Dry Transfer

After an effort of eleven years (to the day), and with no great regrets, the Treasury Department last week passed national Prohibition enforcement over to the Department of Justice. Attorney General William DeWitt Mitchell, as enforcer-in-chief of the Volstead Act, thus became the Dry Hope of Prohibitors, including President Hoover, who believed that only by effective coordination, under one head, of investigation and prosecution of liquor violators could the law be fully enforced (TIME, Jan. 27). The Secretary of the Treasury retained his pre-Prohibition powers over permits for industrial alcohol. When his Treasury post of Prohibition Commissioner vanished under the new law, James Maurice Doran, chemist, became Commissioner of Industrial Alcohol in the Treasury Department.

The Dry enforcement transfer was at first more theoretical than physical, with little or no shuffling about between offices. So crowded already was the main Department of Justice building that the new Prohibition bureau was retained in its old headquarters in the Southern Railway building on Pennsylvania Avenue. About 2,700 Dry agents and clerical employes were shifted to the Department of Justice payrolls, whereas 1,700 others were left with the Treasury to watch for industrial alcohol leaks. Of the 1931 Dry Appropriation, available July 1, the Justice Department took $9,000,000, the Treasury kept $4,500,000.

Directly in charge of Dry work under Enforcer-in-Chief Mitchell, was Assistant Attorney General Gustav Aaron Young-quist (successor to famed Mabel Walker Willebrandt). When he came into office last year from the attorney generalship of Minnesota, this quiet, practical, tight-mouthed man declared: "I'm a Dry but not a fanatic." Responsible for actual Dry enforcement under Assistant Attorney General Youngquist was Amos Walter Wright Woodcock, appointed director of Prohibition fortnight ago.*

Director Woodcock was ready to move into his new offices on the fifth floor of the Southern Railway building (Commissioner Doran was two floors below him). Aged 46, bachelor, Methodist, Lieutenant Colonel in the A. E. F. with a reputation as a hard drill master, able lawyer, Director Woodcock had served eight years as U. S. District Attorney at Baltimore. His home is at Salisbury on Maryland's "Eastern Shore." Tall and thin with sharp aggressive features, he believes in Prohibition with all his heart. He was at first reluctant to take this new post, but when his Dry friends coaxed him into it, he promised "fair, honest, decent enforcement with due regard to the Bill of Rights."

Baltimore citizens,wondered what Director Woodcock would do about their-- and his--soaking Wet city. Speakeasies in Baltimore have run openly and in great numbers for years. Good domestic gin, most popular drink, sells for $1 per pint. Maryland moonshiners supply the city with a fair grade of whiskey while the best drug store rye (cut) can be freely obtained for $5 per pint. Good beer is to be had from Pennsylvania at 35 cents the glass. There is little or no homebrewing because the liquor market is too wide open. Chesapeake Bay shipping provides wealthy Vets with expensive foreign goods. As U. S. attorney Mr. Woodcock used to leave his apartment on Charles Street every evening at 10 o'clock, walk to the corner drug store, toss down a milk shake, Coca Cola or lime phosphate. Once he set Baltimore tongues to wild wagging by escorting Mrs. Willebrandt to the opera. He failed to convict John Philip Hill, flagrantly Wet onetime Congressman, for public home-brewing in Baltimore.

Drys throughout the land last week were on the alert for any change of policy incident to the transfer. They thought they detected a suggestion of some such shift in a statement by Attorney General Mitchell which seemed to echo the recommendations of George Woodward Wickersham, Chairman of the National Law Enforcement Commission, for a more marked division of enforcement responsibility between the states and the U. S. Said Mr. Mitchell:

"It will be the aim of the department to encourage greater activity and effectiveness on the part of the state and local governmental agencies in enforcing the liquor laws. . . . It was not contemplated that the Federal Government would assume the entire burden of enforcement . . . or create an enormous police force. . . . True, there is no legal way of compelling state legislatures to enact enforcement statutes or to compel state authorities to aid in enforcement. ... In those states which have repealed enforcement statutes and whose authorities do not perform a proper share of the work, there will continue to be grave deficiencies in enforcement. Where such conditions exist, they are a matter of choice with the states. . . ."

Attorney General Mitchell's language appeared to shift the emphasis of the Wickersham view from the duty of states to help enforcement to a rationalized form of responsibility whereby each state would get the kind of enforcement it was ready to give. Drys were told, in effect, they could hardly expect better enforcement in Wet states. Many a Wet wondered whether this policy, if it was a policy, would be extended to its logical conclusion of letting Wet states stay Wet. Although the Justice Department shied away from formulating any specific division of enforcement responsibilities, it apparently meant to confine its activities to interstate liquor shipments and large illicit plants, leaving states to deal with petty leggers and the Treasury to cope with alcohol diversion (under Commissioner Doran) and smuggling (under the Coast Guard and Customs service).

First Transfer Change: A redistricting of enforcement areas from 27 to 12, to correspond with the Federal judicial districts, with a consequent shake-up and shift of local Dry administrators.

* Political punsters and cartoonists opened their birdbooks to amplify their knowledge of the bird (Philohela Minor) whose name Commissioner Woodcock bears. An upland species of snipe, highly prized by sportsmen and epicures, the woodcock has a long, long bill and practically no tail at all. Its plumage is heavily mottled-- brown, black, buff, grey--protective coloration for thickety ground. It can thrive only in wet (or at least moist) places, where it can probe for worms without bending or breaking its bill. That it may spy its enemies while it feeds, its eyes--large, nearsighted, goggling--are close together near the top of its head. Found from Nova Scotia to British Columbia, it is migratory, a fly-by-night beneath Spring and Autumn moons. Sportsmen find it hard to hit because of its erratic, dodging flight. But, foolish, it seldom flies far. Clumsy gunners can sometimes flush and shoot at the same woodcock a half-dozen, times. The female is larger than the male. Parent woodcock often carry their young clutched between their thighs (second-joints) when seeking fresh feeding grounds.

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