Evening star., 1929-05-19

~ ROH1BIT1ON enforcement has
got its second wind. Enforce
ment officers have taken another
4 hitch in their belts and are
starting out with vengeance
after the big bottle-and-booze boys,
thanks to Senator Wesley Jones of
Washington State and his law.
The bootleggers are taking to cover.
Their spirits, liquid and temperament
tai, have fallen. Many of them have
actually quit the business. Washing
ton, recently dubbed a "Sodom of Suds,"
turning to respectability because of the
increased penalty provided by the Jones
law.
Five years in the penitentiary is a
long time" one of them said. "Oh,
yes, I've quit the racket! I've put my
four automobiles up for sale"
Perhaps a pose, perhaps the shadow
of parallel bars across his path. No
1ongers can he hope to buy his way out
with a small fine or wiggle his way
through the courts with no "hoose-
gow'' service, unless he happens to
strike a judge who acts on his own
wet convictions.
Impetus to prohibition enforcement
has recently been received from two
main sources. Perhaps the greatest of
the two was the strong note for law
CIl1OICGIICItt VI GICcIOSI1t I1OOFCA All 4A4o
inaugural address:
.aThe most malign of all dangers to-
day is disregard and disobedience of
law. I am not prepared to
believe that 1t indicates an impotence
of the Federal Government to enforce
its laws. A large responsibility rests
upon our citizens. There would be little
traffic in illegal liquor If only criminals
patroniZed it. We must awake to the
fact that this patronage from large
numbers of law-abiding citizens Is sup
plying the rewards and stimulating
crime"
THE second source of the impetus to
prohibition enforcement was the
Jones act, passed IL days before the
beginning of the new administration.
It specifically provides that wherever
a penalty or penalties are prescribed in
a criminal prosecution by the national
prohibition act, as amended and supple
mented, for the Illegal manufacture,
sale, transportation, importation or eX-
portation of intoxicating liquor the
penalty imposed for each such offense
shall be fine not to exceed $4,000 or
Imprisonment not to exceed five years,
or both"
Perhaps no measure before Congress
in years, except the prohibition amend
ment itself, has ever stirred up such
oratorical outbursts. Senator Reed and
Senator Borah have become the Web
ster and the Clay of this era. And,
incidentally, Senator Jones, a quiet,
mild and much-liked fellow, gets showed,
much to his surprise, into the category
with Mr.. Volstead, Wayne B. Wheeler
and Carrie Nation. On his head is
heaped the praise Of the prohibitionists
and the vttuperation of the vets.
He has put surtax on cocktails. He
has scared off most Of the bootleggers
except those who are prepared to do
the lockstep. He has put the question
into the minds of plain John and Susie
Citizen as to whether they should be
furnishing the incentive for an offense
for which the penalty is SO severe.
How was the law meant to be ap-
piled? Senator Jones was obviously
the best man to answer that question.
1t was one of those warm days in
Spring between the sessions of Congress
when the Senator wasn't so busy. He
was in genial mood, for he had made
his first nine in 40 that morning. the
first time he had ever done it in his life
He gets up at 4:30 or o'clock in the