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Show EDITORIALS PROHIBITION and JUDGB JOHN-SON JOHN-SON By L. A. Holleubeck It seems that recently the prohibition prohibi-tion agents procured above 00 Indictments Indict-ments of minor charges before the Federal grand- jury under the Jones law the famou'flve years In the pen and JietOW1 fine law.' " These matters came up ' before the-' -'Federal -Judge, Tillman D. Johnson, In Salt Lake City. Judge Johnson believes in law enforcement enforce-ment and 1 a fair and able jurist. That, however, does not, imply, as It may with some jurists, that the prosecution, pro-secution, must have special privileges. At this writing, most of the counts in the indictments have, for Bound reasons, rea-sons, been dismissed. . Judge Johnson' fin id he thought thnt all these minor charges in liquor prosecutions pros-ecutions should be . under the state laws, where the local government would get the fines;, and that it was repungent to him to send a man to the penitentiary in the Federal courts when in like offenses In the state courts, a man was fined small amount and allowed to go free, and as he said "Clogging the machinery, of federal ! courts with cases of this kind is like shooting at flies on a window pane with a blunderbuss." Judge Johnson declared that federal prohibition agents 'should strike at the source of supply, manufacture and transportation, rather than spend their time with petty offenders such as soft drink stand proprietors. And that the problem of curbing the sale should . be left to state and city officers of-ficers and not taken into the federal . courts. Some of the federal enforcement officers of-ficers because of the federal money available for prosecutions, and the activities ac-tivities of a militant fanatical bunch who are determine! to regulate the private conduct of the people of this country by tin act of law, got it into their heads that a federal judge had to obey their dictates even to the extent of violating the law, or if he refused to do it, that he would immediately im-mediately bask in the sunshine of displeasure dis-pleasure of that greatly political force backed by a mighty propaganda and money. Judge Johnson deserves the approbation of every sound thinking man in the country. lie believes a mun should have a fair trial. lie stands for Justice. He stands for the spirit of the law as well as for the letter let-ter , The people1 the constitution and the laws. are safe in the hands of Judge Johnson. |