Committee Hearings

A little committee room became last week the hub of political interest. Five men sat during long hours sometimes lasting into the night to learn about prohibition. They were the subcommittee of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Four are Drys. One, James A. Reed of Missouri, is wet.

The panel of witnesses against Volsteadism appeared first, led by thoughtful Senator Bruce of Maryland and industrious Senator Edge of New Jersey:

Senator Bruce made, according to Senator Reed, the ablest presentation of the anti-prohibition case ever submitted by a public man.

"Like a cancer which, in its last stages, seems actually to thrive upon the knife, violations of the Volstead act may almost be said to have thrived. . . .

"Moonshine, instead of being made as it was before the enactment of the Volstead Act in a few crude, sequestered localities, is now made, as the daily discoveries of the Federal and State prohibition forces evince, in swamps, in mountain fastnesses, in dense thickets, on rivers, in attics, in basements, in garages, in warehouses, in office buildings, even in caves and other undergound retreats. In other words, moonshine is almost as ubiquitous as the radiance of the moon itself. . . ."

Senator Bruce declared that "the Volstead Act has converted the Federal Government, with its denaturing outfit of poisons and filth, into a more monstrous Caesar Borgia than any that medieval Italy ever knew. In other ways also, it has filled the stomachs of the people with deadly concoctions."

Challenging the view that prohibition brought U.S. prosperity:

"Prohibition does not exist in Canada, outside of some of its maritime provinces and Ontario, which, however, does not lack 4% beer. Yet, the economic welfare of Canada during the last five years, as evidenced in building and other material activities, is so amazing that at times the Canadian dollar has commanded a premium over our dollar. . . .

"The recent utterances of Jewish rabbis, Protestant bishops and ministers, and of Catholic prelates like Cardinals O'Connell and Hayes, demonstrate the existence of a growing feeling, even among the American clergy, that absolute prohibition is not the ally but the enemy of human morality."

Between them, Sentor Bruce and his associate, Senator Edge, compressed into their statements all the general arguments against prohibition as it now is.

General Lincoln C. Andrews (Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in charge of prohibition) occupied the hearings for most of two days. He was exhaustively quizzed on facts and figures. Such details as his statement that "non-freeze" alcoholic compounds sold in automobile filling stations were being used for booze, provoked careful examination.

At one point General Andrews was being pressed to explain how 875 out of 10,000 prohibition agents had been discharged for cause. In a whisper Senator Harreld (dry) interposed:

"One out of twelve of the Disciples went wrong, and this is only one out of ten.

"But there is no Jesus Christ in this either at the head or along the line," replied Senator Reed. "My friend has gone into Biblical matters, a question I did not understand he was at all familiar with."

Emory Buckner, Federal attorney of New York, whose dour padlocking of some of Manhattan's most famous places of carousal has won him fame in the smart set, was kept longest before the committee. He reiterated his views that prohibition could be enforced only by the erection of an entirely new judicial system on a gigantic scale, and the expenditure of vaster millions.

Labor Leaders -- the most eminent in the country -- came as strong advocates of modification. All expressed horror at the effect of prohibition on morals. They submitted personal testimony such as this from John Sullivan, president of the New York State Federation of Labor:

"We were in a first-class hotel at a gathering and I had occasion to go to the lavatory, the gentlemen's lavatory, and I was astounded to see there three young girls with three men and they were drinking out of a flask and handing it around."

And the second point, on which all agreed, was that the laboring man wants his beer.

Canadians, two, concluded the wet evidence, Sir William Stavert of Quebec and Francis W. Russell of Winnipeg. They exulted over the complete success of government control and sale of liquor.

Drys opened their rebuttal by the appearance of representatives from scores of organizations (chiefly of women) with long names, representing scores of thousands of members. Famed women such as Commander Evangeline Booth sent personal proxies. "We stand," said Mrs. Henry Peabody, "for the strongest thing in enforcement and the weakest thing in liquor."