PROHIBITION: 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."