A maximum punishment of $100 fine for the first conviction of a violation of the prohibition laws in Jackson, Graham, Transylvania or Polk. A very low license we would call it, in these days of high whiskey.
Is Jackson a wide open county? Any bootleggers, rumrunners and blockaders to pay a license of only $100 to do business in Jackson county until the next General Assembly can meet, two years hence? These are some of the questions that are being seriously asked by church leaders, business men and lawyers, since a certified copy of Senator Bryson’s and Mr. Galloway’s new prohibition law has been received here?
A Presbyterian preacher, representing Polk, and a Baptist preacher, representing Graham, liked it so well that they got their counties included in the bill.
It has some good features, some most excellent ones, as it provides a reward sufficient to justify the exposure and expense to which the officers are put in apprehending the liquor law violators, and as it provides a means of keeping track of the operation of the blockaders; but who really minds getting caught, eventually, if the license is only a fine of $100 and the costs?
The bill first offers a reward of $25, to be taxed in the bill of costs, to any officer who shall catch a violator of the prohibition laws, and convict him. That’s a good feature.
It also requires a sales record to be kept, by merchants and common carriers, of purchases and deliveries of sheet copper, galvanized tin and sheet iron, and of corn meal and sugar in extraordinary quantities, which sales and delivery records shall e open to official inspection, and makes it the duty of the sheriff to inspect such records at least once a month. That’s a good idea.
The bill also imposes a minimum penalty of 60 days in jail for a second drunk. That’s a good idea.
But now comes the joker. No man, now matter how great a reputation he may have as a bootlegger, no matter how long he may have been running a distillery, no matter if he be transporting a thousand gallons of liquor in the county, can be given a greater punishment than a fine of $100 for the first conviction.
These liquor fellows are smart. They are usually hard to catch. Officers may know who they are and put in months trying to get one of them dead to rights. The courts, the officers, the people who may know that a bootlegger is debauching the youth of the county. Heretofore he could be sent to the roads, where he belongs, or fined enough to make him feel it. Now all that can be done is to tax him with a most reasonable license, far less than he would have to pay under the old laws before prohibition. The courts are powerless to deal out the punishment that they may know is merited.
Really, who minds running the risk of paying $100 license if he happens to get caught in the liquor game? Any ordinary bootlegger can get enough liquor in Tiger to make a handsome profit in Sylva, and pay his $100 if the officers nab him. If we weren’t opposed to liquor from principle, we can’t think of a business that would pay better, provide a quicker turn-over for capital, have less over-head, and lower taxes to pay, than bootlegging in Jackson, Transylvania, Polk, or Graham, under the new legislation.
. . . .
From the editorial page of The Jackson County Journal, Sylva, N.C., Friday, March 13, 1925; Dan Tompkins, editor.
newspapers.digitalnc.org/lccn/sn91068765/1925-03-13/ed-1/seq-4/#words=MARCH+13%2C+1925
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