War on Two Fronts

Many a bullet zinged back and forth last week across the Detroit River as the U. S. continued its warlike efforts to check the flow of liquor smuggled in from Canada. Many a bitter word crackled back and forth across the U. S. Senate where Wets and Drys alike flayed the indefiniteness of the Hoover Prohibition policy.

Major developments:

On the Border. On the claim that 85% of Canadian liquor entering the U. S. is run across the Detroit River, Assistant- Secretary of the Treasury Lowman tightened his blockade along that mile-wide stream until it fairly bristled with Dry and Wet armament. Pleasure craft traversed it at their own peril. The roughest, tough- est gangster element alone stayed in the rum racket to battle the U. S.

Just before one daybreak a mahogany-colored rumrunner with a wide white stripe just above the water line shot out from the shadowy Canadian shore. Within 100 feet of a Detroit dock it was intercepted by U. S. Customs Speedboat 1401, patrolling the waterfront. Without warning a man in the bow of the rumrunner opened revolver fire on the two customs men in No. 1401. Sharply the U. S. agents returned the fire, forced the rumrunner to veer about, retreat toward the international line. No. 1401 gave chase up along Belle Isle under a peppery rain of bullets. Its windshield was splintered to bits, its bow bored in with leaking holes, its engine damaged. A final volley came from the rumrunner as it slipped away to hiding in the Canadian marsh. No. 1401 had to chug back to its dock for repairs.

Great was the agitation in Washington over this affray. Mr. Lowman saw in it a direct challenge to the U. S. Government. Secretary of State Stimson called for a complete report from the Treasury Department, intimated that it might be made the subject of diplomatic representations to Canada. In it some officials thought they had a reverse of the I'm Alone case, talked of asking extradition of the criminals who had "attempted to murder" U. S. officers.

But Canada had her own troubles in this liquor war. To Ontario officials came Canadian pleasure-boat owners with complaints of being fired upon on the Detroit River by U. S. customs men. One complainant, no rumrunner, exhibited a boat riddled with bullets.

Indignation over promiscuous shooting even spread last week to the enforcement army itself. U. S. Customs Agent Louis H. Jacques, son of a Detroit police sergeant, was in command of Agent Jonah Cox, killer of Archibald Eugster after a rum chase last fortnight (TIME, June 24). He had warned Agent Cox to "go easy with the gun" on previous occasions, had filed a report censuring his reckless misuse of firearms. When Eugster was shot, Agent Jacques remarked that his complaint against Cox had been borne out, whereupon he was reprimanded by his superior for discussing the case. Last week he quit the U. S. service with this explanation:

"I couldn't stand for killing innocent people. . . . Agents are frightened when they go out on the job. They are imbued with the idea that they are going into battle. . . . Recently after Washington officials were in Detroit, our chief told us they were sore because so many motor boats broke down and said some of the boys must be 'on the take' [accepting bribes]. I know the boats broke down because the men running them were in experienced. . . .

"They don't tell you to shoot but they might as well--they say not to let a boat get by 'at any cost.' The men are under terrific strain and are constantly being pressed by superior officers for 'results.' They want to keep their jobs and make a record and they shoot to do it."

Agent Jacques carried his story to Washington. Detroit's wet Congressman Clancy took up his charges, repeated them on the House floor. With a newspaper friend, Agent Jacques was taken to see Assistant Secretary Lowman, to report on battlefront conditions. Mr. Lowman, considerably angered, refused to see him, an nounced that he would have nothing to do with "a man of that type."

In Washington. Harried by Prohibition problems, President Hoover made a reply through the Press last week to the City Council of International Falls, Minn., which had cried "For God's sake, help us!" after the killing of Henry Virkula by a U. S. border patrolman (TIME, June 24). Declared the President: "I deeply deplore the killing of any person. The Treasury is making every effort to prevent the misuse of firearms. . . . I hope the communities along the border will do their best to help the Treasury end the systematic war that is being carried on by international criminals against the laws of the United States. . . ."

This reply was too general to please International Falls, where the late Citizen Virkula was not regarded as an "international criminal." Editorial writers read the President's statement and wrote: "Is that all" . . . "inadequate" . . . "It is not enough for the President to 'deplore' ". . . "the President's answer is as full of holes as Henry Virkula's car."

Just before it adjourned last week, the Senate was asked by Washington's Senator Jones (Dry author of the Five & Ten law) to pass a resolution, as requested by the President for a joint commission to study Prohibition and recommend if necessary changes in administration and responsibility. The Senate at once began to debate the Hoover attitude on Prohibition. Virginia's Senator Carter Glass, thoroughly Dry and now thoroughly aroused, led the attack. His sharp voice crackled, his small body trembled with indignation.

Senator Glass said that the President, by his Commission and Investigation, had smothered the Prohibition issue. As a sponsor of the $250,000 appropriation for the expenses of the National Law Enforcement Commission, Senator Glass insisted that Prohibition was to have been the prime purpose of that inquiry. He cried:

"Who ever heard during the campaign any talk about enforcing the laws against murder or theft or robbery? . . . In an unguarded moment I allowed myself to be persuaded to insert [in the Prohibition investigation authorization] the parenthetical words 'together with the enforcement of other laws.' There was no purpose on earth to make other laws the feature. . . . But now what has happened? The parenthesis has been made the main thesis. Prohibition enforcement has been submerged."

Senator Glass recalled that Prohibition had not been named by name in either the Hoover or the Wickersham speeches inaugurating the Commission's work, and added: "These omissions could not have been merely coincident. Obviously they must have been agreed on."

Continued the Senator: "President Hoover in his speech to the Associated Press minimized, if not actually extinguished, the importance of the major subject of Prohibition by declaring it was a mere segment of the investigation. . . . I am no fanatical Prohibitionist. I am not an unreasoning vituperative zealot. I have never permitted any ecclesiastical despot* to control my thought or conduct. But I am for the Prohibition law and for a thorough inquiry to see if it can be enforced and, if not, what are the remedies. . . . But both the President and his Commission have gone as far afield as possible. . . . The investigation will not be through in one year or in two. Why, the stupendous task of investigating all lawlessness and of a readjustment of all judicial procedure is just as impossible of accomplishment in my lifetime or in the President's tenure of office as anything I can think of. . . . If Prohibition is not effectively enforced until that is done, we will have mighty little Prohibition in this country. . . . What I am trying to do as an earnest and straightforward Prohibitionist is to rescue Prohibition from the uncertain and obscure position to which the President has relegated it."

Senator Glass ridiculed the idea of passing the Jones Resolution for another joint Commission on Prohibition, declaring: "There is not a fact to be ascertained, not one, not now immediately available to the President and the department heads affected. It is an attempt by the executive . . . to shift to the Congress initial responsibility."

Nowhere could Senator Glass find that President Hoover was pledged never to try to alter the 18th Amendment and the Volstead Act: "In the campaign the most he ever said was that he did 'not favor the repeal of the 18th Amendment' but he nowhere has said that he might not advocate modification. . . ."

*A reference to Bishop James Cannon Jr. of Virginia, the Senator's arch political foe.