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1) An act, drawn by Senator Jones of Washington, to increase the penalties for Volstead violations. Congress wanted to punish habitual violators more memorably than at present, and a peculiar phrase was inserted in the act instructing judges to "discriminate." The rest of the act was also peculiar, because:
It eliminated the present legal distinction between first and subsequent offenses. It raised the top fine for second offenders from $2,000 to $10,000.
It set a five year maximum sentence for all violations of the Volstead Act, thereby making any infraction of this law a felony whereas before minor first offenses had been only misdemeanors* Several misdemeanors are necessary to deport an undesirable alien. For one felony he may be sent promptly out of the U.S. By this penal change alien bootleggers may be shipped swiftly from the country.
But, by inserting an "or" for an and it appeared to relieve second offenders ot the certain prospect of receiving both a fine and imprisonment.
2) For enforcement of the law Congress voted a routine $37,000,000 and then an extra $3,000,000, the purpose of which seemed to be—in the minds of its Dry proponents—to show President Hoover that money would be no object if he would really take enforcement seriously.
It was a far cry from $24,000,000, which Georgia's Dry Senator Harris proposed for this extra appropriation, to $3,000,000 but contentment shone upon the face of Prohibitor F. Scott McBride, chief of the Anti-Saloon League, who, while hovering about the Capitol to see that some bill was passed, heard himself called "the Super-President of the United States."
Contented. also was Georgia's Harris. He, speaking the Anti-Saloon mind, said:
"I have won the principle. The administration has recognized that more money is needed."
*Mr. Donovan is a Roman Catholic. *In Federal practice a misdemeanor is any offense against the U. S. carrying a maximum penalty of less than one year in jail; a felony, more than one year.