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PROHIBITION FAILURE. BREAKDOWN OF LAW IS FINALLY ADMITTED.

FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT. NEW YORK, Sunday. The breakdown of Prohibition, long apparent to every man with eyes to see and cash to buy from bootleggers, is now admitted by the Washington Cabinet. The President and his advisers regard the situation as menacing, inasmuch as the moral fibre of the American people is being undermined by open violation of the law, with the result that there is a tendency to create not only distrust but disrespect of all law.

The reports presented to the Cabinet prove that bootleggers and churchgoers alike are guilty, and that the agencies of enforcement controlled by politicians are impotent, and in many places “booze” flows so freely that prices are declining. It is impossible to exaggerate the orgy of corruption which attends the wholesale smuggling, and I know from personal investigation the difficulties connected with the bootleggers’ traffic from the time when motor launches unload their wares on shore and transport them to centres of distribution for sale are not regarded seriously provided the smugglers belong to a ring who pay sufficiently for the privilege. The optimistic reports of prohibition officials are recognised as worthless, and examination shows that persons convicted and imprisoned for violation consist chiefly of small men with insufficient capital, who are unable to break into the “licensed” ring.

Court & Social | Announcements

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2022-11-26T08:00:00.0000000Z

2022-11-26T08:00:00.0000000Z

https://dailytelegraph.pressreader.com/article/282286734277112

Daily Telegraph