Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-08-17
SAYS STATES MUST
.. AID ENFORCEMENT
Mrs. WiIIebrandt Cites New
York to Show Result
of Cooperation.
Continued From First Page.)

No super bureau" at Washington can
be more than a makeShift If it causes
the field Offices and the States and local
committees to dodge responsibility lt
is local opinion and vigilance that will
bring about effectiveness in prohibition
enforcement and every other kind
of law enforcement throughout the
country.
In New York State, where the Legis-
lature during the administration of Gov.
Smith repealed the State liquor enforce
ment laws, leaving the job solely to the
Federal Government, there are between
1000 and 5000 State police and there
are more than 10000 city police. There
are ll3 Supreme Court State judges and
81 county prosecutors. All OF these
agencies might be enlisted to reduce the
crime and lawleSSness that flow from
disregard of the prohibition law, but
they are now and have been inactive as
to prohibition since New York State re-
pealed its own enforcement act.
Federal Force Small.
Certainly a few hundred Federal
agents and 10 Federal judges, with
United States attorneys, cannot hope TO
enforce the prohibition law with any
great degree of success in State con-
tanning about one-tenth OF the Nations
population with practically no help from
the sheriffs, the policemen, the State
prosecuting officers or the State courts.
The metropolitan newspapers, there
fore, are entirely correct and truthful In
telling their readers of the ''wringing
wetness" of New York and other states
which have lodged enforcement respon-
sibility, such as Maryland, Montana,
wisconsin, Nevada and New Jersey. But
they are all wrong in edltorlally using
the facts about wetness to prove tnat
prohibition is unenforceable." 90
not deny that there is bootlegging on
vast scale in New York City and New
York State Liquor running over the
Canadian border has multiplied; places
that used to operate secretly ana with
a certain degree of caution operate
openly with bars and brass rails: hum
dreds OF night clubs in Manhattan are
lust a new form of the old-fashioned
saloons that Tammany used to protect
and to use for pay-off stations on cleo
ton day in times gone by. Inc nlght
clubs have open bars, and yet they can
exist only so long as they can keep
their licenses from liberal city ao-
ministration. OF course. the law Is not
being enforced in New York; it is being
evaded and nullified.
But the responsibility Is not solely
that of the President of the United
States nor of the Attorney General 1t
is the responsibility Of the people OF
New York. They get just the same
kind of prohibition enforcement that
they get of State law enforcement. No
one blames the Federal Government for
the lack of enforcement in New York
of the penalties against murder. Yet
notorious gamblers, not subject to Fed
eral Jurisdiction, are shot down from
time to time and the murdererS go I'M
punished. And the number of murders
exceeds those of all of England.
Graft Under State Laws.
There is graft in the sale of intoxi-
eating LIQUOR, prohibited by Federal law,
and there is likewise graft in the letting
of contracts for sewers authorized under
State laws.
The celebrated night-club hostess who
joked with the judge and the jury and
tried to make her trial into vaudeville
show was not any more contempluous
of the authority of the United States
Government than she was of the people
of New York State and New York City.
Because the New York newspapers
have been giving so much publicity TO
the "Wetness' of the city and State, the
situation there has come to be regarded
by many honest, laW-abiding people as
proof of the unenforceability OF the
prohibition law.
But let's see what the situation in
New York was long before any one even
seriously thought that there might
some time be national law against the
sale of intoxicating liquor. Let's use as
a witness a man whose truthfulneSS and
credibility were never questioned. In
other words, let us see what Theodore
Roosevelt said about the New York
liquor situation in 1895, more than
third of a century ago and 80 years
before the adoption of the eighteenth
amendment. He said:
"All OF our cities have been shame
fully misgoverned in times past, and in
New York the disagreement has been
perhaps more fragrant than anywhere
else The most wealthy saloon keepers
have possessed SO much influence with
the city officials that the police have
not dared to interfere with them. The
politician has been continuously more
corrupt and the saloon keeper more
defiant of law Thousands of arrests