The Daily Alaska empire., 1932-01-29
CHINESE CITY ATTIRE; BOMBS DROPPED
HOUSE SPEAKER. DEFENDS REPEAL.
 OF LIQUOR LAW
Representative Winn Says Repeal Needed to Serve
 Ends of Humanity

Declaring that any Wet and Dry fight on the bill to repeal the Alaska Bone Dry Law is without justification, Representative Grover C.. Vim, Speaker of the 1881 Alas ka House of Representatives, today expressed the hope that Delegate Wickersham's bill would be report ed favorably by the Committee on Territories and passed by Con- gress to 'give the people of Alaska relief from conditions that are well-nigh intolerable."
 "The Alaska Legislature of 1881 by a unanimous vote passed bill repeating the Alaska Bone Dry Law and memorialized Congress to validate it, expressly stating that it should not be construed as for or against Prohibition but that it's ac- tion was based on humanity" de clared Speaker Winn.
 Reasons Were Compelling
 "The reasons advanced before the Legislature for repeal were com polling. They are based on justice and no more meritorious legisla- tion will come before Congress than the Wickersham measure tc validate the Legislatures Act. It will not affect Prohibition in the slightest, neither adding to nor taking away from the agencies that enforce the Prohibition laws, nor depriving them of any power of enforcement" he said.
 "Tshe situation in Alaska is alto- gether different from that in the States" MT. Winn pointed out, "The latter have agencies for law en- forcement and State Prohibition enforcement laws are used to clothe them with the necessary authority to reinforce the Federal agencies.
 No Local Agencies
 "In Alaska, we have no Terri torial enforcement agencies. All of our laws are enforced by Federal authorities and all of our cases tried in Federal courts. Violations in Alaska of the Prohibition laws can be prosecuted as readily under the National Prohibition Act as under the Alaska Bone Dry Law. The former, passed two years after the latter, both Congressional en- enactment is paramount where the provision of the two come into conflict, as Judge Wickersham properly pointed out to the Com mittee on Territories.
 "The repeal of the Alaska Bone Dry Act would not rob the Fed eral agencies of any power they now have to make arrests for vio- lations of the liquor laws nor the courts of any functions in prosecu- tions"
 Medicinal Liquor Prohibited
 The aim of the Legislature in seeking to repeal the local act, said Mr. Vim, was to make it possible for hospitals and physicians to obtain supplies of liquor for medi- cinal purposes without violating the law, or without it being necessary for officers of the law to wink at technical violations. Under the Alaska Bone Dry Law one or the other has to be done in order to obtain alcoholic liquors to be used as medicines.
 Even in the shipment of alcohol to Alaska to be used by druggists in the manufacture of essential remedies, at least one court has held that permits authorizing such shipments cannot be legally issued and has refused to issue them, MT. Winn declared.
 Ut is evident that such a situa- tion is contrary to all ethics and bad public policy" said the Speak CT. '.It mitigates against the en- forcement of all laws and particu- larly the Prohibition laws. It ought to be ended as quickly as possible and only Congress can bring it to on ovdv