John Philip Hill of Baltimore, Republican Congressman from the third District of Maryland, indicted for violating the Volstead Act (TIME, Oct. 6), was tried last week. And John Philip Hill was acquitted.
John Philip is a character. Hear about him in the sparkling words of Correspondent Clinton W. Gilbert:
"He lives by headlines. If newspapers were abolished, he would curl up and die. I know he will read this with delight and paste it away in his scrapbook. That's why I am writing it.
"A man who devotes all his energies to being a good story should receive some encouragement. And he is a lusty, vigorous fellow, full of animal spirits, and where one of this sort sometimes loves food, sometimes loves women, sometimes loves adventure, John Philip loves publicity . . .
"He has imagination as well as energy. Farmers could make cider and no one went around to find out how much alcohol it contained. Well, why not have a farm in a Baltimore backyard? He had two windows painted on his front fence with painted cows' heads looking out of them. Then he had apple trees with apples carefully tied on them moved into his backyard. Then he set up a cider press ..."
Yes. He set up a cider press and allowed his cider to ferment a bit, just as he had done previously with some grapes, and he gave his neighbors to drink.
He was indicted on six counts for illegal manufacture and possession of the forbidden, and for constituting a public nuisance. But it is notorious that six counts does not constitute a knockout. John Philip took his six counts, then he took a reelection, and then he took his trial.