Enforcer-in-Chief

(See front cover)

Consequent to the first report of the National Commission on Law Enforcement. Prohibition last week came into sharper focus in Congress than at any time since its inauguration, ten years ago last week. The Commission's report had furnished substantial grist for the legislative mill. Of its recommendations the most important (the Commission gave it No. 1 place), the most likely to become law at this session of Congress, was that for the transfer of the Government's dry enforcement arm from the Treasury Department to the Department of Justice. Such a transfer, as all the world knew, would make Attorney General William DeWitt Mitchell, instead of Secretary of the Treasury Andrew William Mellon, U. S. Dry Enforcer-in-Chief.

Williamson Bill. To accomplish this purpose a bill was last week offered in the House by Representative William Williamson, chairman of the Committee on Executive Expenditures. In the Senate Chairman Norris of the Judiciary Committee promised "early and careful" consideration of the question. The U. S. Drys, Consolidated, generally applauded the prospect of the transfer and most of their friends in Congress promised action.

Why the Treasury. Ten years ago Prohibition enforcement was given to the Treasury chiefly because Congress did not know where else to put it. For years that Department had collected the internal revenue tax on liquor, had supervised tax-free denatured alcohol for industry. To Congress it seemed but one step from the Treasury's ancient war on tax-evading moonshiners to full liquor suppression.

Daugherty, Stone, Sargent. Almost at once the Drys became dissatisfied with this arrangement. They quickly discerned a hiatus between the Treasury's arrests and the Department of Justice's prosecutions. Evidence collected by Treasury agents was inept, failed to stand up in court. Little or no cooperation between the departments developed. Complaints began to arise against Secretary Mellon whom the Drys suspected of being, at best, only lukewarm toward Prohibition. A change to the Department of Justice, the Government's enforcing arm for all other Federal criminal statutes (except those of the Post Office Department) was soon suggested.

But Harry Micajah Daugherty was then Attorney General. His friend Jesse Smith was openly trafficking in liquor permits and withdrawals. The late great Wayne Bidwell Wheeler warned the Drys that what little enforcement they had secured from the Treasury would disappear entirely if Attorney General Daugherty got his untrustworthy hands on Prohibition. When Harlan Fiske Stone became Attorney General, the Drys viewed him too, for all his legal merits, with suspicion. He was reckoned a New York liberal, and New York liberals were not known to favor Prohibition. Next in office as Attorney General was John Garibaldi Sargent. Over the radio he made enforcement speeches satisfactory to the Drys, but he seemed too slow, too lumbering as a practical law enforcer.

Supreme Court's Man. Herbert Hoover, on approaching the Presidency, cast about for an Attorney General who would meet three requirements: 1) a corking good lawyer; 2) a Protestant; 3) a Dry in whom Drys had complete confidence. Such a man was hard to find. In 1925 Secretary of State Kellogg and Associate Justice Pierce Butler of the U. S. Supreme Court had whispered in the ear of President Coolidge the name of William De Witt Mitchell for Solicitor General to succeed James Montgomery Beck. So great and good an impression had Mr. Mitchell as the Government's chief advocate made upon the Supreme Court that its members were not backward in whispering his name again, this time into the ear of President-Elect Hoover, this time for Attorney General. Thus did Mr. Hoover "discover" Mr. Mitchell. They agreed on Prohibition and its enforcement by the Department of Justice. Mr. Mitchell's appointment as Attorney General followed. He listed himself an "independent Democrat" but he had voted for Hughes in 1916, Coolidge in 1924, Hoover in 1928.

The Man's Plan. Almost since the day he took office Attorney General Mitchell has been training himself eventually to become Prohibition's Enforcer-in-Chief. With the solid backing of the U. S. Drys, Consolidated, he has sifted out his U. S. district attorneys, dismissing the lax, appointing only those who will press the Volstead Act up to the hilt. From his own Minnesota he called into service Gustav Aaron Youngquist as Assistant Attorney General in charge of Prohibition & Taxation, successor to Mrs. Mabel Walker Willebrandt (TIME, Nov. 11). If and when the transfer occurs, Mr. Youngquist will probably take over the enforcement as well as the prosecution of Prohibition. Attorney General Mitchell has personally appealed to the Supreme Court the famed Norris liquor case in the hope of aiding enforcement by sustaining a conspiracy charge against the purchaser as well as the seller of transported liquor. With Chairman Wickersham of the Commission on Law Enforcement, Attorney General Mitchell worked long and painstakingly to help bring forth the first report.

President Hoover has tried to exert upon his Administration "unceasing and determined pressure" (Mitchell's phrase) for better enforcement. With White House approval, "General" Mitchell has become more and more the dry defender of the Administration, its real mouthpiece on plans and policies.

When the Wickersham report was submitted to Congress, Attorney General Mitchell sent along a supplementary statement of his own which set forth his Prohibition views and recommendations. Like the Commission, he advised Congress to give his department charge of Prohibition enforcement: "The closest cooperation must exist between the detection of offenses and the preparation of evidence . . . and [those] who prosecute the cases. These agencies would work together more efficiently if in the same department."

The actual transfer, when it comes, will be more administrative than physical. The Department of Justice is already crowded into a rented building. The Prohibition Unit occupies quarters in the old Southern Railroad Building at 13th St. and Pennsylvania Avenue where it will remain until, at some indefinitely future time, the new Department of Justice building is constructed.

Wedge? While Attorney General Mitchell was primed to receive the Prohibition Unit under his wing, predictions were heard that President Hoover would have to use more pressure, unceasing and determined, to induce Congress to act on this legislation. Senator Borah was ominously silent on all the Wickersham recommendations. Senator Norris insisted that they required "a great deal of study." Senator La Follette was already in open opposition. He called the Report a ''wedge being driven into the Constitution." Only such unswerving Drys as Ohio's Senator Fess gave blanket approval.

Other Objections. Against the transfer legislation, to which there was the least general objection, Drys raised a strong complaint: they did not want the management of industrial alcohol left with the Treasury, as the Williamson bill and the Wickersham report called for. They felt that as a source of 'legger leakage this, too, should be under the Department of Justice. Industrialists legitimately using alcohol threaten a revolt if their raw material is taken from the Treasury. An ingenious compromise has been devised to hold both in line: the Secretary of the Treasury could issue industrial alcohol permits only after the Attorney General had been given ten days to review each application, to veto those of which he disapproved.

Judge-Connnissioners. Attorney General Mitchell gave his approval to the Wickersham recommendation that U. S. Commissioners be empowered to try minor dry offenses. This suggestion raised the largest objection in Congress where many doubted its constitutionality. Wet Congressmen complained that it would deprive citizens of the right of trial by jury, that petty offenders would have either to plead guilty to a misdemeanor before a U. S. Commissioner, or, if demanding a jury trial, run the risk of a felony conviction under the Jones Law. Attorney General Mitchell called this proposal the Commission's "most important and constructive suggestion . . . for speeding up the work and relieving the Federal judges of burdensome details."

On McPherson Square. A visitor walking into the Attorney General's corner office on the sixth floor of the Department of Justice Building would see seated behind a large flat-top desk a lithe, slender man with a well-shaped forehead, soft brownish hair, touched with grey at the sides, deep brown eyes of an almost feminine softness. Behind him, wide windows open on McPherson Square. A serene calm fills the office. A stranger would be surprised to learn that this man before him is 55, for he does not look over 40. There is a youthful slightness about him. a trimness of figure that makes it hard to believe that he could have been old enough to serve as an officer in the Spanish War. Today he looks hardly older than when he was a junior partner in the St. Paul law firm of Palmer, Beak and Mitchell.

The secret of the Attorney General's youth, of his ample energy, is his vigorous outdoor life. He is the Cabinet's best golfer. It is a bad day for him when he does not shoot an 85 at the Burning Tree Club, Washington's hardest course. He goes duck hunting along the Potomac in the fall, spends his summers at White Bear Lake, Minn., where he fishes, sails, shoots. His hobbies: amateur cinematography, driving his Packard car.

Possessed of ample means, he lives with Mrs. Mitchell in a comfortable house on Kalorama Circle Road, in the same neighborhood as his good friends Chief Justice Taft and Associate Justice Stone. One son, William, 25, is with the St. Paul law firm of Daugherty, Rumble and Butler. The other, Bancroft, 23, is a subordinate in the House of Morgan. In their absence the Mitchell family orchestra in which the father plays the clarinet is temporarily disbanded.

The Attorney General is a personal and political Dry with a conscientious faith in the ultimate success of the Volstead Act. Wise Washington hostesses never serve cocktails before him, though he is not a social tattler like Senator Brookhart. He is honest and hard-working (a ten-hour day for him is not unusual) and makes ample use of a clear, incisive mind. He has many points in common with Chairman George Woodward Wickersham who was Taft-time Attorney General. Mr. Wickersham conducted the Department of Justice on a strong law enforcement policy, jousting continuously against the Trusts. Attorney General Mitchell, following the same policy, would combat 'leggers to the limit.

Attorney General Mitchell does not observe the Cabinet open-door policy. To many he is harder to see than President Hoover. His practice is to shunt as many visitors as possible to subordinates, keep his own time free. This treatment has rather annoyed the Press whose members, nevertheless, openly admire the courteous dispatch with which he handles their conferences. Harry Daugherty used to josh for hours, tell political stories, reveal nothing of importance. John Sargent puffed his pipe, offered tobacco to all-comers, mused aloud about the joys of fishing, supplied no news. The present Attorney General eliminates all casual conversation, talks briefly to the point, ends his conferences quickly. In this he displays the same talent which endeared him, as Solicitor General, to the Supreme Court Justices. Even now, if interested in a case, he reserves the right to appear personally before that court to argue an appeal, as he did in the Pocket Veto case shortly after taking office.

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