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Show ' LAW VIOLATIONS ARE ONJ CREASE PROHIBITION CASES FORM LARGE PART OF DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE WORK Federal Law Enforcement Agents Arg Kept Busy Prosecuting Cases Arising Over Entire United States Washington, Litigation over violations viola-tions of federal laws is on the increase in-crease in the United States, according to the annual report of Attorney General Gen-eral Daugherty, made Tuesday to congress. Prohibition cases formed a large part of the department's work, but there were large increases also in prosecuting violations of white slave, tax, public land, postal, banking and other federal regulations. Activity also was reported in pressing the war frauds cases. Under the national prohibition net alone, Mrs. Mabel Walker Wjllebrandt assistant attorney general in charge of prohibition and tax cases, reported 49,021 criminal and 4109 civil cases were begun during the last fiscal year, an increase of 15,SS9 over the previous year. Federal courts, she said were unable to keep abreast of the number of eases brought, although 42,370 ci'.minal and 4109 civil cases were disposed of during the year, with 23,052 criminal and 40(14 civil cases left pending. Rum smuggling the report added, is "the most gigantic criminal problem prob-lem the United iSlates ever faced on the high seas." She said the coast guard was not adequate with present equipment to patrol the long Atlantic and Pacific coasts effectually, and reiterated re-iterated statistics of liquor transactions transac-tions in the Bahama islands indicating indicat-ing extensive smuggling into this country. Antitrust cases to the nuniDer of forty-four are pending, according to the report of Augustus T." Seymour, assistant attorney general in charge of that work. Twenty such cases were disposed of during the last year. Mr. Seymour's report recited the progress made in the sugar conspiracy conspir-acy case, the reopening of the Harvester Har-vester trust case, the cement and lumber dealers, and window glass prosecutions, the Central Pacific-Union Pacific-Union Pacific merger, the United Shoe and other cases. In criminal cases, in charge of John W. H. Crim, assistant attorney general, gen-eral, a marked increase in convictions was reported. Specifically, the increase in-crease was : White slave act, 32 per cent; motor vehicle theft act, 16 per cent ; postal frauds, 6 per cent ; national na-tional banking act. 114 per cent; an-tinarcotic an-tinarcotic act, 19 per cent. Public lands litigation also was heavy during the last year, William D. Riter, assistant attorney general, reported. With 164 civil and sixty-two sixty-two criminal cases pending at the year's outset, ninety civil and sixty-tour sixty-tour criminal suits were instituted. Disposed of during the year were 113 civil and seventy-one criminal cases, mostly favorably to the government. Money recoveries in such cases aggregated ag-gregated $577,000. |