The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1929-05-16
JONES PROHIBITION LAW

Senator Wesley Jones, the author
of the much discussed act bearing his
name, which provides penalties for
the violation of the prohibition laws,
spoke in Pittsburgh recently and ex-
planned both in an interview and to
his audience the provisions of this act.
That it has been grossly misrep-
resented by a large and influential
part of the press Of the country is
well known to few people but not
to most of them. 1t has been repre-
sented that any one who possesses
liquor can be sentenced to imprison-
ment for a period Of. five years and
even William Randolph Hearst, the
publisher of many newspapers thru
out the country, in criticising Presi-
dent Hoover's last address on law en-
forcement said that a man who takes
a drink of liquor might be sent to
prison for five years.
The Jones act, which was passed
by congress by the largest majority
ever given any prohibition legislation,
simply provides for penalties to fit
the crimes committed under the 18th
amendment. 1t applies only to those
who manufacture, sell, import and eX-
port liquor for beverage purposes.
Under it's provisions the big bootleg
ger who is engaged in a city-wide, a
statewide or even a nationwide traf-
fic in liquor may be sentenced, if con-
victed, to five years imprisonment and
fined as high as $4,000, but the small
fry in the bootlegging business can
be fined as low as $1.00 or imprisoned
for but one day.
The question of sentence is not fix
ed by the law but is left to the dis
erection of the judge who has heard
all the testimony in the case and is
best able to determine whether or not
the guilty party is deserving of a
heavy, light or medium sentence.
The Jones law after all does not
differ very much from most of the
other criminal laws. One banker who
systematically has been robbing the
people for years and finally gets away
with some hundreds of thousands of
dollars usually gets no sympathy
from the people or mercy from the
court when convicted and sentence
of several years in the penitentiary is
a deserved one. A young clerk in a
bank in time of temptation and of
stress takes a few dollars and is
guilty of exactly the same crime but
the court is more lenient with him.
The Jones act has been held up by
the "wet" newspapers and the oppon-
ents of prohibition as being a drastic
law, one which provides penalties all
out of proportion to the character Of
the crime or violation.
We believe that every fair minded
person in this country will agree that
the man who commentaries the liq-
uor traffic deliberately and with the
hope of making large illicit profits,
who floods the market with bever-
age which poisons men or drives them
crazy, is deserving of a sentence of
five years. He is not only a menace
to society but corrupts officials and
encourages all other forms of crime.
The great increase in crime during
the past few years has not been due
to prohibition, as Senator Jones well
said, but to the lack of prohibition.
If we had real enforcement in this
country and conscientious observance
of the law by all our citizens who be-
lieve in law, there would be less crime
of all kinds.
The tendency to break the laws has
not been due to prohibition but to the
breaking down of that spirit of re-
straint and control. Too many are de-
manding personal liberty, but there
is no liberty for free citizens in this
republic or in any other except lib
erty under the law