Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-02-17
REED .FLAYS ''DRINKING DRYS''
IN DERISIVE SPEECH IN SENATE
Fiery Missourian Says u. S.
Held in Reign of Hypoc-
riSy by Prohibition.
Threatens to Bare Names of
Those Who FIoUt Law
Secretly.
BY the Associated Press.

FAsSSShuhGN
| A torrent of scorn and derision for
prohibition and the principles of pro-
hibition was loosed in the Senate yes
| terday by Sena tor Reed of Missouri.
Delivering one of the few extended
! speeches of the session. which is seeing
the MiSsourian bow himself voluntarily
off the stage of public service, he
turned upon those who voted dry and
drink wet with fury which even he
has seldom approached in the historic
years of his turbulent senatorial career.
So scorching was his attack that the
long g-awaited Reed-Borah debate on
prohibition, the dream of those who
love to listen to sharply-turned forensic
thrusts and counterthrusts, became a
possible oratorical treat for the week.
At the request of Senator Borah the
Senate agreed to remove the limit on
debate, but whether the Idahoen will
decide to reply directly to Senator Reed
tomorrow was not fully disclosed.
Law Held U. S. Worst Crime.
The Missouri Democrat contended
that the United States is in reign
of hypocrisy and cant, of violence.
chicanery, false pretense and fraud" !"
and predicted that the time would come
when the American people would
awaken to the view that "the prohibi-
tory law is the worst crime that has
ever taken place"
He shouted that man who voted
dry, but nevertheless drinks, is "a COW
ard-a knavish coward" and said he
might in time make public the names OF
members OF Congress whose personal
habits are contrary to their sentiments
as registered by their votes on prohibi-
ton proposals.
The Jones bill to increase penalties
for prohibition law violators was the
order of bv2lness in the Senate, and url-
der a previous agreement debate on the
measure would have been limited after
pm. yesterday At the request Of
Senator Borah four additional hours of
unrestricted discussion was provided.
AS Reed warmed to his subject he
predicted that in time the country Will
see the prohibition law come Ito an
ignominious end"
"The day will come" he thundered,
when the man who votes for pronlpi-
ton and who himself violates the let
ter and the spirit of the law will be
held in that kind of contempt which
ought to. be visited upon the knavish
hypocrite who masks himself behind
pretended virtue, and who seeks to hold
office by virtue of his false pretense.
"The day will come when judges who
have made malefactors of decent boys
and men will sink into that obloquy
which is the just reward Of cruelty, op-
preston and wrong.
Says Groups Control Government.
"The day will come in this country
when organized groups will no longer
conduct the Government, but once
more the voice Of the people will be
heard, and that voice will pronounce
the knell of those who have yielded
that thrift might follow fawning"
The Senator asserted he had no
criticism of those men who themselves
observe the doctrines they would force
on others, but, he declared;
II hold in an adherence and con-
tempt that cannot be painted In any
tongue that man has ever possessed the
creature who. to keep his place in this
body or in the House of Representa-
tives will make that a felony which
he himself connives at in his personal
practice"
Acidly the Senator told of drinking
at the Republican and Democratic con-
yentions last Summer at Kansas City
and Houston. He said that just prior
to the convention at Houston a boat
was seized and great quantities of liquor
were confiScated.
1T was manifest to anybody but a
plain, ordinary fool,' the Missourian
declared, that that arrest was arranged
for. The papers spread 1t broadcast
convention where everybody was as dry
as Sahara Desert camel. Then in the
hotels everybody was informed the par
ticular room where the liquor could be
obtained"
Laughter Greets Sally.
"At Kansas City" he went on, turning
| to the Republican side of the cham
ber, leading official prohibitionists
were paying the boys in the hotels from
81 to $40 a pint "for class of whisky
| that no respectable Missourian would
ever think of drinking" There was
laughter from the floor and gallery and
attendants shushed down this infraction
of the rules.
THE liquor was across the street
from the leading hotels and could not
have been there If the Republican con-
vention had not been there" Reed
shouted Then these sniveling hypo-
critics adopted a plank In favor of pro-
hibition enforcement I have sometimes
been tempted to write list OF the
names of men who vote dry and drink
wet. / do not know but I shall do it
yet.
Prohibition is the breeding place of
crime, because there has been driven
from the open into the dark the liquor
| business" he declared. 1T has been
taken out of the hands of a class of
people who we're law abiding and put
into the hands of people who, the min
ute they begin to act, are criminals.
CONTINUED on Page 4. Column L.