Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1930-08-30
Liquor and Vagrancy Also Hit
in Ia Recommendations
in Annual Report.
AUTOMOBILE TITLE ACT
is SOUGHT FOR DISTRICT
Adequate Regulations Asked for
Persons Practicing Cure of
Diseases.

| Fourteen recommendations designed
to effect better control of such police
problems as liquor, drug taking anC
vagrancy are carried in the annual re.
port of Maj. Henry G. Pratt, superin-
tendent of police, forwarded to the Dis
| trict Commissioners today.
Maj. Pratt strongly urges making drug
| addiction felony and follows this UP
with request for amendments to the
medical practice act so as to provide
for adequate regulations of persons
practicing as chiropractors and osteo-
paths and others who attempt to treat
disease He recommends passage of the
Gilbert bill to regulate the practice OF
executing criminal bonds for those
charged with crime in the District.
He asks a $4,000 fund for enforcing
liquor laws and renews the often-made
recommendation that all officers on his
force be given authority by act of Con-
gresS to enforce the Volstead act.
He advocates an automobile title law
for the District, a law giving police
more control over dance halls and an
other allowing them to enter clubs
whether incorporated or not, and still
another, allowing pawnbrokerS again to
do business in the District.
Pratt's Recommendations.
The recommendations together with
the supporting reasons given by Maj.
Pratt are as follows:
Il recommend as a matter of most
urgent necessity the enactment of leg
islation providing for an increase over
three-year period in the Metropolitan
Police Force to a minimum of 1900
patrolmen: no increase requested in
estimates for fiscal year 1882, as Con-
greSS is very liberal in appropriations
for the fiscal year 1881.
II recommend that the personnel of
the Detective Bureau be increased to at
least 100 men, to be in two grades, 40
OF whom should be rated as second
grade, or probationary, detective SER
geantS, with additional compensation
equal to one-half the additional COM
pensation paid detective sergeants, their
advancement to. the higher grade to be
dependent on the character of work
performed. This plan would enable the
department to assign men to specialized
work in various types of law enforce
ment and at the same time leave avail
able sufficient force for such general
assignments as are essential in the
established work of the Detective
Bureau.
Wants $4,000 Fund.
urge as a matter of real necessity
that the national prohibition act be
amended so that members of the police
force will have the same authority as
other officers of the Government en-
forcing laws relating to the manufac-
ture and sale of intoxicating beverages
In the VolStead act and the Harrison
narcotic act we are confronted with the
only statutes of this character in force
today in which it Is found necessary to
swear in members of the force as pc
cial agents of another branch of the
Government in order to enable them to
take proper action in case of violations
of said acts.
at is most urgently recommended
that the sum Of $4,000 be appropriated
solely and specifically for procuring
evidence and in the payment OF
reputable agents for the enforcement
of the vice, liquor and gambling laws,
the expenditure from such appropria-
ton to be approved by the Commits
sionerS upon the recommendation of
the major and superintendent of police,
such legislation to contain diflnte
provision setting forth clearly the fact
that any part of the appropriation may
be used either for the purchase of
evidence or for the payment of in
formers, both of which procedures are
absolutely essential to even the slight
est measure of success in securing a
reasonably effective enforcement of the
laws referred to.
ST recommend increased appropria-
lions for the purchase of high-powered
automobiles for assignment to the de-
tective bureau and in cases of emer-
gency to the various precincts. The
criminal has been quick to seize upon
the motor vehicle as a means Of in
creasing his efficiency, and surely the
Police Department should be equally
prompt in availing itself of all the
methods offered by science and inven-
ton to circumvent the activities of the
criminal class.
81 can conceive of nothing more i'm
portant to the law-enforcing agency OF
any municipality than that it should
have control of and freedom of entry
into all clubs whether Incorporated Oh
not
1T urgently recommend the passage
of House Bill So. SEVENTEEN Congress
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