The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1930-07-12
ARTICLE
Uncle sam-BOOtIegger and Spy

Uncle Sam-BOotIegger and Spy
TEARING the mounting costs of
II prohibition enforcement, the
federal government in 1923 began
to beg state governments to take
over the major part of the burden
Of enforcing the national prohibit
ton law; to intercede with foreign
governments TO help us enforce our
own laws. and to grant them au-
thority by treaty to violate both
the eighteenth amendment and the
Volstead act in return for petty
concessions.
The most humiliating feature OF
it all is the figure of the federal
government upon its knees before
its own citizens imploring them to
please observe, obey and respect
the law.
It is our proud heritance to be
the greatest and most powerful ma
ton on earth. But upon the plain
confession of our government we
can not enforce u W laws. we
20 about the streets Of the world,
like a beggar, pleading with for
eign nations and u own people to
help enforce the law against drink.
Since, and only since, it yielded
to the clamor and threats of a rich
" financed professional propaganda
organization, masquerading as the
mouthpiece of Christian churches
Of the United States, and enacted
by constitutional amendment and
solemn statute a law fabricated by
the Anti-Saloon League to control
the lives and habits of 1~20,00O,OOO
citizens.
What is this law that is so sacred
that the government thus is COM
PEELED to sacrifice its national pride
and its national honor in a worse
than futile attempt to enforce?
1t is predicatso upon nothing
more nor less than a legislative lie.
It declares With ali the majesty and
solemnity that the government can
give it that any liquid containing
as much as one-haif of l per cent of
alcohol by Yolume is an intoxicating
liquor.
That definition of an Intoxicating
liquor is a fraud. The President
knows it is a fraud. Every member
of congress knows it. Every judge
on the bench knows it. And yet
this great government that sprang
out of a revolt against tyranny is
tyrannizing its own citizens by
thrusting them into jails and peni-
tentia-ies for the violation of a
statutory %perversion of fact.
TINE government may, if it dares,
Inappropriate more money, thrust
literally millions of citizens in Jail,
and by force of arms compel obedi-
ence to the statute, but neither the
power of guns nor imprisonment, nor
breaking on the wheel, nor any 9TH
er form of tyrannical and brutal
punishment, ever will compel the
people of this republic to respect a
law which the federal government
itself does not respect.
The federal government is an ar
rogant and inexcusable violator
and nullifier of both the eight
zenith amendment and the national
enforcement act which it seeks to
invoke against its citizens, and for
the violation of which cruel and
unusual puniShmentS are de-
manded.
To wiring from foreign govern
ments some small help in the en-
forcement of the law against its
own people, the federal government
has oYerridden the supreme court
of the United States, the eighteenth
amendment, and the national pro-
hibition law by granting every for
eign government that will enter into
a treaty with it, the right to vio-
late the laws at will by transporting
and possessing intoxicating liquors
within the territorial waters of the
United States.
1t supinely grants foreign govern
ments the right to violate the Con-
stitution and the law, and by the
same token it sends its own citizens
to the penitentiary for doing the
self-Same thing. In the face of
these known and scandalous facts
it has the temerity to beg the
people to observe and respect a law
which it neither respects nor OBJ
serves.
. q q
MOREOVER, it spreads over this
wi land a network of spies and
shoppers and fills their pockets with
money for the specific purpose of
violating the law by buying liquor
wherever they can find it. To en-
force the law, the government itself
has to violate it. 1t even has
stopped to the level of hiring Negro
operators of these joints, and Negro
informers, to entrap police. sherifs
and other public officials chosen by
tIo -oo1Ia IF Tho cfafae ond ~n1rInici-