PROHIBITION: 240 Cases

Communal is the summer life of the five Brothers Pratt at Glen Cove, L. I. Around the rim of a water-skirted tract of 1,000 acres they have their homes—George at “Killenworth,” Charles at “Seamoor,” Harold at “Welwyn,” Herbert at “The Braes,” Frederic in Dosoris Lane. Congresswoman Ruth Baker Pratt, widow of Brother John, lives at “Manor House.” Between them they have the yachts Carola, Dodger III, Whisper, Tuna. In the centre of their joint estate stand their stables and dairy farm, an institutional affair of red brick, manned by spick-&-span hostlers and milkmen.

Most potent of the Brothers Pratt is Herbert Lee, board chairman of Standard Oil Co. of New York, lavish benefactor of the Y. M. C. A. Largest and most impressive is his Glen Cove home, “The Braes,” a many-chimneyed pile of red stone with white marble trimmings, baronial courtyard, fountains, gardens. In such a magnificent setting the best of French champagne would not be out of place. To the task of procuring some, Herbert Lee Pratt last spring applied himself, with the following results:

Last May the S. S. Excella entered New York harbor from Marseilles with her manifest showing, among other things, 54 casks of “flower pots.” At the pier a man presented the original bills of lading for the shipment. A customs clerk picked out Casks No. 4, 30 and 53 for sample inspection. They were opened and, sure enough, they did contain flower pots. A crockery duty of $107.70 was assessed and paid on the whole consignment and away went the other 51 casks, first to a warehouse, then by truck out over Long Island roads to “The Braes,” where they were properly received.

Soon U. S. Prohibition agents appeared at ”The Braes,” explained to Mr. Pratt that they had no warrant to search his home. They expressed a belief that Mr. Pratt’s casks had contained not flower pots but 240 cases of French champagne. Mr. Pratt not only confirmed their belief but obligingly arranged to have the shipment trucked back to Brooklyn, where it was destroyed.

Such was the story which last week bubbled to the surface of Prohibition news. Charges were made that the U. S. Customs service at New York was lax and incompetent. The Pratt champagne case was cited as proof. The yeast behind the bubbling was, of course, Politics. Against Mr. Pratt were these undenied charges: He had arranged to pay the Go-Bart Co. of New York $14,000 to smuggle in $25,000 worth of champagne purchased in France. The U. S. agent for the champagne was Count Maxence de Polignac, member of one of France’s oldest noble families who owns the Pommery & Greno caves at Rheims. (The Count, already indicted for smuggling with Go-Bart Co. is now in France under $25,000 bond [TIME, June 17].) By collusion with a customs clerk and three casks containing flower pots, the liquor shipment was put through the U. S. customs. When caught, Mr. Pratt was neither arrested by the agents nor required by Customs to pay the customary fine of $5 per bottle—a total of $14,400 in this case—for each bottle of smuggled liquor.

Last week Mr. Pratt was in the blinds of his South Carolina plantation, “Good Hope,” near Ridgeland, hunting wild turkeys. In New York, Mrs. Pratt declared that the story might be “all perfectly true” as far as she knew. Mr. Pratt’s lawyer insisted that no case lay against his client because the purchaser of liquor cannot be punished under the Volstead Act, because there was no evidence of smuggling against him. Said the lawyer: “Mr. Pratt did just what you or I or anyone with money enough to do so and a desire to buy liquor, would have done.”

What brought the Pratt affair to the surface were the tattlings of one Ernest S. Braidwood, a Customs agent discharged for ‘legging who joined with the Anti-Saloon League of New Jersey to block the reappointment of Col. Arthur F. Foran as Comptroller of Customs in New York. Rev. James K. Shields, the N. J. League’s local chief, procured from Braidwood an affidavit which he forwarded to President Hoover as an argument against Col. Foran’s reappointment. The League opposes this official because in 1928 he was reputed to have said that he would vote for Hoover as Federal jobholder but that he preferred Smith as a Wet.

But the League’s zeal against Col. Foran apparently overreached itself. Its hirelings in search of liquor and gambling evidence raided the Foran hunting lodge at Mt. Airy, N. J. They emerged with photographs of a bar, a cash register, beer barrels, gin bottles. They found no liquor, no slot machines. New Jersey’s Republican Senators Kean and Baird, incensed at the League’s “chimneysweep” tactics, rose up to demand that the President reappoint their man Foran to office on Feb. 1 when his present commission was to lapse.