The Rise and Fall of Prohibition / The Human Side of What the Eighteenth Amendment and the Volstead Act Have Done to the United States

by Charles Hanson Towne

Read Section 23.

“Any person who shall, with intent to effect a sale of liquor, by himself, his employee, servant or agent, for himself or any person, company or corporation, keep or carry around on his person, or in a vehicle, or other conveyance whatever, or leave in a place for another to secure, any liquor, or who shall travel to solicit, or solicit, or take, or accept orders for the sale, shipment, or delivery of liquor in violation of this title is guilty of a nuisance and may be restrained by injunction, temporary and permanent, from doing or continuing to do any of said acts or things.”

Have our army of bootleggers read this Section? But they are worth a whole chapter to themselves, so important a part have they become of our national life.

“Section 26. When the commissioner, his assistants, inspectors, or any officer of the law shall discover any person in the act of transporting in violation of the law, intoxicating liquors in any wagon, buggy, automobile, water or air craft, or other vehicle, it shall be his duty to seize any and all intoxicating liquors found therein being transported contrary to law. Whenever intoxicating liquors transported or possessed illegally shall be seized by an officer he shall take possession of the vehicle and team or automobile, boat, air or water craft, or any other conveyance, and shall arrest any person in charge thereof. Such officer shall at once proceed against the person arrested under the provisions of this title in any court having competent jurisdiction; but the said vehicle or conveyance shall be returned to the owner upon execution by him of a good and valid bond, with sufficient sureties, in a sum double the value of the property, which said bond shall be approved by said officer and shall be conditioned to return said property to the custody of said officer on the day of trial to abide the judgment of the court. The court upon conviction of the person so arrested shall order the liquor destroyed, and unless good cause to the contrary is shown by the owner, shall order a sale by public auction of the property seized, and the officer making the sale, after deducting the expenses of keeping the property, the fee for the seizure, and the cost of the sale, shall pay all liens, according to their priorities, which are established, by intervention or otherwise at said hearing or in other proceeding brought for said purpose, as being bona fide and as having been created without the lienor having any notice that the carrying vehicle was being used or was to be used for illegal transportation of liquor, and shall pay the balance of the proceeds into the Treasury of the United States as miscellaneous receipts. All liens against property sold under the provisions of this section shall be transferred from the property to the proceeds of the sale of the property. If, however, no one shall be found claiming the team, vehicle, water or air craft, or automobile, the taking of the same, with a description thereof, shall be advertised in some newspaper published in the city or county where taken, or if there be no newspaper published, in said city or county, in a newspaper having circulation in the county, once a week for two weeks and by hand-bills posted in three public places near the place of seizure, and if no claimant shall appear within ten days after the last publication of the advertisement, the property shall be sold and the proceeds after deducting the expenses and costs shall be paid into the Treasury of the United States as miscellaneous receipts.”

“Section 27. In all cases in which intoxicating liquors may be subject to be destroyed under the provisions of this Act the court shall have jurisdiction upon the application of the United States attorney to order them delivered to any department or agency of the United States Government for medicinal, mechanical, or scientific uses, or to order the same sold at private sale for such purposes to any person having a permit to purchase liquor, the proceeds to be covered into the Treasury of the United States to the credit of miscellaneous receipts, and all liquor heretofore seized in any suit or proceeding brought for violation of law may likewise be so disposed of, if not claimed within sixty days from the date this section takes effect.”

One is happy to realize that the Government may, even while the Volstead Act is in force, receive some small emolument and revenue from John Barleycorn.

Section 37—or a part of it—reads as follows:

“A manufacturer of any beverage containing less than one-half of 1 per centum of alcohol by volume may, on making application and giving such bond as the commissioner shall prescribe, be given a permit to develop in the manufacture thereof, by the usual methods of fermentation and fortification or otherwise a liquid such as beer, ale, porter, or wine, containing more than one-half of 1 per centum of alcohol by volume, but before any such liquid is withdrawn from the factory or otherwise disposed of, the alcoholic contents thereof shall under such rules and regulations as the commissioner may prescribe be reduced below such one-half of 1 per centum of alcohol: Provided, That such liquid may be removed and transported, under bond and under such regulations as the commissioner may prescribe, from one bonded plant or warehouse to another for the purpose of having the alcohol extracted therefrom. And such liquids may be developed, under permit, by persons other than the manufacturers of beverages containing less than one-half of 1 per centum of alcohol by volume, and sold to such manufacturers for conversion into such beverages. The alcohol removed from such liquid, if evaporated and not condensed and saved, shall not be subject to tax; if saved, it shall be subject to the same law as other alcoholic liquors. Credit shall be allowed on the tax due on any alcohol so saved to the amount of any tax paid upon distilled spirits or brandy used in the fortification of the liquor from which the same is saved.”

Don Marquis’s Old Soak must rejoice when he reads such stipulations! And, being a tax-payer, like the rest of us, Section 38 must fill him with added delight:

“The Commissioner of Internal Revenue and the Attorney General of the United States are hereby respectively authorized to appoint and employ such assistants, experts, clerks, and other employees in the District of Columbia or elsewhere, and purchase such supplies and equipment as they may deem necessary for the enforcement of the provisions of this Act, but such assistants, experts, clerks, and other employees, except such executive officers as may be appointed by the Commissioner or the Attorney General to have immediate direction of the enforcement of the provisions of this Act, and persons authorized to issue permits, and agents and inspectors in the field service, shall be appointed under the rules and regulations prescribed by the Civil Service Act: Provided, That the Commissioner and Attorney General in making such appointments shall give preference to those who have served in the military or naval service in the recent war, if otherwise qualified, and there is hereby authorized to be appropriated, out of any money in the Treasury not otherwise appropriated, such sum as may be required for the enforcement of this Act including personal services in the District of Columbia, and for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1920, there is hereby appropriated, out of any money in the Treasury not otherwise appropriated, the sum of $2,000,000 for the use of the Commissioner of Internal Revenue and $100,000 for the use of the Department of Justice for the enforcement of the provisions of this Act, including personal services in the District of Columbia and necessary printing and binding.”

And how is the law enforced?