PROHIBITION: Authors

He lives today in an apartment on a street called Linwood Place in St. Paul, Minn. Aged 68, he is tall, rawboned, mustached. His eyes are pale blue. He dresses neatly and simply—black hat, oldtime wash necktie (or a hook-on bow), celluloid collar. His automobile is a 1927 Studebaker. He does not drive it. Neither does he drive golf or tennis balls. He chews tobacco, spits the juice. He plays solitaire, reads Shakespeare, keeps a garden farm near Granite Falls, Minn. A widower, he has a daughter named Laura, who drives the Studebaker and keeps the house. Last week, he announced her engagement to Carl Lomen, founder and dominator of the Alaskan reindeer industry.

He dislikes being photographed. He had his name removed from the telephone book because people, usually drunk, usually late at night, used to call him up and abuse him.

Governor Christiansen of Minnesota, a bulky, dry, economically-minded man, is his friend and together they often talk politics. A lawyer, he got himself appointed legal adviser to the Federal enforcement officials in his Prohibition District. He advised some raids to put an end to the sale of ginger-ale and soda water “setups” in the nightclubs and cafes of St Paul and Minneapolis. Last week the raiders pushed ahead to catch ‘leggers in their homes.

Such, today, is the man whose name has become the synonym for Prohibition by virtue of his having introduced in Congress the statute to enforce the 18th Amendment.* Last week he had something to say after Nominee Smith had suggested changing the statute. Said Andrew J. Volstead: “Every organization against Prohibition will support him. They are too shrewd to be scared by any protestation by the Governor that he is opposed to the saloon. They know that the policy that he has advocated will in the end restore the liquor traffic if the scheme he suggests is adopted.

“The promise of Mr. Smith to enforce the prohibition law and the 18th Amendment is no more sacred than the oath he took to enforce the 18th Amendment when he became Governor of New York.”

The man who wrote the 18th Amendment, U. S. Senator Morris Sheppard of Texas, also commented last week. Said he:

“Outside of his recommendations for changes in our Prohibition enactments and his comments thereon, I regard Gov. Smith’s acceptance speech as a convincing and able deliverance. That he will give us an effective enforcement of Prohibition as long as it is the law no one can justly doubt, after noting his declaration in that respect. I oppose and shall continue to oppose the changes he has suggested in the case of Prohibition, but I shall not permit my devotion to that great reform to blind me to the fact that other questions are calling imperatively for solution.”

* Mr. Volstead left Congress in 1923 after serving 20 years.