senator Bruce marshalied official
statistics tn show the increasing num-
her Of violations NJ the prohibition
laws each year. These showed that
arrests by federal officers had mount.
ed from 34.1T5 in 1921. to 62.T47 in
1925. while reports from police chiefs
in - cities recorded in almost evnry
instance q steadily mounting number
Of persons arrested for drunkenness
from year 10 year.
Disagreeing with those who contend
that the federal government had not
sought to enforce the law effectively.
he declared that never in the history
of free institutions has any govern.
ment more pertinaciOusly sought to
carry out policy. obnoxious to p
powerful popular sentiment. than has
the federal government in it's rels.
tinns to the Volstrad act"