Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1931-08-07
u. S. BOOTLEGS LIQUOR,
SENATOR REED SAYS
Missourian Assails Dry-Law Policy, Git
ing Federal Speakeasies and Calling
Taxes Crime Cut.
Special Dispatch to The star.

| Special Dispatch to The Star.
NEW YORK, August THE United
| States Government is actively engaged
| in the business of bootlegging. former
| United States Senator James A. Reed
| of Missouri charges in a vigorous attack
| on the Federal prohibition enforcement
policy. He declares that the Govern
ment operates speakeasies, takes its
cut" of liquor profits as the secret
partner" of the gang chief, and finances
the making of homemade wines.
II indict the Federal Government for
setting up and operating Negro speak
easies, with Negro spies, under the di-
| recticn of drunken prohibition agents,
to bride and entrap policemen, sheriffs
and other State officers for the purpose
of 'jamming' them tp prison" he writes
| in the September Cosmopolitan Maya
zine He charges Judge Frank Cooper
Of the United States District Court of
Northern New York with having in
| structed prohibition agents ito engage
| in rum smuggling and rum running"
! Agents were provided with money. out
+, of the Federal Treasury, and an auto
| mobile, with which to go into Canada,
| buy liquor bring 1t into the United
States and sell it to bootleggers in the
vicinity Of Troy and Albany.
Says U. S. Set Up Speakea1es.
"The undercover operations of the
Prohibition Bureau in Norfolk, Va, and
vicinity violated every law of decency
and morals, as well as the statutory law.
A director of the Virginia Anti-Saloon
League made complaint against the
Norfolk police officers to the Federal
| Prohibition Bureau in Washington, and
1 agents sent from Washington took in
| structions from him He furnished
money to the agent to buy liquor, and
stored 1t in his own safe. These agents
without delay established Negro speak
| easy in a remodeled stable and en-
ployed Negro bartender and criminal
] to help them operate it.
BY September, 1880, We find Negro
| speakeasy, also operated by criminals,
in full swing at Indianapolis, and again
set up by prohibition agents to trap
| policemen.
For 10 years the Federal Govern
ment has been pleading with State Of
| ficials and members of local police de-
partments to take over the burden of
prohibition enforcement But 1t resorts
| to the lowest and most despicable
| criminal methods known to the human
race to entrap these local officers and
| have them railroaded to jail.
Wine Making Aid Charged.
! ut seems absolutely impossible for
/ the Federal Government to keep out of
| the bootlegging business" former Sena-
| tor Reed continues. However, it re-
| manned for the administration of Her.
| bert Hoover to finance the business
as a Nationwide project, with the
/ taxpayers money. One of the early
official acts of President Hoover was to
| call a special session of Congress to
pass a farm relief bill which authorized
| the Federal Farm Board. under certain
conditions. to extend financial help TO
needy farmers.
THE first group OF farmers to claim
attention of the board was the Cali
/ fornia grape growers. Loans were made
| by it, up to January 10, 1881. totaling
! Sl9l87 ,622.07 to the California Grape
! Control Board, which ships every year
! 10000 cars of grapes available for home
| wine making OF this sum, $2,555, $50
| was lent directly to Fruit Industries,
Ltd, whose principal business is the pro-
! duction and sale of grape concentrates
| for the sure and easy manufacture of
/ wines and champagnes containing II
| to IS per cent of alcohol
! THE loans to the grape growers
| were made after negotiations with 8
] lEOtu SdIl FtaHCASSDt
| who only short time ago shared Of
| fee quarters with Herbert Hoover. Fruit
| Industries. Ltd, has as its general coun-
sci and legal guardian Mrs. Mabel
| Walker Willebrandt who, as Assistant
| Attorney General of the United States,
gained her experience in prohibition
| matters by sending people to jail for
| violating the law which, according to
the literature of Fruit Industries, Ltd.
permits the production and use of
| heavily alcoholic wines in the home.
SAYS U. S. Gets Crime "Cut."
Although successful in experimenting
the gill-fiaSk toter, the rural stiller, the
| Government upon its own record OF
non performance stands convicted of
| its inability TO reach the big fellows,
the barons whose distilleries are organ
lied for mass production; whose fleets
of armed trucks and network of chain
store speak-easieS serve millions of
customers daily; who command arse
| mails Of machine guns, and from whom
word DEGREES life or death to their
| subjects Like the micToScopically
organized eyes Of certain insects. pro-
| hibition agents evidently cannot focus
upon beings so vast as these.
yet another group of Federal en-
| ployes seem to have better luck In ma
| terializing these shadowy miliionaires
Of the underworld Paid from the same
treasury and under identical civil
service discipline and regulation with
prohibition agents, Uncle Sans income
tax collectors with surprising frequency
drop in upon some alcohol overload who
had thought that everything was
| Jake
However, the authority Of these
public servants is limited to assessing
and collecting the Governments statu-
| tory share IN the bootlegger's profits
BY the same statute they are prohibited
from making public the nature Of the
Illegal business; on the information OBJ