OGDEN AND WEBER COUNTY

OGDEN

PROLOGUE

Ogden, Utah, is a city of about 54,000 population, and is a railroad, manufacturing, commercial, industrial, and scenic center. Every large railroad in the intermountain district enters the city. There are large shops located here. Transcontinental air service is available and there are also many grain and fruit farms in the region: and Ogden is the milling center. There are reported to be 86 wholesale houses and manufacturing establishments and 505 retail houses. There are four roundhouses and shops of four railroads and a huge icing plant for icing the large refrigerator traffic through this city. The population is about 60 per cent Mormon and there is a considerable foreign element-Greeks, Italians, Mexicans, and some Japanese. It is also on east and west and north and south transcontinental highways, over which thousands of tourists pass each

season.

STATISTICS AND DATA

Courts. There is one municipal or police court, presided over by two municipal judges.

City prosecutor.-One prosecutor and two assistants.

Police force.-One chief of police and 40 men, divided into patrolmen-2 specially detailed for prohibition inforcement in cooperation with Federal agencies and the sheriff.

By Mayor ORA BUNDY, who is also lieutenant colonel in the Army Reserve Corps: I think conditions here are fairly good. We have started a clean-up drive since we took office the first of the year. The police records, as well as the court records, will show much improvement over the past year. The old chief of police never worked with the Federal prohibition department. We now have splendid cooperation, and drinking places are closed up so that public drinking is about gone. We have run all the biggest violators out of town, or into hiding. We should have more educational work by our Gov

ernment; this would stimulate sentiment for enforcement and help when we get juries. It seems to me there is considerable more delinquency among the young people than formerly, but I do not know conditions so well before, as prior to 1920 I was in the Army and did not resign until I came out here. I think labor conditions have improved by doing away with the saloon; I have been an employer of labor all my life, and I know the result of the morning after a night of debauchery and booze. The people seem to be dissatisfied with the present system, and I personally believe that some strict system of Government control, rather than strict prohibition, would help the situation. My men are working in close cooperation with the Federal men, and we have a working arrangement with all agencies operating in our city.

By ALBERT E. WILFONG, chief of police, of Ogden: I have 40 men on the force, 2 specially detailed for prohibition enforcement who work with the 2 Federal men which Mr. Ellsworth keeps here working in plain clothes-with those Federal men all the time. I have lived here 21 years. Since I came into office the first of the year with the new administration I have made a survey of the city. I found 36 soft-drink places with licenses. Since the Idaho raids and convictions the license system has been abolished, which I understood existed prior to that time. The department of safety is under the mayor, and he appointed me his chief when he came into office. He believes in a clean city and strict enforcement, making the city a clean, safe place in which to live. He believes in enforcement so long as it is the law, and I am instructed to carry his instructions into effect; and this I intend to do with all the power available. The leading people of the city are behind him in this program, and he is supported by such civic organizations as the Chamber of Commerce, Kiwanis, Rotary, and Exchange. The new administration reflects the changed attitude of the people of this city. Mr. Ellsworth, the Federal administrator, went with me to see about the appointment of State men, and I think Mr. Ellsworth is a very capable man and right on the job. We formulated a plan and are working it out. We pick the smaller cases out for city prosecution, or the county, as the case may be, leaving the graver cases for the Federal Government to handle. We have had some trouble with securing convictions, because the constable who picked the jury did not get the right kind of people on it, and the result was that so many offenders asked for jury trials in the State courts that we had to take them to the Federal court. When this happened, Judge Johnson, of the Federal court, refused to try the cases, and the result is we are in a "jackpot." Judge Johnson said the cases were too small for him to handle and that he did not want to do police-court work. This has been a real hardship on us, and especially on Mr. Ellsworth. He is ambitious and wants to do the right thing, but the attitude of the Federal court is against him. He stated they were being hampered with the soft-drink places dumping their liquor behind barricaded doors, and when they had them broken in there was no evidence. He said that most of the places dumped their liquor into straight pipes; that these pipes led to the sewer and were without goosenecks; and that he then had the plumber inspector come in and examine the places for defective plumbing, and in that way got into the places and then raided them.

WEBER COUNTY

Courts.-(a) United States district court sessions held here. (b) State district court, with two judges presiding.

(c) Juvenile judge, under juvenile commission.

(d) Justice of the peace courts, within respective precincts. (The sheriff says most of the liquor cases in the county are handled in these courts.)

Prosecuting attorneys.-There is one district attorney and a county attorney with one assistant.

Enforcement officers.-Two men stationed here from the Bureau of Prohibition; a sheriff and eight deputies.

County statistics. (There is no data available, as the records are kept in such form that it is practically impossible to decipher the same.)

COMMENTS

By the county attorney: Liquor enforcement is a bad problem in this county. During the last administration the county attorney prosecuted liquor cases on a forfeiture basis-that is, bonds would be put up and then forfeited. Under my administration this is only true to a small extent. There appears to be a lack of cooperation between the county and the city authorities in this community. We have had a conference on the matter, and the sheriff, the city attorney, the district attorney, and the Federal agencies have agreed on a plan, and I think it will work out all right, with a proper division of responsibility and work.

(No records were available from this office showing the cases handled, disposed of, or pending.)

By the sheriff: I have eight men, besides myself, and that is not enough for the situation to be handled as it should. There are plenty of places advertised where it is said booze may be had, but it is difficult to get the proof on them. I do not think that conditions are improving any. However, I think conditions could be improved if we could get the right kind of cooperation and support from the city. However, the new administration is improving conditions, and I think we will get the support we need. I am ready to do all I can to help the city or the Federal Government. I do not think that prohibition has ever had a fair chance from the standpoint of our Federal judge. He will not handle the smaller cases, and what he calls small cases look pretty good-sized to me. The bootleggers know this, and they will force jury trials in State courts unless they are turned over to the Federal court; and then when they get there they will plead guilty, and the judge practically lets them go; or if he does impose a fine, he suspends it. I do not see why any judge has a right to do this. Selling, transporting, manufacturing whether a pint or a carload is involved-is breaking the law, and the judge has no right to discriminate and say he will not take such cases. When a man counterfeits a penny or a 5-dollar gold piece, he gets it in the neck for counterfeiting just the same. They should get the same treatment for violating the prohibition law, and the judge should be made to impose that kind of sentences. I

think we have the best method of solving the liquor problem, and all it requires is to be put into practical effect. We have here two State district judges and one city court, although most of our liquor cases are handled in the justice of the peace courts. Home-brew making is on the increase. We have about 30 per cent of our population foreigners-mostly Greeks, Italians, Mexicans, and Japanese. The majority of our liquor-law violators are the Greeks and Italians. Most of these foreigners come here for to make money, and then return to their country, and they do not care how they make their money. They get by with liquor-law violations by constantly changing their names. They should be fingerprinted and mugged, and a law should be made against the assumption of a false name. Then, too much politics enters into prohibition enforcement. They had a law here by which they licensed soft-drink places, and the license was based on how much liquor they sold. These have not been repealed since the Idaho cases were convicted, and a complete change has taken place, and it looks now like prohibition enforcement will be enforced like other laws here.

By W. K. HOPKINS, city superintendent of schools, who states: We have about 2,400 pupils in our high schools here, and I may say that conditions are greatly improved over what they were before prohibition went into effect. We have really no liquor problem in connection with our school or school activities, not even at our dancing parties. Once in a while we were hearing of some of our high-school students drinking at some parties, where they mix with other groups of people, but investigation disclosed that it was without foundation, or very much exaggerated. We have many more children in school than before prohibition. Nearly every pupil from the grade school now goes to high school, where before prohibition, only the ones from the wealthier homes could afford to send their children to the high school. The children could not make the high grades nor maintain the high standard they do if they were as bad as they are made to appear in the popular mind. The trouble is that when one of our young people now gets mixed up in some scrape it is at once published that the entire school is of the same type-that is, the 999 are painted with the same brush as the one who goes astray. We have as fine and clean a group of young people as ever existed in any age in the history of the world. I have attended many dances where it was said. liquor was freely used, and yet I did not see any. If it was there I did not see it, and I was there to find it. I do know that in the days before the old saloon was out and the liquor banished, that when I went to dances, and we did not have several fights and a lot of young people drunk, it was said the dance was not a success. We expected that, in order to make the dance a success. Now it is a disgrace for such a thing to happen at any dance, even the most public and flagrant ones.

By E. J. FJELDSTED, secretary of the chamber of commerce, Ogden (he has been in the city but a short time, coming from Pocatello, Idaho): I think the country is ready for some kind of a change. There is not much talk either for or against enforcement. There are many who think that prohibition is not a success because there is so much trouble with enforcement, and I feel that disrespect for this law

has bred disrespect for other laws; and those who break the prohibition law do not think they are breaking any moral law, and hence do not consider it a crime to do so. I think the prohibition law has thrown the liquor into the home like it never was before. People want to change, but they do not want the old saloon with its conditions; and no plan seems to be suggested for making it any better than it is. If some plan could be devised to let those who want liquor have it and keep it away from those who should not have it and from the young people, it would probably help the situation. Still, as a whole, I see less drinking in conventions and public gatherings than there used to be, and living conditions have been improved.

By J. S. LEWIS, in the jewelry business in Ogden, which business was started by his father in 1870, and having lived there since that time, states: I have seen the use and abuse of liquor in all its various forms within our own family and out, and I am sorry to say it has cost my family thousands of dollars. I do not use it in any form. I have seen the effects of liquor before and after prohibition; I know its various stages, at the time when we had between 40 and 50 saloons here, with a population of between eighteen and twenty thousand. I have seen young men go to ruin because of liquor. I was 3 years of age in 1869, and I am of the West and know the West. I have witnessed more men go to ruin through liquor than any other thing which I know of; it ruined more homes and caused more grief and suffering. I have seen laboring men go into the saloons, cash their checks, and never leave until the last red cent was gone, while their wives, children, or family were suffering for the lack of proper food, clothing, and a place to live and fuel to keep them warm. This has been changed, and no such temptation is open to the laboring man if he wanted to fall into the pit of it. It is at least made so he must hunt for a place to violate the law, in place of the place flaunting its terrible stuff before his eyes all the time, regulated and allowed by the law. Were it not for the foreign element, the Greeks and Italians specially, it would not be such a problem. Many people say that prohibition can not be enforced, but I believe that it can be enforced and that the public opinion is changing so recently that it will insist that it is enforced. I believe that we need a revision of our system so that we will have Federal men and Federal judges who will feel that they should enforce the law, and Federal prosecuting attorneys who will enforce the law on principle and not as a matter of expediency. The profit should be taken out of law violation by the imposition of adequate fines and penalties. I do not believe that prohibition has been any cause for delinquency in our young people. We are living in a different age and young people are demanding more freedom, more speed, more life than we older people were accustomed to, and I think that we sometimes attribute to them things of which they are not guilty. My own opinion is that prohibition can be enforced whenever the United States Government wants to enforce it. I was in the State legislature when the first prohibition bill in this State was adopted into a law, and I believe the time will come when this prohibition problem will be solved by adequate enforcement. However, there should be educational work done by the Government to help.