Representative Debate

It was just the sort of argument that one would expect to hear if an average U. S. daycoach should be stalled between stations and a better-than-average red-faced Irish-American started talking loudly.

In the House of Representatives, the loud one was Representative James A. Gallivan of Massachusetts, whose specialty is alliterative abuse. Quoth he at the beginning of last week: ". . . Prohibition, its proconsuls, parasites, and plug-uglies . .,. has even reserved to itself and its allies a monopoly of murder--murder without penalty. The right to murder Americans abroad without fear or favor, it delegates to bandit organizations; the right to murder Americans at home by poisonous liquors remains with the Anti-Saloon League and its allied bootleggers, and the right to wreck and drown American sailors and shoot up foreign seamen goes to its rum cruisers.

"Floggings, gougings, and arson are the special privileges of prohibition's standing army--the Knights of the Nightshirt. . ." etc., etc.

As usually happens, thoughtful persons present held their tongues--for a while. But soon (next day) everyone was joining in. The Representative train, en route to supply moneys for the Treasury and Post Office Departments, but stalled by a proposed amendment to prohibit poisonous denaturants in industrial alcohol, became clamorous. The amendment had been offered by Representative John Charles Linthicum of Maryland, who cited the facts that 10% of all industrial alcohol in the U. S. has annually been leaking into beverage channels under Prohibition; that there were 11,700 deaths in 1926 from poisonous alcohol.

Up stood Michigan's Cramton to say: "It is interesting to me to see what the policy is to be of the wet block in the House as presented by its newly chosen leader, the gentleman from Maryland. The policy of our other friend from Maryland, John Philip Hill, was to destroy the Eighteenth Amendment by authorizing beer and wine, but it is apparent that the gentleman from Maryland [Mr. Linthicum], the new leader, has on his banner, 'Hamstring enforcement in any way we can do it.' "

New York's swart La Guardia began to talk: "Mr. Chairman and gentlemen, I am as 'Wet' as any man in this House. . . . What we as 'Wets' ought to do ... is . . . insist upon the Prohibition Bureau having sufficient men, appropriating enough money. ... If the American people want Prohibition ... it will cost them anywhere from $200,000,000 to $250,000, 000. ..."

Florida's Green: "Will the gentleman yield?"

La Guardia: "No. I do not yield to the gentleman from Florida. Florida is so happily situated near the West Indies that you can get all the pure liquor you want and it is hypocritical to take any stand as to law enforcement."

Green: "Florida will always take the stand of upholding the laws of our Nation. . . .

La Guardia: "And there are more Prohibition lawbreakers in the gentleman's State, in proportion to population than there are in my State!"

Representative Blanton of Texas got the floor. After a characteristically long-winded beginning, he said: ". . . Have the citizens of this land become so helpless that they have to have Grandmother Linthicum from Maryland walk around with them to protect them from poisoned alcohol? . . ."

New York's Sirovich, who is a doctor, mixed professional data with social theory, saying: ". . . In my humble opinion the greatest evil of this country today is overindulgence in every line of endeavor . . . drunkenness swinging the pendulum to one apex while Prohibition carries it to the heights of the other. Temperance, therefore, should be the avenue we should travel in approaching this great and momentous problem. . . . Shall we have our Government act as a Lucretia Borgia of medieval days, who poisoned all who came into intimate contact with her? . . . I am in favor of taking the Government out of the business of poisoning its citizens."

Florida's Green: ". . . Florida is one of the old dry states ... as dry as the Sahara Desert . . ." (Florida's Green was laughed to his seat.)

Maryland's Palmisano: ". . . The Prohibition administration has sanctioned the blackjacking of citizens. ... I say, let us eliminate the criminals who are employed to enforce this Volstead Act. . . ."

Chairman Madden of the Appropriations Committee: ". . . The amendment offered by the gentleman from Maryland is a subterfuge. Why does he not move to repeal the Volstead Act, if he is in earnest? . . . The law is here and here it will remain. The law will be enforced, irrespective of what Maryland may think about it. ... I am a Wet--I would probably vote for a legitimate motion to repeal, but never ... for any such subterfuge as he now proposes. . . ."

So the amendment was rejected, 167 to 39. Representative La Guardia promptly moved that the Prohibition appropriation be enlarged from $12,729,140 to $75,000, 000. Annoyed by such nagging, the Drys rejected that, and also another La Guardia amendment asking $25,000,000.

Next day, Wet Leader Linthicum took what satisfaction he could from a parliamentary victory, forcing the whole House to go on record on a Prohibition issue for the first time this session. But again his antipoison amendment lost, 61 to 283, with 89 members not voting and 91 absent.

Prohibition in 1928, as finally provided for in the bill passed last week by the bickering Representatives of the People, will cost about $28,000,000--13 millions for the Prohibition Unit, 15 millions for the U. S. Coast Guard. During the debate, Representative Mead had produced figures snowing that, while spending some 26 millions to make the U. S. dry last year, U. S. citizens spent some 26 millions importing liquor from Canada.