The American issue. [volume], July 01, 1930, Image 4

About The American issue. [volume] (Westerville, Ohio) 1912-19??

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THE AMERICAN ISSUE
An Advocate of Christian Pitriotwm
ILLINOIS EDITION
Published Monthly except August by
\ THE AMERICAN ISSUE PUBLISHING COMPANY
110 South State Street, Westerville, Ohio
THE ANTI-SALOON LEAGUE OF ILLINOIS
, Rooms 510-512, 610 North Dearborn St., Chicago, 111.
ERNEST H. CHERRI NOTON, Editor
GEORGE n. 8AFFORD, JOSEPH H. COLLIER, Illinois Editors
PU3UCATION Ofticr—Westerville, Ohio
Illinois Office—510 North Dearborn St., Rooms 510-512
Entered as second-class matter Ht the postoffice at Westerville,
, Ohio, under Act of March 3, 1879
| Price—$1.00 per Year
Make subscriptions payable to Anti-Saloon League of Illinois,
Rooms 510-512, 510 North Dearborn St., Chicago, 111.
* ANTI-S VLOON LEAGUE OF AMERICA
National Officers -4 &
President—Bishop Thomas Nicholson, D.D., LL.D.
Detroit, Mich. .
General Superintendent—Wk. F. Scott McBrid*, Westerville, O.
Treasurer—Foster Copeland, Columbus, Ohio
ANTI-SALOON LEAGUE OF ILLINOIS
Headquarters. 510 N. Dearborn SL
ANTI-SALOON LEAGUE OF ILLINOIS
Headquarters, 510 N. Dearborn Street, Chicago
President—John H. Hauberg, Rock Island.
Vice-Presidents—Michael H. Cleary, Galena : Alfred T. Capps,
Jacksonville; Rev. H. M. Hunnen, D.D., Rockford; Mrs. E. E.
Hamlin, Springfield.
Secretary—Mrs. Etta Root Edwards, Pinckneyvllle.
Treasurer—John Rudin, Chicago.
Headquarters Committee—Geo, II. Wilson, Chairman, Quincy; M.
P. Boyntou, Secretary, Chicago; Bishop Edwin Holt Hughes,
Chicago; Chas. E. Coleman, Chicago; John Hudln, Chicago;
John H. Hauberg, Hock Island; Dr. T. J. Knudson, Spring
field ; Samuel E. Fisher, Normal; Andrew C. Zenos, Chicago;
Frank J. Day, Aloline; li. E. Allen, Rockford; Wendell P.
Kay, Watsekn.
State Superintendent—George B. Snfford, Ph.D., D.D., Chicago.
Legal Department—Jos. H. Collier, Attorney, Chicago.
Business Manager—B. W. Ewing.
Superintendent of Appointments—John W, Langley,
District Superintendents and Field Workers—Chicago District, J.
A. Little; Eastern. C. E. Pe erson, Chicago; Western, P. A.
Tate, Galesburg ; Springfield Legislative District. George H.
Yule, Chicago; Northern District, Allison F. Clark, D.D.,
Chicago; Southern Dlstrirt, T. Bert Frary. Mt. Vernon.
Field Workers—A. L. Shafer, J. N. Jertnan, E. E. Fletcher,
C. E. Dowdell. F. L. Ferkins.
National Board of Directors—George II. Wilson, Quincy : George
B. Safford, 510 N. Dearborn Street. Chicago; M. P. Boynton,
('•529 Ingleside Avenue. Chicago; Chas. E. Coleman, 542 S.
Dearborn Street, Chicago.
Notice to Postmasters—All Form Notices for change of ad
dress or discontinuance and all undeliverable papers pertaining to
the Illinois Edition of The American Issue should be addressed
to the Illinois Editor, 510 North Dearborn St., Booms 510-512,
t hlcago, III.
JULY, 1930
Dr. George B. Safford Honored
Chosen Member of Committee on Cultural
• Relations With Latin America
Dr. George B. Safford, superintendent of the Anti-Sa
loon League of Illinois, has been highly honored by being
chosen a member of the committee on cultural relations
with Latin America.
This organization was effected about five years ago by
outstanding leaders from different parts of the country
sympathetically interested in international affairs, who
decided that it would be of benefit to both countries for
a group to visit Mexico each year, get acquainted with
their leaders, study mutual problems, and thus promote
a spirit of helpfulness and goodwill between the two
countries*
Dr. Safford will attend the fifth seminar of the com
mittee to be held at Mexico.
While social conditions generally will be studied, the
Mexican government, in keeping with its improved and
more aggressive educational policies of recent years, is
stressing the promition of temperance and total absti
nence: and it is expected that Dr. Safford, from his
broad and intimate knowledge of the subject, will be able
to make particularly valuable contributions in this field.
The other Chicago members on the committee are:
Edna H. Austin, Frederic W. Chamberlain, Paul H. Doug
las, Herbert J. Friedman, Arthur E, Holt, Catharine
Waugh McCulloch, and President Robert M. Hutchins, of
the University of Chicago.
Yellowley Reports Activity
The reports for the Chicago or Thirteenth prohibition
district, forwarded to Washington by E. C. Yellowley,
prohibition administrator, shows 446 arrests in May,
seizure of 79 stills, and 42 illicit breweries and confisca
tion of property valued at $386,550.85.
Sixty-two permanent ani 45 temporary injunctions
were obtained by prohibition forces in this area in May;
22,771 gallons of beer, 6,344 gallons of alcohol, and 163,321
gallons of mash were seized.
In the Springfield, HI., division of the Chicago district
there were 52 arrests; 13 illicit stills and 5 breweries
seized; 617 gallons of beer, 478 gallons of alcohol, and
44,175 gallons of mash seized. The value of the property
confiscated was listed at $52,385.
The East St. Louis division reported 58 arrests; 12
stills, and 12 breweries seized; 19 temporary and 4 per
manent injunctions; 558 gallons of beer, 7,316 gallons of
alcohol and 8,183 gallons of mash seized. Property con
fiscated was valued at $1,278.
Figures for the Chicago division follow; 230 arrests; 42
stills seized; 14 breweries seized; 23 temporary and 56
permanent injunctions; 21,243 gallons of beer; 4.770 gal
lons of alcohol and 104,060 gallons of mash seized; $250,
048.25 worth of property seized.
Roots of Chicago Gangs Go Back to Days of
Saloons
With all its gangsters and racketeers, Chicago is a
clean city compared to what it was before prohibition, F.
Scott McBride, general superintendent of the Anti-Saloon
League of America, declared in an address delivered at
the Wesley Methodist Church; Minneapolis, Sunday, June
22.
“I am not forgetting the gunmen when I say that Chi
cago is a new city under prohibition," Dr. McBride said.
"The roots of the gangs go back to the days of the sa
loons. Prohibition did not create the gangs, but it did
drive them into the open, and has offered the Federal
and civic government an opportunity to get at them.
"The evils of the liquor traffic are here because of liq
uor and not because of prohibition. Prohibition would not
be here if there were no evils in liquor.
"Nearly all of the present day crime growing out of
the liquor traffic can be traced to a big minority that is
defiant of law, and is doing all it can to prevent prohi
bition from prohibiting,” Dr. McBride said.
Broadcasting Hoodlum Capone’s Philosophy
Col. Robert Isham Randolph, president Qf the Chicago
Association of Commerce, in an interview by Edward
Price Bell in the Chicago Daily News, of June 27, is
quoted as saying:
“A1 Capone, the overlord of Chicago boozedom, who
was more welcome in a Philadelphia jail than he seems
to be in cosmopolitan Miami, has a philosophy that is
hard to answer. He is reported as saying: ‘I sell good
liquor and run honest gambling houses and don’t see
why I am any worse than the highly respectable gentle
men who buy my booze ,and patronize my gambling
joints.”
"Honest gambling houses” and “highly respectable gen
tlemen who buy booze and patronize gambling joints.”
What gross contradictions in terms. Typical premises for
hoodlum “philosophy!”
It is, indeed, unfortunate that this so-called “philos
ophy” of the unspeakable Capone should be heralded by
a man occupying the position of Col. Randolph, with the
acquiescence that such “philosophy is hard to answer.”
It seems incredible that from the headquarters of an or
ganization recently enlisted to fight hoodlums, there
should be broadcast the alibi which the ace of hoodlums
advances for his criminal activities, in a manner that
gives his brazen, boasted lawlessness the semblance of
right and respectability.
Surely if Chicago hopes to pull herself out of the
slough of lawlessness in which ske is mired, the activities
of the “House of Capone” and its terrorizing gangs, should
not be granted what would even have the appearance of
sanction from any lawabiding or law-respecting source.
They must be fought to death, not coddled.
Colonel Robert Isham Randolph, the Daily
News and Prohibition
A few weeks ago the Chicago Association of Com
merce appointed a committee, which has since been
known as the Secret Six, who were to find out what to do
about the Chicago killings and then to see that it was
done. After a few weeks of activity as nothing visible has
taken place, the chairman, Col. Randolph, comes out in a
violent attack upon prohibition as the source of all Chi
cago’s woes. He says the “noble experiment” has failed and
lets himself go with a good deal of violence.
His article appeared in the Friday evening edition of
the Daily Neios. Promptly Saturday morning the Anti-Sa
loon League superintendent prepared a reply of about a
column in length. We ascertained first when it would have
fo reach the News office in order to appear in the Satur
day edition. The article was prepared and delivered to
the News office well inside the time limit. It did not ap
pear, however, in any of the Saturday editions, but a
little of it with all the heart cut out did appear in an ob
scure place on the sixth page of the Neios in the Mon
day edition. Col. Randolph’! article violently attacking
prohibition was given the most prominent place on the
first page and was allowed two columns of space.
If our readers saw Col. Randolph’s statement we feel
positive that they will be glad to read Dr. Safford’s ar
ticle, and if they did not see the colonel’s article they
will probably find material here which will be regarded
as valuable.
The full text of Dr. Safford's reply was as follows:
“Col. Randolph’s excited outburst which appeared in
last night’s issue of the Daily News does plenty of credit
to the warmth of Iris heart but not very much credit to
the wisdom of his head. He is evidently experiencing
what happens to men of affairs who are in the habit ol
putting through big things by force of their strong wills
backed by efficient machinery in record time. But when
they dig down into the big moral problems of the day
they find that in spite of their forceful personalities evil
is deeply entrenched and the fight that they have on
their hands is not a matter of a few weeks or a few
months/ but of years.
“Furthermore, when Col. Randolph actually digs down
beneath the surface and finds out what real conditions
are he makes the mistake of assuming that they have
just happened, when as a matter of fact it is only that
he, himself, has just discovered for the first time how
bad things really were. It is not the conditions that are
new, but his knowledge that is recent. What he and his
associates have discovered is a social and civic disease—
the disease that the prohibition law was enacted to rem
edy, and which it will remedy if faithfully applied. It is
a sign of weakness, however, for effective men under
taking to solve the big social and civic problem of law
enforcement after six or eight weeks’ effort to turn and
shout their objurgations against prohibition. That is
what every ineffective does in these days when he finds
himself baffled by his problem of crime control.
“That is the convenient alibi for the multitude of offi
cials who for one reasoh or another are not accomplish
ing what is expected of them. What is really facing them
is a hangover from the liquor business. This is not a new
problem created by the prohibition law but the old prob
lem of dealing with the lawless and criminal liquor traffic,
which always has been a law-defying nuisance and is no
more so now than in all the years previous.
“In the Chicago Daily Tribune, of July 11, 1917, oc
curred an editorial from which we read:
If the secret records of the brewing and distilling
industries were ever brought to light they would tell
a story of social and political corruption unequalled
in the annals of our history.
If the veritable narrative of the American saloon
were ever written it would make the decadence of
Rome look like an age of pristine beauty in com
parison. . . If these men have not made a practice
of committing murder and arson, it is because these
crimes did not seem immediately profitable. . .
The liquor business has been the faithful ally of
every vicious element in American life. It has pro
duced criminals. It has fostered the social evil and
it has bribed politicians, juries, and legislators.
“Whatever progress has been made has come through
the enforcement of the prohibition law, and in that di
rection, and that only, is there any hope of real relief.
In this connection I wish to call the colonel’s attention,
and that of the public generally, to an editorial which
appeared in the Daily News on April 21 in the second
column on the editorial page, commenting on the return
of our notorious fellow citizen, Mr. A1 Capone, from his
year’s sojourn in a Philadelphia jail. This editorial was
mentioning the fact that Mr. Capone was now endeavor
ing to capture the city hall, at least to the extent of get
ting control of offices which handled large sums of
money. In explanation of this move on the part of the
king of gangsters the News editorial stated:
Since gambling and the booze traffic no longer
flourish in Chicago as they did in the past, the un
derworld barons, who still cling lovingly to this city
as a snug harbor, naturally turn to other sources of
profit made easily productive by political influence
joined wi,th terrorism skillfully applied.
“Apparently prohibition enforcement in Chicago has
been far better than reported.
“A similar admission was made by the Chicago Trib
ute in a news article on the same day upon the same
ubject:
Upon his return to Chicago a month ago he de
cided to embark on new conquests because the boot
leg business wasn’t what it used to be, inasmuch as
Police Commissioser Russell had shut down all gam
bling. Vice rings also had been routed and couldn’t
be reorganized.
“Evidently Chicago crime is something besides a pro
hibition matter and is attributable to much besides vio
lation of the Volstead act.
“In his drastic article the colonel makes these sig
nificant admissions which inadvertently testify to some
of the things that have been accomplished even through
the imperfect enforcement of the law wlaich we now
have. For instance:
The stuff that passes for gin is synthetic—good,