Prohibition As It Is IV. RIVERS OF BEER ON THE ATLANTIC SEABOARD: BALTIMORE, PHILADELPHIA, NEW JERSEY A BY ROLLIN LYNDE HARTT YOUNG Virginian and a redhaired bell-hop were drinking together when I happened upon them in a low cabaret in Baltimore, and it was interesting to note the equality which prohibition had established. If the Virginian represented the old aristocracy of the South, the bell-hop, enriched by bootlegging, represented a new aristocracy whose pretensions will be observed a few years hence, the country over. It is true that the Virginian had engaged the bell-hop to show him Baltimore after dark-a rather doubtful compliment, considering how Baltimore behaves after dark-but the bell-hop saved his dignity by assuming the rôle less of a guide than of a host. Presently he had a crowd at table, and was tossing out five-dollar bills with a free hand. "Baltimore," Mr. Crabbe, of the AntiSaloon League, explained next day, "has been the garbage can for the entire South. As state after state went dry, the worst liquor men came here. Ours was the last Southern state to adopt prohibition, and to-day we have a wet governor, who appoints Baltimore's police commissioner; we have no state enforcement law; we have a wet press and a public hostile to the Volstead Act." "WHISKY SYMPATHY" IN MARYLAND of Johns Hopkins University denounced the Volstead Act, and at the conference of governors on enforcement the Governor of Maryland defied the President." While in Baltimore, I was shown an article by Mark Sullivan, who is said by Baltimoreans to understand the situation as few outsiders do. In that article Mr. Sullivan observes: Opposition to the Volstead Act has a status in Maryland that it has in no other state. One of the reasons perhaps is that there is in Maryland a kind of distilling aristocracy, a number of families of wealth and position in the distilling business for years. Another reason is that, in the days before prohibition, social entertainment in Maryland was accompanied by features not consistent with the existence of prohibition, and there is a kind of local pride about it which now feels outraged. This local pride found expression not long ago in a speech before a House committee at Washington by Chief Justice Klecka of the People's Court, Baltimore, who said: "I have spent, I believe, about a quarter of a million dollars in the last eight years and in doing so I went to many a place. I spent, I guess, in Washington alone, $70,000 on good times in one year on Senators, Congressmen, and Ambassadors." When the chairman interrupted with: "You are what they call a royal good fellow," he said: "I was and am still; yes. Sometimes called the biggest sport in Baltimore city." A distinguished Baltimorean, Captain W. H. Stayton, U. S. N., retired, is president of the Baltimore Steamship Company and founder and vice-president of the Association Against the Prohibition Amendment. Interested more in the 662 "Thousands of Arrests" in Philadelphia national than in the local aspects of prohibition, he delights to name the important employers of labor who have joined his organization. "There is an impression all over the country," he says, "that most large employers of labor are in favor of the present state of affairs, and there is a current belief that many of them believe that they can exploit a man more-or that a man who never takes a drink will do more work than a man who does. That is not a fair view of many large employers of labor." Of his own attitude toward prohibition, Captain Stayton says: "I was a prohibitionist before this law was passed. I have never voted for anything but local option in my life. I belong to that branch of the temperance party which is not radical, or which has not followed Anderson and people of that type. And I still stand for what I stood for in the old days-local option always." BEER IN BALTIMORE Bootleggers continue to transport unadulterated intoxicants into Philadelphia, and from this city illegal beverages are distributed to many states. The price of intoxicating beer in Philadelphia is ten cents a glass in most saloons, fifteen cents in a few of the so-called higher class barrooms. Unadulterated Scotch whisky is sold by the quart in Philadelphia to-day for eight dollars; by the glass, seventy-five cents. According to Mr. Charles S. Wood, of the Association Against the Prohibition Amendment, "Philadelphians pay seven dollars a gallon for grain alcohol, which they use in making gin or in 'doctoring' non-alcoholic vermouth, and the whisky now obtainable is so excellent that people have stopped having it analyzed." According to a police reporter, moonshine is sold in the slums at fifty cents a pint, even at twenty-five cents a pint, and gin at two dollars a quart. "Liquor violations continue unabated, with General Butler's men making thousands of arrests"-to quote a letter from William J. Nicholson to Harlan Fiske NEAR the scene of Congressman John Stone, then Attorney-General. Philip Hill's famous cider party, the Association Against the Prohibition Amendment displays a conspicuous biglettered sign, and there I was told that Baltimore had 2,000 saloons, with more beer than near-beer; 1,000 other places disguised as cigar stores, candy stores, lunch rooms, or private homes; and in one section 50 saloons and "blind pigs" in four blocks. Real beer costs fifteen cents a glass, thirty cents a stein, and thirtyfive cents a bottle. In Philadelphia, where the ferocious General Smedley D. Butler holds sway as Director of Public Safety, I was given a file of the brochures issued by the Law Enforcement League. Here is what I read: Brewers now supply nearly two thousand saloons in Philadelphia with intoxicating beer, which is illegally sold; in addition, several hundred places are operating under the guise of respectability. Thirty-nine of the eighty breweries are supposed to be closed, forty-one breweries have a monopoly of the illict trade. Not in reply to Mr. Nicholson and without referring explicitly to the Volstead Act, Mr. Stone has since declared, in a public address: More and more we take over into the field of positive law that sphere of human action which has been hitherto untrammeled by legal restrictions, without thought of the extent to which a wise policy may leave some phases of human activity to the control of moral sanctions or to the restraints of the community sense of what is right conduct. We disregard the principle that there is a point beyond which the restraints of positive law cannot be carried without placing too great a strain on the machinery and the agencies of law enforcement. We build up our administrative machinery with ever increasing powers and authority in administrative officers at the expense of individual liberty and freedom of the citizen. In certain respects local administrative machinery has been greatly strengthened during General Butler's reign. One evening I walked through Chinatown, where his men were quelling a "tong war." The sidewalks teemed with policemen, and not a Chinaman dared show himself. Further on, a red-light district was being broken up. Policemen swarmed. deal occurred, was running full tilt, though it has been closed several times. Federal Interference in Local Affairs That night I dined in a restaurant where wine is sold to strangers, and then visited a cabaret that seems to regard the Volstead Act as merely a law requiring liquor dealers to charge eight times the former price for drinks. former price for drinks. It was a beautiful cabaret. Judging by appearance, it attracts the best people in Philadelphia, and certainly Philadelphia has no better people, socially, than the group of professional men to whom I was introduced next day at a leading club. Over their highballs in an upper room they discussed Mr. Pennell's lithographs and a recent short story of Mr. Kipling's, as much at their ease as if the Volstead Act had never been dreamed of. "Prohibition enforcement is only one instance of the encroachment of Federal power upon the functions of the states. Just now it holds the stage and holds it so prominently as to obscure the fact that after all it is simply one phase of the only question of principle upon which the American people can with consistency divide politically to-day. In Market Street one night, I saw I don't dare guess how many thousand masqueraders celebrating Hallowe'en. With its mélange of startling costumes, the place looked something like a musical comedy gone wild and something like a bathing beach. The worst element from the underworld had cut loose. There were masked girls, girls with bare legs, and girls whose toggery was in other respects too scant. But with policemen hardly ten feet apart all along the sidewalks, there was no disorder. I saw nobody the worse for drink. In the small hours I visited three public dance halls. Two of the three were giving costume balls. There were bare-legged women and one in a diving girl's rig. But even in these questionable places "A great, a fundamental, an enduring principle is at stake. . . . That principle calls for an end to centralization. It is not the call of class or of party or of creed. It is the call at last of principle. It is the call of sound government. It is the call of the people of this country, from city and hamlet and farm, to be allowed to lead their lives in freedom and in liberty, so long as they live them cleanly and honestly, and do not hurt their neighbors or injure society. It is the call to resist unwarranted encroachment of every kind by the Federal Government upon the sovereign rights of the states and the guaranteed liberties of their people, and to demand that every question which concerns the people of a sovereign state alone shall be decided as those people will."— Governor Ritchie of Maryland, in an article in the World's Work for March, 1924. and on this riotous occasion I saw no evidence of drinking. In each dance hall a man at the entrance kept a vigilant lookout for hip-liquor. Nevertheless, I walked into a saloon one day and found it selling illegal beer, though it is only a short distance from General Butler's office. Another saloon, notorious as a rendezvous of gamblers and ex-enforcement men and said to be the place where a $50,000 prohibition If the same General Butler who can suppress "tong wars," break up red-light districts, and keep order in Market Street on Hallowe'en is unable to enforce prohibition, it is not because he lacks bluster. One morning the papers reported him as having said to his inspectors and lieutenants: "When I make an inspection later in the week, if I find that you have not attempted to secure evidence against the places that are selling booze I will break you." The saloon-keepers read this and laughed, for they have learned, in the words of Mr. Stone, that "there is a point beyond which the restraints of positive law cannot be carried without placing 664 The War on Jersey Rum too great a strain on the machinery and the agencies of law enforcement"-in other words, that prohibition has further corrupted already corrupt policemen. General Butler can storm and threaten. His men will obey when they choose and disobey when they choose. In their refusal to obey they have the support of public sentiment. Mr. Edgar Cole, of the Law Enforcement League, said, "General Butler was not wanted by Philadelphia as a whole. He was wanted by the bankers and big manufacturers, who had been hit hard by banditry; it was they who raised the cry for law enforcement. When he put a stop to banditry, they were delighted, but when he undertook to enforce the law all along the line and prevent their getting a drink, they wanted him dismissed." The Rev. Dr. Homer W. Tope, state superintendent of the Anti-Saloon League, has lived in Philadelphia for twenty years. "Before prohibition the town was as bad as any in the country," he said. 'It had 1,500 saloons and about as many 'blind pigs.' Under Butler, it is fully one third better than before he came." At Pro hibition Headquarters, an official spoke of a great drive against the fifteen hundred drugstores that had been selling liquor on counterfeit prescriptions. During the drive, two hundred drugstores were offered for sale in Philadelphia, and one hundred and fifty are still breaking the law. PHILADELPHIA'S "HOME BREW" STORES N EITHER of these gentlemen discussed the trade in apparatus and material for home manufacture. In the heart of the commercial district a large establishment sells nothing else. One of the windows contained an array of bottles and demijohns, an enormous wine press labeled "The Big Boy," a smaller press labeled "The Eagle Medium," and a metal press temptingly adorned with artificial grapes. The other contained Afco Malt Syrup, Blue Ribbon Malt Extract, brewer's sugar, decanters and glasses, bottle cappers, a cocktail mixer, and eleven kegs of various sizes. I found the manager possessed of a very delicate conscience. "In all three of our stores," he said, "it is our rule to accept only the trade of people who say they don't intend to sell what they make." In Little Italy and in South Street 1 saw more of these establishments, and the traffic in grapes along Dock Street and nearby thoroughfares was astonishing. I saw baskets and boxes piled six or eight feet high. There were grapes from San Francisco, grapes from Fresno, grapes from Lodi, grapes from Arena, grapes from western New York. I could well credit the report that since prohibition a single railroad had bought 450 new refrigerator cars in order to move the California grape crop. In Camden, New Jersey, just across the river, whisky and intoxicating beer are sold in groggeries whose signs read "Bar" or "Saloon," with no visible recognition of the law whatsoever. In the Italian quarter of Camden I saw immense quantities of grapes. NEW JERSEY A VAST OASIS For G. Rowland Munroe explained FROM the situation in New Jersey by saying, "We had only just begun to experiment with local option when the nation went dry. The people had not been educated. They felt that prohibition was tyranically forced upon them by outsiders. Moreover, rebellion has been facilitated by the arrangement which provides that every judge and every prosecuting officer in the state must be appointed by the Governor. One judge was attorney for a big brewery at the time of his appointment. On the Federal side a United States Senator from New Jersey appoints the prohibition director for the state, and his lieutenants in the various counties recommend the assistants. The Senator also recommends-indeed, virtually appoints-our United States District Attorney and his assistants. So there you are. Wet at the top, the state is wet all through." ROM Philadelphia I went to Newark, where Also, he tells of the padlock there: "About two hundred places have been closed by the U. S. District Court. Judge Bodine in one day ordered about forty offenders closed, not to be reopened for a year unless a tenant is found and approved by the court who can be relied upon to conduct a useful, lawful business on the premises, when the court may modify the order and permit the reopening of the place upon the owner's filing a bond for $1,000 to insure obedience to the law." name Faris, who is reported as having said: If so it be that the power conferred upon Congress by the Eighteenth Amendment had the effect to narrow, or impinge upon, or wholly wipe out constitutional rights and guarantees, heretofore deemed vested and inviolable, the situation may be regrettable, but it cannot be helped. The Constitution when amended must be construed as a whole. If later amendments destroy, impinge upon, modify, or wipe out old provisions, the newer provisions must stand, because they are the last utterance of the people, who reserve to themselves the right to change the organic law in the way provided by the original law itself. Lincoln and Liquor According to the police, there are a thousand saloons in Newark. One of them, not far from Mr. Munroe's office, displays in its window a license purchased in preVolstead days. Such impudence is dangerous, however, for Mr. Munroe is closing up saloons with a rapidity equalled only by that with which they reopen elsewhere. During our walk through the neighborhood he showed me several that had reopened. Lincoln was for the law and enforcement of the laws always. His farseeing, wise, and thoughtful mind realized that from obedience to the law comes all the benefits of peace, good order, and prosperity. He was an enemy of drink, and beyond that he was a supporter of the theory of selfgovernment, the basic tenet of which is obedience by all the people to the law made by all the people.-Governor Pinchot of Pennsylvania, in a recent statement. He would enter what appeared to be a shop, and there, with beer flowing freely, would be the saloon which he had put out of existence a few weeks before. I admired his fearlessness. He made no pretense of being other than an enemy, and when I asked, "Isn't this rash?" he replied, "They all know me." Incidentally, I admired his patience. It is not wholly unrewarded, for constant moving hurts business and one by one. the saloons he keeps moving give up the struggle. Another citizen of Newark, Captain William L. Fish, edits The Minute Man for the Association Against the Prohibition Amendment. He is especially interested in the effect of prohibition enforcement upon the principles of government. He quotes a Federal Judge, by So it is, to my mind, utterly futile to urge that the Eighteenth Amendment cannot stand for what it fairly and obviously means, if such construction shall be in effect to change, modify, impinge upon, or in fact destroy old provisions and guarantees. In such case, and in the face of obvious conflict, I repeat, the old provisions and guarantees must yield and the new provisions must stand. Any other view would in effect be tantamount to saying that the Constitution cannot be amended at all. To such reasoning, Captain Fish replies, "If this be sound law, which it is not, the Bill of Rights for which our forefathers shed their blood is repealed immediately if any man on the bench considers that those inalienable guarantees of the liberty of the individual offer impediment to the enforcement of prohibition," and on a cover of his magazine I found an exhibit showing "how the constitutional guarantees disappear under the dry régime"-thus: The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but |