| OCR Text |
Show THE CITIZEN 7 BOURBON REGIME IS ORGY OF ALCOHOLISM Under the liberal Democratic state administration the most lucra-- e position is that of alcohol distributing agent. While the governor other high officials have been earning salaries ranging from 000 to $6,000 a year the distributor of alcohol has been making d. to $15,000 a year. The alcohol distributing agent is Oscar Lehmann, who, as a ewer, has been engaged in the alcohol business for many years, is profits depend on the law and the indulgence of the governpr. profit of $8,000 ie law specifically provides that the alcohol shall be sold at cost per cent, which is exceedingly liberal. But the e governor a right to increase the percentage and d kindness of heart the governor has permitted charge a profit of fifteen and, sometimes sixteen us 10 r cent. law also gives in his wisdom Mr. Lehmann and seventeen . the prohibition law which relates to theappoint-- . ent and duties of the warehouse manager who shall act as dis- " . ibuting agent is as follows : This section of Sec. 6. Sales and shipments qualifications and duties of wareThe Governor is hereby authorized and empowered house managers. and regulations for the sale of alcohol for scientific purposes only, and for the sale of alcohol which shall have been denatured by some process approved by the United States Commissioner of Internal Revenue. The Governor shall establish or designate a warehouse or warehouses and appoint or designate a manager or managers thereof who . shall, in accordance with rules and regulations prescribed by the Gov-ernor, have exclusive authority, except as provided in Section 7 hereof, to buy, import, receive, sell and distribute alcohol; and such warehouse manager or managers shall bear all the expense incident to such business and shall promptly fill all orders for alcohol at a price not to exceed ten per centum of the cost of such alcohol laid down at such warehouse, unless-higher per centum be authorized by the Governor. The warehouse manager shall have authority to buy and import and make shipments or deliveries of alcohol only according to rules made by the Attorney General, and shall make no imports, shipments or deliveries which do not bear on the outer package or container, in a conspicuous place, a label or tag securely affixed, obtained from and designed and authorized by the Attorney General, which shall bear the DATE words: ALCOHOL SHIPMENT NO Said labels or tags shall be AUTHORIZED by the Attorney General. numbered consecutively by the Attorney General, and an accurate record of all shipments or deliveries, in numerical order bearing the label number, shall be kept by the warehouse manager, which records shall show the date of sale or purchase, quantity bought or sold, name and address of purchaser, and means or route of shipment or delivery. Such records and the stock shall at all times be open to inspection by all executive, prosecuting and peace officers. Any warehouse manager appointed or designated by the Governor, pursuant to this Act, shall, before entering upon the duties imposed by this Act, give a good and sufficient bond to the State of Utah in the sum of not less than three thousand dollars, and conditioned upon the faithful discharge and performance of such duties. Such bond shall be approved by the Governor and filed with the Secretary of State. When the prohibition law went into effect Governor Bamberger to prescribe rules and manufacturing a At first the signated Mr. Lehmann as warehouse manager. wager or distributing agent charged only 10 per cent, but, becoming satisfied with the. profits, he asked and received permission to in-lu- de overhead expenses in the cost and then apply the ten per ceiit k. Even this proved insufficient and he was allowed to charge a Jgher percentage. Some of his sales have ranged as high as seventeen r cent and presumably he aims at making a 15 per cent net profit. In the year 1919 the total sales amounted to 11,878.19 gallons, r the nine months up to October 1 of this year the sales were .460 gallons, or more than the total for the entire year of 1919. ,1,s was due to the fact that the makers of fake extracts, on tenses received from the attorney general, began to run wild. March of 1920 the warehouse manager sold to the trade 2,358 .Hons. In May he sold 2,046 gallons. This was high tide for the tract makers. Then The Citizen began to expose the nefarious Mfic in which the state was engaged as a partner with the booze M and as a consequence of the panic into which the officials and Clr proteges were thrown the sales began to decline. In July, ,'vevcr, the sales were still as high as 1,899 gallons and in August f4 gallons; As election was nearing and it was necessary to take cover the sales dropped to 664 in September. I lie higher the cost of alcohol the greater the profit of the warehouse manager. And if he is allowed to add his overhead to the cost, so much the better for him. If, for example, he can obtain the alcohol for $5.20 a gallon and may add twenty cents for overhead and then impose his fifteen per cent profit he will profit more than if he obtained the alcohol for $5.00 a gallon and did not add his overhead. Frequently during the last year the quotation of alcohol laid down in Salt Lake has been below $5.00 a gallon when shipped in the usual manner. Shipped by local freight the cost would be higher and the distributing agent has thus been enabled to aidd the higher rate of local freight to the cost of the spirits and exact his ten or fifteen per cent on the increased cost. The legitimate manufacturer of drugs or extracts is the sufferer. If he must pay any price that is demanded by the local distributing agent he cannot sell his products to the local users! Take, for example, a barrel of vanilla extract. If an ice cream firm can ship in a barrel of the extract from San Francisco at a price lower than that at which the local manufacturer can afford to sell .lie will not buy of the local manufacturer. The same is true of drugs. If a drug manufacturer must pay fifteen per cent to the distributing agent on all alcohol he cannot compete with the outsiders who make up preparations of drugs and alcohols. The retail druggists and the jobbers will ship in these preparations at lower prices and the local manufacturer of drugs will lose his legitimate profit because of the high price of alcohol. As an example of what profit the distributing agent made per gallon the figures for June of this year may be cited. The cost of the alcohol was $5.40 and it was sold by Mr. Lehman for $6.23. At the rate of profits for the nine months of this year the distributing agent would make more than $15,000 but his profits probably, will be somewhat below that figure. After election, of course, the manufacturing business is apt to improve under the benign influence of a liberal administration an administration which, while boasting that it put the prohibition law on the statute books, has flooded the state with booze. While the sheriff has been with the bootleggers the state administration has been in partnership with the makers of booze beverages. The sales of the distributing agent are an indication of the growth of the extract business, which is only one of the means by which the prohibition law is being violated. In January, 1919, the distributing agent sold 619 gallons. In October of that year he sold 2,006 and in November 1,865 gallons. In view of the growth of the business ten per cent might be considered a reasonable profit, but when the business began to grow the percentage of profit was increased by a liberal administration, a very liberal, generous and spirituous administration. The indulgent Mr. Shields just could not refuse to issue permits when they were asked of him by his friends, the makers of the fake extracts. Had not The Citizen unmasked the traffic it would have continued to grow and by this time the distributing agent probably would have been selling 3,000 or more gallons a month. The alcohol, when sold, is 188 proof and it is diluted down to 47 proof for the fake extracts. Thus the booze-makin- g capacity of a gallon is multiplied by four. Add to this fifty-thre- e per cent of water and flavoring matter and the magnitude of the traffic will be grasped. The Democratic administration in the state, county and city has made a farce and a fraud of the prohibition law passed by the Democratic legislature. The majority of the people of Utah declared for prohibition; they still are for prohibition and they will insist upon the proper enforcement of the law. It cannot and will not be enforced by the Democrats. If they win they will take it as a popular sanction of their efforts to keep the state wet in spite of the law. , . co-operat- ing |
