Who's What

Francis Scott McBride, bespectacled, square-jawed, rumple-haired alumnus of Muskingum College, is a person of no small importance. As Superintendent of the Anti-Saloon League of America he inhabits and marches in the boots of the late, mighty Wayne Bidwell Wheeler.* Last week he marched into New Jersey to help the Anti-Saloon League of that State elect a superintendent. Addressing his local brethren he referred to William J. Calhoun, who only a few days before had been made Federal Prohibition Administrator for New Jersey, as follows:

"If conditions don't improve in New Jersey under the new Federal administration of William J. Calhoun then they will improve under a new administrator. Washington means business in this State!"

Teased by reporters, Mr. Calhoun inquired: "Who is F. Scott McBride? I've never met the gentleman. ... I guess we'll have to find out just who Mr. McBride is and exactly who he thinks he is. That's the way I feel about it. . . ." .

Old Home Town. In New Jersey, Mr. McBride also had occasion to say: "In my old home town in Ohio the people are dry and are living in a new world. They are making real progress."

The "old home town," Westerville, birth- place of the Anti-Saloon League, was visited promptly by reporters from Columbus, Ohio. They reported that recently for the first time in history the village council had had to appropriate ($500) for prohibition enforcement, that malt and hops were on sale, that the students of Otterbein College, Westerville's seat of learning, could tell of at least two Columbus bootleggers "with a rural trade" who visit Westerville regularly.

In Philadelphia, Mrs. B. Leigh Colvin of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union discussed Congressmen who vote dry and drink wet. Said she: "They are not hypocrites." She called them, ''practical politicians."

In Des Moines a jury of men and women retired at 9:30 a. m. and returned to the court room at 8:30 p. m. with the verdict that bay rum sold in three-ounce bottles at Woolworth's 5 & 10 Cent Stores was an intoxicating beverage within the meaning of the law.

In Memphis, Hadley Strange, 18, earning his way through school, testified that as a Prohibition Agent he bought and drank liquor at a speakeasy door. Said the judge: "It is a shame for the United States Government to hire boys like this and send them into alleys to drink whiskey with bums." Agent Strange quickly explained that ordinarily he only tasted, did not drink.

In Manhattan, Patrolman George Schuchman. emerged from a cigar store, heard someone (voice not recognized) cry: "Hey, George, those two guys are stealing my gin." Drawing his revolver, determined to fire into the air, the police-man shot one of the hijackers through the head, found 125 bottles of gin in four abandoned parcels. Police inspectors investigated, declared that the patrolman had done his duty.

In Detroit prohibition agents startled themselves by discovering an underwater cable along which liquor cargoes from Canada were towed on a sledge while Customs boats patroled overhead. The agents declared they thought a second cable existed. Detroiters with better imaginations wondered how many others there were.

In Washington, the Navy Department offered for sale the U. S. S. Mayflower, long the yacht of Presidents. Excerpt from the terms of sale: "It is agreed that the vessel shall not be used in whole or in part in the transportation ... of any liquid, the transportation of which is forbidden by the constitution or laws of the United States."

*Senator Morris Sheppard of Texas last week indignantly denied a report that without his assistance Mr. Wheeler had worded the 18th Amendment. Said he: "To call it the result of the efforts of any one individual is to credit him with superhuman qualities and to transcend the furthest boundaries of reality."