Washington, Apr. 22.
Prohibition was blamed indirectly for the disastrous fire.
Representative Fiorello H. La-|a1 sustdia of New York City, violent Wet, issued a statement declaring that "America's craze for laws may blamed for the deaths in the Ohio Penitentiary disaster, where nearly one-half the convicts were serving terms following prison sentences for violation of the prohibition laws."
Men sentenced under such laws as the prohibition statutes would not submit tamely to prison, the Representative said, and would go to the length of incendiarism to obtain their freedom. If legal restrictions on personal liberty were continued at their present rate, Br. Laguardia asserted, "it will not be long until we well have one-half the population of the nation in gaol."
Representative Robert H. Clancy of Detroit, Michigan, also blamed prohibition for the disaster. The Anti-Saloon League of America must shoulder the responsibility, he said, and asked whether officials of the anti-saloon organization did not feel -conscience-stricken at "this horror they have brought upon the nation."—United Press,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.