PROHIBITION: Campbell’s Inferno

Until July 1 Major Maurice Campbell was Prohibition Administrator of the Southern and Eastern New York Districts. When his Bureau went over to the Department of Justice (TIME, July 7), he resigned from the Treasury Department, made vague charges that Washington influence had hindered his enforcement work (TIME, July 14). Last week he began publishing in the New York World (reputed to have paid him $10,000) a series of articles amplifying those accusations. Photostatic copies of letters sent him by Assistant Secretary of the Treasury Seymour Lowman, onetime Prohibition Bureau Director James Maurice Doran (now Director of Industrial Alcohol), and Acting Prohibition Commissioner Alf Oftedalillustrated his text. Most important among those accused of hindering the Administrator: Charles Curtis, Vice President of the U. S.

Ten-Gallon Glaser. One of the Major’s articles related: “In December 1927, a man named Matthew Quay Glaser was announced at my office. He was a large, robust individual in a noisy suit of clothes. In his hand was an immense cane, and atop his head was a ten-gallon hat which remained there as he pumped my hand effusively. … In a voice that would have sounded loud in front of a Coney Island tentshow he enlightened me at length about his magnificent accomplishments. . . . He informed me that he had been delegated by Senator Curtis as his [Curtis-for-President] campaign manager for New York.” Soon afterward, the article said, Curtis-booster Glaser asked Administrator Campbell to approve a whiskey permit for a pharmacy in the Cornish Arms Hotel (against which padlock proceedings later were brought) and a permit for withdrawing 700 gal. of alcohol per month for Spa Chemical Co. (which later was caught illegally diverting this alcohol).

With Booster Glaser was Joseph Steinberg, lawyer, aspirant for the Attorney-Generalship. They used Charles Curtis’s name freely, made warm pre-election promises. After he had refused to grant either permit on Glaser’s recommendation, Administrator Campbell received a letter from Director Doran beginning: “You are advised that Senator Curtis has again called my attention to the application of the Spa Chemical Co.” The permit was then obtained. He quotes Director Doran as saying: “I believe you are absolutely right . . . but I should hate to have Senator Curtison my tail.” The Administrator commented last week: “I had plenty on my tail in the summer of the 1928 Hoover-Curtis campaign.”

Most charitable view of the matter is that Mr. Curtis, having discovered how his name was being used, discountenanced his henchmen. After reading Major Campbell’s article, the Vice President last week said: “I was greatly amazed. … I have never used my influence either directly or indirectly to have such a permit issued and, if my name was used by any one, it was done without my knowledge or consent.” Remained, however, the Lowman letters specifically mentioning direct pressure by Mr. Curtis, the Senator.

“Vigilant but Discreet.” In July 1928 Assistant Attorney General Mabel Walker Willebrandt went personally to Manhattan to give Major Campbell legal assistance in a spectacular set of nightclub raids, coinciding in time with the Democratic Presidential nomination of Alfred Emanuel Smith at Houston. Democrats loudly protested that this was the rankest sort of Prohibition politics. Republican leaders advised Washington that such Dry tactics would lose the G. O. P. many New York votes. Major Campbell quoted Assistant Secretary Lowman as saying to him a month later at a Treasury conference: “The trouble is you’ve got it too Dry in New York. The people up there on these hot days have their tongues hanging out of their parched throats and a little beer won’t hurt them.” Following this alleged conversation, the Major received a letter from Commissioner Oftedal, approved by Assistant Secretary Lowman, ordering all agents out of Manhattan breweries.

On Aug. 28 Administrator Campbell received a Lowman telegram, which Undersecretary of the Treasury Ogden Mills later told him had been edited by Secretary Andrew William Mellon. It read: “Any unusual spectacular and sensational activities must be guarded against. . . . Political propaganda is made out of garbled accounts of Prohibition activities. Instruct your agents to be vigilant but careful and discreet.”

Major Campbell objected to taking his men out of breweries, to telling them to avoid raids which might be “sensational.”

“Horse Doctor!” In retort to Major Campbell’s charges, Assistant Secretary

Lowman last week said: “Major Campbell was a horse doctor in the Army. The horses died. He was a moving-picture magnate. The company went bankrupt. As Prohibition Administrator he failed to dry up New York. He had a free hand. As an author his imagination beats that of Dante. I have nothing further to say.”

Assistant Secretary Lowman thereupon vanished from Washington, leftunanswered a mass of public questions.

Last of Lowman? Last week there were broad reports that the Campbell articles had deeply stirred, sorely embarrassed the Administration, that Assistant Secretary Lowman’s resignation might soon be expected.