The American issue. [volume] (Westerville, Ohio) 1912-19??, 1930-02-01


days" In part, DR.. Doran said
Conditions have changed vastly in this
country in the last two or three decades.
You can't look at prohibition in the light
of other days. We have developed me-
chanical energy that makes necessary the
submitting to some extent, of individual
liberty to legitimate authority.
THE new mechanical energy applied to
1ocomotion for instance, has put on our
highways millions of automobiles. We
killed 10000 persons in this country with
automobiles last year. If England had the
population of the United States, taking
the number of similar killings that &C.
Cured there, they would have killed $780,
900 persons.
"The capacity for destruction in this
and other directions makes the thought
of no regulation for our country absolute
1y intolerable.
whatever may be told you, rest as
sured that the prohibition laws are being
enforced. Not 100 per cent Of course. No
criminal law can attain that degree of
efficiency There can be no absolute pre-
vention of the commission of crime.
But the Federal government maintains
order in the wet centers Of the country
which in reality hover on an abyss of po-
tential laWlessness that does not seem to
be realized And we are gradually driving
the bootleggerS back into the no mans
land Of outlawry, where we can identify
and apprehend them.
ITO cripple scientific and educational
institutions, the medical arts and COM
mercial organizations dependent on the
procurement of essential alcohol, would
be too big price to pay for extreme ma
tional prohibition. Our administrators
and special agents are doing wonderful
work reducing the diversion from the
hundred million gallons Of alcohol pro-
duced last year. Careful examination of
all figures show a diversion OF less than
per cent of the entire production and less
than one-fifth of the diversion Of three
years ago.
1.-THE bootleg user is being singled out
where he can be dealt with. For every
gallon of industrial alcohol diverted there
are at least seven or eight gallons of high
proof alcohol produced illicitly from corn
sugar and put on the bootleg market in
the form of alcohol, gin and alleged i'm
ported whisky"
USE FORCE IF NEEDED
The commissioner brought the audience
to it's feet with cheers when he made this
statement:
LIE OOdSG Vic
and other enforcement agencies of the
government will use arms whenever such
use may be necessary in their own defense
in the execution Of their duties.
1.-THE point regarding the enforcement
of the prohibition laws is not that errors
are being made, but that We profit by our
errors to do better"
Another speaker representing the Fed
eral government was James j. Britt, at
torney for the National Prohibition Blu
reau, who declared that not 1900 as re-
ported by many newspapers but only 206
persons have lost their lives in the ten
years Of prohibition enforcement. Colonel
Britt insisted that the prohibition agents
charged with killings acted entirely in
Self-defenSe.
with the last ten years our little force
of agents made $4,000 arrests, seized 245,-
900 illicit distilleries, 100000 gallons of
spirituous liquor, $4,000 automobiles d.
600 bottles and much miscellaneous prop
erty all of which had forfeiture value
of $136000,000. Fines to the amount of
$57000,OO0 with total imprisonment Of
$4,000 years were imposed" he said
One of the interested delegates at the
convention was Dr. Frank T. Doran the
father of DR.. James M. Doran, who has
given So years to the Methodist Church in
its pulpits and at Hamline University at
st. Paul, of which he is now field Secre-
tary. Rev. DR.. Doran declared he was
very glad to be the father of the COM