The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1929-07-30
Prohibition Alibi

TIOulOIGlOu EIlUl
When failure of the prohibition experiment gets so
bad that even the professional drys begin to abb
things are moving.
whats Wrong With Prohibition" is the title OF
an article in the current Golfers by DR.. Clarence
True Wilson one Of the two three bosses Of the drys
since Mr. Wayne B. Wheeler died
For ten years lot of citizens have been asking that
question They will be glad to know that the dry
leaders have finally got around to it.
Dr. Wilson has found things wrong with pro-
hibtion than the lawyers for the wet organizations
Here are few of his points:
IF the aim was to make mockery of the whole
thing the legislation perfectly adapted to its pur-
pose"
The department Of justice has been utterly in
efficient and, in most cases, very much worse than
that"
The large number Of those who publicly talk and
vote dry but who privately patronize the bootlegger
and therefore, lend their financial support and social
prestige to the organized violation of the law is fact
to be depored"
He goes on to point out that prohibition has
suited in corruption among enforcement officials poll
ticians and judges.
But how could this happen? The drys wrote the
eighteenth amendment and the Volstead act which
he finds so defective. The drys recommended the ap
pointment of the prohibition enforcement GEARS"
Some tall albi obviously is necessary. Dr. Will
son provides it. The point of all this failure is not
that the pure principle OF prohibition has failed but
that the drys themselves have failed, says he. And
being very much in need of goat, he picks the late
Mr.. Wheeler.
Next ninety hundredths of the good this
legislation was designed to do was cut off in foul
stroke by following the advice of lawyer, Mr..
Wayne B. Wheeler" Not to make buying liquor an
ofense0
Mr.. Wheeler, one of the drys who always assumed
to speak for all the drys and who did not con-
suit his own organization in such matters :"
Since Mr.. Wheeler has been dead for some time,
how can the more recent prohibition failures be ex
planned?
Because the drys have gone to sleep the job, be-
cause they "mstook the battle for the funeral" be-
cause they have fought among themselves because
they have not organized enough spent money enough,
brought pressure enough to improve the law and en-
forcement machinery and to convert the public &C
cording to Dr. Wilson.
Apparently, he does not realize that his solution
is more damnmg than mis- Indictment If ten years
OF the experiment has produced the failure he
describes despite all the control exercised by the drys
and all their propaganda to convert the public isn't it
rather giving the whole case away to prescribe
dry control of officials and dry public propa-
ganda.
AS for Wayne B. Wheeler, whom DR.. Wilson credits
with the appointment of The government enforcement
chiefs, we agree that he was powerful.
Indeed, he was perhaps the most powerful single
political figure in the country during the Harding and
Coolidge administrations
But even So it is going little strong to make him
the goat for all the dry failures,
We suspect that Mr.. Wheeler represented the dry
movement at it's high point.
We doubt whether Mr.. Wilson or any other pro-
fessonal dry will ever have the power the
country.