Maryland independent. [volume] (Port Tobacco, Md.) 1874-current, 1930-02-21
NEWS REVIEW OF
CURRENT EVENTS
Vets Give House Committee
Opinion Of Dry Laws
Hughes Confirmed.
BY howard W. PIcKARp

MTHAT the opponents of the
w Eighteenth amendment and the
Volstead act really think of those
pieces of legislation and their effect
on the lives and morals Of the Amer
lean people was brought out forcibly
last week in a hearing held by the
judiciary committee of the house of
representatives. That body has be-
fore 1t number of bills designed to
cancel or modify the prohibition laws,
and Chairman George S. Graham of
Pennsylvania, himself wet, decided
to give both sides chance to present
their best arguments. The public in
to the hearing in numbers that
thronged the large house caucus room.
Mr.. Graham, opening the proceed
ings, said: "This hearing will not in
terfere with President Hoovers crime
commission, but rather, be in aid
thereof"
The Eighteenth amendment, he as
serted, has been tested for ten years
without satisfactory results. enforce
ment having left "a train of conse-
quences most deplorable and depress-
ing to every patriot.
''Let us reason together" he sug-
gested. mot with the fanatic, for he
is the foe of religious as well as in
dividual liberty, but with broad
minded men and women of every faith
and belief, and try to relieve our
country by conceiving new system
one not founded on the bludgeon and
violation of mems conscientious con-
victions regarding drink.
mo law can ever be enforced that
is destructive of right and individual
liberty. You may create a guerrilla
warfare and its conditions, reeking
with murder, bribery, corruption, vio-
lations, or evasions and disrespect for
all law. Every law to be capable of
being enforced without such a train
Of consequences must not be incon-
sistent with the mind of the people
of the country as being right and must
not be destructive Of individual lib
erty."
Representative SABBATH of Illinois
first explained his proposed amend
ment giving the government control
over the dispensing Of liquor as in
Sweden and Canada, and then called
as his first witness Walter w. Lig-
gett, magazine writer whose articles
on prohibition have brought him be-
fore various grand juries. For an
hour Mr.. Liggett told of the crime.
debauchery, corruption and hypocrisy
he said he had found existing in Wash
ington, Boston, Michigan, Kansas,
Minnesota and North Dakota. Sum-
marizing it. he said:
ain Washington 700 speakeasies and
1000 bootleggers operate unmolested.
In Boston prostitution is rampant, with
$4,000 persons engaged in purveying
booze. In Kansas, after 80 years of
prohibition, there is not town where
I can't buy drink in five minutes !;
Detroit is in the grip of gangsters and
crooked politicians; drinking goes on
merrily in Minneapolis; and North
Dakota consumes immeasurably more
liquor than before prohibition"
The witness made many sensa-
tional detailed statements and when
cross-examined by drys he declared he
could prove them all but was sure he
would not be called on to do so.
This was only the start, for the AS
ISOLATION Opposed to the Prohibition
Amendment had long line of wit
nesses ready for each proposed bill
After the vets were through, of course,
the drys were to have their oppor-
tunity, and they, too, were fully
primed for the occasion.
DOTH vets and Democrats were
- cheered by the results of an cleo
ton in the Springfield (Mass.) district
to fill a congressional vacancy. The
successful candidate was Fred d.
Griggs, a Democrat and an avowed
wet. The Democrats professed to be-
lieve this presaged the election of a
Democrat in November to succeed
Senator #. H. Gillett, who is not a
candidate for denomination. The
Springfield district, which is the home