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Remedies. For each Prohibition ailment, Mrs. Willebrandt was ready with a remedy: 1) "Grit, persistence and a united front" to overcome politics. 2) For Dry agents a higher civil service standard, systematic and extended training on how to gather evidence, when to arrest a man, when to shoot. 3) No politics in the choice of competent officials ("Courage, vigor and intelligence must begin at the top and spread down"). 4) A survey by the Department of Commerce of the country's real commercial alcohol needs and a limitation of permits to that amount, under "crisp, definite and restrictive" regulation, to old-line industrial firms. 5) Coordination of the border services into one "unified border patrol made up of the best trained men . . . with an esprit de corps equal to that of the famous mounted police of Canada."
Other Willebrandt observations:
Drinking. "I do not know a time . . . when it has not been possible to obtain intoxicating liquors at almost any hour of the day or night, either in rural districts, the smaller towns or the large cities. It is very doubtful if as much drinking is done as appears. . . . It is regarded as so smart and expensive in some circles that we might almost say a bell rings or a whistle blows every time drinks are passed. . . ."
Hypocrisy. "Many Congressmen and Senators who vote for [Dry] bills are persistent violators of the Volstead law. Senators and Representatives have appeared on the floor . . . in a drunken condition. . . . Nothing has done more to disgust honest men and women than the hypocrisy of the wet-drinking, dry-voting Congressmen. Bootleggers infest the halls and corridors of the Capitol and ply their trade there. . . . Until politicians are made to obey the laws we cannot expect respect for the law."
Split Control. Mrs. Willebrandt argued for a joint endeavor to make the U. S. dry: "The job of the Federal Government is to supplement the work of the State. . . . It simply cannot be the policeman for 48 States and Prohibition will not and never can be enforced that way." (At the University of Virginia's Institute of Public Affairs Commissioner of Prohibition James M. Doran last week made a similar plea for a division of enforcement effort between the U. S. and the States, thus echoing the views of Chairman Wickersham of the National Law Enforcement Commission. His speech concluded, Commissioner Doran departed for California to "look into the grape situation," to see for himself the amazing growth of grape production since the development of companies shipping grapejuice to city dwellers for home wine-making.)
Meat for Congress. Congress was not in session while the Willebrandt articles were appearing. That was well because it gave Congressmen a chance to read the series thoroughly, a series no Congressman could afford to miss. Loud debates on the subject may be expected this autumn between Wets and Drys fortified with authoritative Willebrandtiana.