The Tushes of the Law

By vote of 65 to 18 the Senate last week passed and sent to the House a bill to furnish the Volstead Act with larger tushes. The present penalties for illegal manufacture or sale of liquor are: for a first offense, up to $1,000 fine or up to six months' imprisonment; for subsequent offenses, $200 to $2,000 fine and one month imprisonment. The proposed penalty for first and subsequent offenses is a fine up to $10,000, or imprisonment up to five years, or both.

The Drys declared the increased penalties were necessary to deter large-scale commercial lawbreaking. The Wets foresaw that fanatical judges would impose long prison terms on school boys carrying hip flasks. Connecticut's Senator Bingham, objecting to the bill because its penalties were greater than those that could be imposed for more serious crimes, offered a list of other crimes and punishments for comparison:

Shanghaiing Sailors: Not more than $1,000 fine, not more than a year's imprisonment or both.

Corrupting or Threatening Jurors: The same.

White Slave Traffic: Not more than $5,000 fine, or not more than five years' imprisonment.

Hovering on the Coast with Slaves for Sale: Not more than $10,000 fine and not more than four years' imprisonment.*

Importing Kidnaped Persons or Slaves: Not more than $5,000 fine and not more than five years' imprisonment.

In answer, Washington's Senator Jones offered as example two other crimes and penalties:

Trespassing upon a U. S.-owned Harbor Defense Area: Not more than $5,000 fine, or not more than five years' imprisonment, or both.

Theft of Personal Property of the U. S.: Not more than $5.000 fine, not more than ten years' imprisonment, or both.

Finally to settle the dispute an extraordinary amendment was added to the bill and passed. It was believed to be the first example in the history of Congress where judges have been given the power of discretion and then told how to exercise it. This amendment said: "Provided, that it is the intent of Congress that the court, in imposing sentence hereunder, should discriminate between casual or slight violations and habitual sales of intoxicating liquor or attempts to commercialize violations of the law."

All this was not achieved without magnificent fireworks. Missouri's ruddy-faced Senator Reed, on the point of retirement, cracked once more the stinging lash of his invective over the heads of dry-voting, wet-drinking Senators, The biting tongue of dry-voting Senator Caraway retorted for the honor of the Senate :

"I marvel at the motive . . . that makes him [Reed] seek to lead the people as a whole to think that this is a body made up of sots; and thus to try to make the sale of liquor respectable. He could not do it if every Senator were found drunk in his seat every day."

Other highlights of the debate--

Mr. Blease: "Mr. President, I am in favor of the prohibition law; it is all right with me; and, to tell the truth, I do not see why anybody makes a fuss about it, as conditions are at present. The man who does not want liquor does not have to have it, and the man who wants it' does not have any trouble in getting it. So I do not see what either side keeps on raising the devil about. . . .

"I think the lowest dog in the world is the man who will go into another man's home and enjoy his hospitality -- I do not care whether he is an officer or not -- he is a low dog if he will eat a man's bread and then bite him."

Mr. Bruce: "My life as a Senator is on the point of expiring, and I wish to pronounce a curse on that bill with my last dying breath. It is but another fatal step in the progress of an intolerable tyranny. . . .

"As for me, nothing remains for me to do but impotently to cast my vote against this crude, illogical, and monstrous bill, feeling as I do, so that I am at least faithful to the manly injunction:

"Charge once more, then, and be dumb,

Let the victors when they come,

When the forts of folly fall,

Find thy body by the wall."

Mr. Heflin: "Mr. President, I regret to see the Senator from Maryland, Mr. Bruce, take such a morose, vindictive, and mournful view of this situation. The Senator is exceedingly lonesome here today. The Senate is going to pass this measure. The Senator will have to endure it, and when he departs in a few days from the Capitol City, leaving behind his association with those who vote for prohibition and for prohibition law enforcement, he can follow the suggestion of the doggerel which runs:

"Leave this city's legislative hum,

From its fashions and forms cut loose;

Go where the cat climbs the catnip tree

And the gooseberry grows for the goose;

Where the partridge drums his drum

And the woodchuck chucks his wood,

And the dog devours the dogwood plum

In primitive solitude."

*Enacted in the Criminal Code adopted two years ago.