PEOPLE OF THE PERIOD

Southland Times, Issue 18816, 8 May 1920, Page 8

PEOPLE OF THE PERIOD

PEN PORTRAITS OF PROMINENT PERSONALITIES, (By Criticus.)

No. 32. ANDREW J. VOLSTEAD, Last week the man who has to administer the American Dry Laws; this week the man who drafted the law—Mr Andrew J. Volstead, of the U.S. House of Representatives. The Prohibition. Commissioner is a believer in Prohibition, though not a fanatic; but Mr Volstead'is not even committed to the banishment of the Demon. He describes himself as “in the middle of the road,” and it is recorded that in % one of his election campaigns in Minnesota, the State ho represents, one strong opponent that he bad to defeat ran on the “dry” ticket. He became responsible for the drafting of the law by reason of his position as chairman of the Committee of Judiciary in the House of Representatives, and for that work he had had sufficient experience to enable him to write a law that is regarded by Congress as practically watertight. Before he went to the Federal legislature he was County Prosecutor in Yellow Medicine County, Minnesota, and during his fourteen years in that office he learned thoroughly the ways of illicit dealers in intoxicants, drugs and other prohibited things. He seems to have remembered them all when he wrote the law that Congress ultimately passed. Mr Volstead is of Norwegian parentage. Hia father and mother were immigrants who settled in south-eastern Minnesota near the Wisconsin line, where the father built a tog house, in which the future Representative was bom in 1860. The following brief sketch of his life is given by Mr Morrow:—The boy grew up on his father’s land, went to the district school, and was taken into the Lutheran Church by the rite known as confirmation—and the minister, later, urged him to become a preacher. This fact, the act of the minister, stabilised at the start Andrew J. Volstead’s character. But the church was as far removed from his plans as was agriculture. With the help of his father and by teaching school he completed his education at college and prepared himself for the bar. He practised in several places, for short periods, and then settled in Granite Falls, across the State from the county in which he was bom, and on the border of South Dakota. The season of his going to Granite Falls was early spring. In the autumn of the same year he was elected prosecuting attorney of Yellow Medicine County. This office he held unbrokenly during fourteen years and contemporaneously served ak president of the Board of Education, city solicitor, and Mayor of the town in which he lived. Yelloy Medicine County is populated by Germans, Scandinavians, Canadians, and Americans. Some townships, under the law of the State, were wet and some were dry, by a vote of their citizens. Into this mixture of conditions and conflict of sentiment came young Mr Volstead, as county attorney. Dry townships were secretly wet in places. The Germans, for example, by hook or by crook drank their lager beer. ‘You can’t stop them,” Andrew J. Voistcad was informed. He will not say, even at this day, that he then had convictions on the liquor question. The law was the only matter within his vision. It said that the citizens of a township could vote alcohol in or put it away. “My duty,” Andrew J. Volstead said, “and my oath require me to prosecute those who break the law.” This ho did, vigorously, so the story is told, during the fourteen consecutive years that he was the attorney of the county, an office that he obtained and held at the polls. And the wettest spot in the thirstiest German colony went dry—by petition! Seventeen years ago Mr Volstead, as a Republican, was nominated for Congress in the Seventh District of Minnesota. He had competition for the nomination and a Populist was a candidate against him at the election. He received 20,826 votes in the fourteen counties of the district, which were four times as many as were cast for the Populist. Mr Volstead’s six succeeding elections to Congress were unopposed. The Democrats made no nominations, while the Populists, vociferously approaching the brink of political chaos, had gone over head first still talking. Three years ago, however up for the Sixty-fifth Congress, Mr Volstead had to take the stump against a Prohibition candidate. Beaten, the Prohibitionist turned Republican and last year attempted to defeat Mr Voistead’s nommj ation and again was soundly defeated. There is no doubt about the esteem in which Mr Volstead is held by his own people. _ Although ns chairman of a committee of the House he could have counted on the f'ssistance of a number of members, Mr Volstead is stated to have taken upon himself the task of writing the Prohibition Law. So, in course of time, there came from under his hand what is now known as “the National Prohibition Act.” It would fill about two pages of a full-sized newspaper. This measure, passed by Congress with an overwhelming vote, and later repassed over the President s veto, is meant, so its title reads, “To prohibit intoxicating beverages and to regulate the manufacture, production, use, and sale of high-proof spirits for other than beverage purposes, and to insure an ample supply of alcohol, and promote its use in scientific research and in the development of fuel, dye, and other lawful industries.” According to Mr Volstead the object of the law, is to dnve ! the saloon out of business and to stop the use of anything containing alcohol in sufficient quantity to be intoxicating as a beverage. No person shall manufacture, sell, barter, transport, import, export, deliver, furnish, or possess any intoxicating liquor, except in limited and specified cases,” he adds, “and the courts and all officers of the law are directed liberally to construe the Act to the end that the use of ‘intoxicating liquor as a beverage may be prevented. Dealing with the details of the law, Mr Volstead told an interviewer that he was quite satisfyd with it. He admitted that it was drsLic, but added that it would make the Eighteenth Amendment effective. According to him a fanner may make cider, but if it ferments and becomes an intoxicant he cannot sell it or give it away, except to a vinegar factory working under a government license. will not be unlawful to possess liquor in one’s private dwelling, if the. dwellng is used as a place, in which to live,” says Mr Volstead. “A dwelling may be a house, or a room or rooms in an apartment-house, boardinghouse, or hotel. . The liquor so possessed, however, must be for the personal consumption of the occupant of the dwelling and of his family and of his bona-fide guests when they are entertained by him in his home. But, it wiU be difficult to get liquor after the law goes into effect. It can not be made or sold or transported, or given away, if it is to be used as a beverage. Breweries can not brew beer; distilleries cannot manufacture whisky; wineries cannot make wine. Nor can the railroads haul liquor as freight. It cannot be transported in wagons, buggies, automobiles, water, or aircraft or any other vehicle. If it should be the' liquor will be confiscated, and the person having the liquor will be’ arrested. It will be possible to obtain liquor on presentation of it physician s inscription, but the process will be long, and, it is hoped, discouraging: I had a good deal of trouble with some druggists and physicians in Minnesota. There are unsuccessful and unscrupulous doctors as well as lawyers. A dishonourable doctor, whose legitimate practice is not sufficient for his support is likely, if there is an opportunity, to fall into evil ways. He will wnte a whisky prescription for a dollar, or even less No liquor, under the prohibition law! can be sold by any one at retail, ex-

cept a pharmacist, and he moat have a permit from the national Government and be licensed by the officers of his State to compound and dispense medicine prescribed by a licensed physician.

“A druggist, may deal in liquor: but once it is in his store, how may Joan Doe, a customer, purchase it for his own use? He must go to a physician, who has been duly licensed to practise medicine and is actively engaged in such work. Abo the physician must have a permit from the National Government to prescribe liquor. The permit will be limited as to time sod place. Permits will not run from year to year. A doctor cannot prescribe liquor for persons living outside the cone of his practice. The machinery having been set up by which a person may be permitted through a druggist and a physician to purchase liquor, the next step for him is to get the liquor. Let us consult the law and see how the liquor can be obtained. ‘No one but a physician,’ the act reads, ‘holding a permit to prescribe liquor shall issue any prescription for liquor. And no physician shall prescribe liquor unless after careful physical examination of the person for whose use such prescription is sought, or if such examination is found impracticable, then upon the best information obtainable, he in good faith believes that the use of such liquor as a medicine by such person is necessary and will afford relief to him from some known ailment* Having decided that his patient actually would be benefited by the liquor, tbs physician writes a prescription. He ia Bmitod to a pint. Nor can he write another prescription for the same person until at the end of ten days. ‘And no prescription,' so the law lays down, ‘shall be filled more than once.’ Broadly, such are the acts that can be performed by physicians sod druggists. But the its are certain regulations that they are lequized to observe. The physician most write in a book supplied him by the National Government a history of each liquor prescription that he gives. He must state the date of the prescription, the quantity of liquor prescribed, the name of the patient and the aihnent from which he is suffering, and the amount and frequency of the dose. Furthermore, the prescription most be written on blanks printed by the Government, abd a stub, otherwise a copy,of the prescription must be returned to the Government. Druggists also must keep similar records and internal-revenue experts will examine all of them as they come in. Inspectors, unknown to the public, will be abroad ia the land. Doctors and druggists violating the law will be severely punished. Churches, of course, may use wine for sacramental purposes. Permits will be issued for the manufacture, transportation, importation, and sale of wines for use by religions bodies, but such wines cannot be sold, bartered, exchanged, or furnished to any person not a rabbi, a minister of the gospel, a priest, or an officer authorised to act in the matter for a church or congregation. Records, likewise, must be kept of all such transactions.” From those things it will be® seen that Mr Volstead has hedged the illicit procuring of dnnk around with many bar- ( tiers, and for that reason he most have many thirsty enemies in his own land.