Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1930-02-02
Williamson Measure Again
Amended on Alcohol Per-
mits Provision as Wet-Dry
Debates Are Continued.
LEHLBACH DECLARES
LAW is HOPELESS
Reply to Fort Says User Must Be
Declared the Criminal to Get Re-
sults-Schafer Withdraws Re-
mark About Christ Furnishing
Wine at a Wedding.
BY G. GOULD LINCOLN.

The House will be given an op-
portunity this week to vote on
the first of the bills to reach it,
carrying out the Presidents pro-
gram for strengthening prohibit
ton enforcement, if the plans
of the leaders are carried out.
Chairman Smell of the rules COM
mittee said last night he thought
it would be possible to take up.
the Williamson bill, transferring
to the Department of Justice
from the Treasury Department
the duty of enforcing prohibition,
by Thursday.
Earlier in the day the commit
tee on expenditures in the exec
utive departments had amended
the Williamson bill again so as to
authorize the Attorney General
and the Secretary of the Treas
ury jointly to draw up regula-
lions governing industrial alcohol
withdrawal permits. This provision
was In the bill originally, but had been
changed so as to place the authority
in the hands of the Attorney General,
although leaving the issue Of permits
In the Treasury Department. The bill
as now approved by the committee,
however, gives the Attorney General
sole authority to administer the proni-
bition bureau, which will be transferred
to the Department of Justice.
Debate Is Continued.
Debate over the wet and dry issue
continued yesterday in the House and
in the Hobbies of both the House and
Cns1n t0v nTOOEf1orf ~
Iowa, ardent dry, came forward with a
suggestion that Mai. Gen. Smedley D.
Butler of the United States Marine
Corps be made prohibition commits
sioner when the enforceH1ent OrgaI1iza-
ton is placed under the Department
of Justice, as provided in the William
SON bill Gen. Butler several years ago
was relieved from duty with the Ma
rine Corps to try to clean up condi-
tons in Philadelphia. The Iowa SEN
ator insisted that Gen. Butler would be
able to enforce the law effectively If
he were placed in charge.
At the same time in the House, Rep
reSentative Lehlbach of New Jersey,
Republican, and q wet, was denouncing
the prohibition law and insisting that
1t could never be enforced. Mr.. Lehl-
bach was speaking in reply to his cole
league, Representative Franklin Fort,
who in the House on Friday defended
national prohibition and at the same
time argued that the eighteenth amend
ment and the Volstead act did not pro-
hibit drinking alcoholic beverages, but
merely sought to prohibit commercial
traffic in those beverages. It was Mr..
Forts contention that the people could,
If they wished, make home brew. light
wines and beer, and use them legally.
Disputed by LehIbach.
Mr.. Lehlbach. on the other hand. in
sisted that the eighteenth amendment
and the Volstead act were designed to
eliminate all drinking of alcoholic bev.
erages. He argued that it was idle to
seek merely to attack the bootlegger
and those who made liquor for sale.
He said:
"The abolition of drinking, I repeat,
is the aim of prohibition. Yet ali
effort is not against the drinking, but
against the sources of its supply. But
while the drinker remains such, sources
Will always exist. You may break up
and scatter one source, but another
VIII spring up over night. Demand al
ways creates supply. No government.
not even under military law, can de-
prive its citizens of what they want
and feel they are rightfully entitled to.
There is only one way honestly and
sincerely to try to enforce prohibition.
Drop sharns and subterfuges and de-
clare the user Of alchoholic beverages
the criminal and turn loose your en-
forcement forces against him.
I'm this way we will have a prompt
and certain showdown on prohibition
enforcement.
Jones without Comment.
Senator Wesley L. Jones OF WASH
ington, who has for years been a strong
advocate of prohibition and is CO.
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