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Agents. Politics caused the appointment as Dry Agents of unfit, untrained men "as devoid of integrity and honesty as the bootlegging fraternity." Most of them, said Mrs. Willebrandt, were of the "ward heeler type." "The Government is committing a crime against the public when it pins a badge of police authority on and hands a gun to a man of uncertain character, limited intelligence or without giving systematic training." Mrs. Willebrandt condemned "as atrocious, wholly unwarranted and entirely unnecessary some of the killing by prohibition agents." But she argued that 'leggers are often desperate characters; she cited the case of Murderer James Horace Alderman.
Officials. In Mrs. Willebrandt's mind more to be condemned than the agents have been Washington officials in charge of Prohibition enforcement. Said she: "It will take many a day for law enforcement to recover from the setback it suffered under General Lincoln Andrews. . . . He multiplied publicity, created a public psychology in his own favor . . . began to put in office men who were temperamentally and in every other way unfitted for the task. His notorious appointments . . . Roscoe Harper . . . Frank Hale. . .Major Walton Green . . . Ned M. Green. . . . I refuse to believe that out of our 100,000,000 population and perhaps 20,000,000 who believe in prohibition 4,000 [agents] cannot be found who cannot be bought!"
(General Andrews served as Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in charge of Prohibition from 1925 to 1927. Last fortnight he declined to comment on Mrs. Willebrandt's attack, explained he now never discusses Prohibition.)
Alcohol. "The greatest single source of liquor supply today is the alcohol diverted illegally from concerns bearing the stamp of respectability in the form of a government permit. . . . To trace leaks has become well-nigh impossible. The Government's policy has been like pouring BB shot on the floor with one hand and trying to pick it up with the other." Commercial alcohol production in 1918: 50,000,000 gals.; in 1928: 90,000,000 gals. Smuggling: "The leak second in importance is border smuggling. Illicit importation seeks the low moral levels of our border service. . . . Detroit is an example of departmental jealousy triumphant. . . . The beating of drums and issuance of mimeographed threats of a great Prohibition offensive will not aid the government. . . . Rum runners are not scared when Uncle Sam hollers 'Boo.'. . . The different services are fighting each other and the leaks will continue until there is real coordination and cooperation. When there is more brain work in Washington there will be less booze in Detroit—and more bootleggers in Atlanta Penitentiary."
(Last week Assistant Secretary of the Treasury Lowman announced that eight new 75-ft. cutters, 16 smaller patrol boats, were being sent into the Great Lakes to combat rum-smuggling, raising U. S. vessels there to 100. At the same time it was stated that machine guns would be dismounted from smaller craft, in shoal water near the Canadian shore, promiscuous shooting bring international complications. Last week rum runners slipped through the Detroit blockade in broad daylight, landed their cargoes when a patrol boat left its post for gasoline.)