Only Hope in Modification of Present Legislation:
Appeal to Judiciary From Our Own New York, Feb. 15.
It was to be expected that when. the House Judiciary Committee commenced its long-awaited hearing on pleas submitted by the Wets" that national interest in the future of "Prohibition should run to a high point. At the outset of the hearing a day or two ago the chairman of the Committee denounced the law as a failure after ten years of trial, and it is safe to y that no topic brought forward in Washington in recent years has caused such a furore. <A strony dereurrent of feeling between "Wets" and "Drys" was evident immediately the session started. Frequent outbursts of applause greeted the chairman's opening remarks, and though most of the spectators were women, it appeared that they were frankly and milftantly "wet." As most of the mom. bers of the Judiciary Committee are well-known "Drys," the "Wet" Jeaders exhibit little hope of persuading that body favourably to re-ort any modification bill to the House, though it is already evident, after three days' work, that no bet: ter move on the part of the Government has been undertaken in recent years to educate the Amer-can people into the erying need of urgent reform.
It is a common thing for travel ing Americans, when they get back home from foreign country to announce their chagrin ove their own citizenship. Prohibition is the direct cause of this, of course, and it may be a good thing for the United States if the result of this inquiry means the immediate modification of a stupid and unnatural law. The Eighteenth Amendment and the enforcement law, tested for over ten years without satisfactory results, have left a train of con Sequences most deplorable and distressing to every American worthy of the name, During that period some 1,800 people have been killed 131 citizens have been shot by. Prohibition officers and 64 agents killed by citizens. In one year there were 77,851 arrests for law Heged or real. During under Prohibition 12 instituted, year there were close to 70,000. Demand for more prisons has been made and now looking out for new quarto The former Jesuit College in Rue de Vaugirard seems to be the only suitable place, but will its Jowner be really. patriotic?
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.