There are 55 sheriffs in West Virginia. It is the duty of such officers to enforce State and county laws. Sheriffs throughout the State, with a few exceptions, work in complete harmony with State and Federal enforcement officers. The complaint is general among them, however, that extensive enforcement activities are not possible, due to limited resources in both men and funds. The situation in Ohio County, which is entirely dominated by the city of Wheeling, is bad. The sheriff there is at odds with State police, local police, State prohibition agents, and Federal officers. Lack of cooperative effort is also apparent between local police and State and Federal prohibition forces. The latter advise that in many instances raids are made where local police stand by without making even a gesture of assistance. Ohio County is regarded as the only wet area in the State. This fact undoubtedly accounts for the enforcement difficulties apparent there.

CONSTABLES

The following appears in Article IX, section 2, of the State constitution:

There shall also be elected in each district of the county, by the voters thereof, one constable, and if the population of any district shall exceed 1,200, an additional constable, whose term of office shall be four years and whose powers as such shall extend throughout the country.

Constables are conservators of the peace and act as such throughout their respective districts. There are 454 constables in West Virginia.

CHIEFS OF POLICE

There are 59 chiefs of police functioning in the municipalities and incorporated towns of the State. The chiefs in larger cities, such as Wheeling, Charleston, Huntington, and Fairmont, concentrate upon enforcement of local ordinances, but cooperate with prohibition enforcement organizations to the extent of furnishing men for raids. Police in the various municipalities are being very much on the alert locally and are generally very strict with respect to ridding their respective communities of drifters or strangers without visible means of livelihood.

TOWN SERGEANTS

In towns and villages not of sufficient size to warrant a police force the law officer therein is known as the town sergeant. There are 72 of such officials functioning throughout the State.

FEDERAL PROHIBITION ORGANIZATIONS

West Virginia is divided into two Federal prohibition enforcement districts the northern, with headquarters at Fairmont, and the southern, with central offices at Charleston. Enforcement work in the State itself is under the direct supervision of the prohibition administrator at Pittsburgh, Pa. Two deputies act for him in the districts above mentioned. Twenty agents have been assigned to the West Virginia district, 10 for each deputy. The problem in the northern district is concerned with transportation from adjacent

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States of Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia. Most of the stills seized in that district are of the smaller variety. The problems in the southern area are more complex. The deputy there is forced to combat liquor running from Lawrence County, Ohio, and border areas in Kentucky and Virginia, where moonshining has been the favorite outdoor sport since time immemorial. Illicit distilling, also, is dying hard in Wyoming, Mingo, McDowell, and Mercer Counties, where denizens, on the remote places scattered through the hills, have waged hereditary warfare against "revenooers." The liquor-running problem, with respect to Lawrence County, Ohio, is made more difficult, perhaps, due to the fact that there are no Federal enforcement officers from the Ohio district stationed within 140 miles of the West Virginia border.

Recapitulation of available enforcement personnel in West Virginia

SUGGESTIONS FROM STATE OFFICIALS

If the Federal enforcement forces will concentrate upon the large conspiracy cases, the importation of liquor from other States, and the permissive phase of the work, the State enforcement establishment will look after domestic violations. The problem here is an educational one, and it is now my purpose to secure adoption of a system fashioned after the so-called Nebraska plan, whereby prohibition and law enforcement will be taught in the schools of the State. (State commissioner of prohibition.)

The secretary of state, politically dry and sincerely in favor of prohibition, did not desire to be quoted, but expressed an opinion that antiprohibition sentiment was crystalizing throughout the State due to overzealous, fanatical, and high-handed methods employed by enforcement officers.

The district attorney for Ohio County, with offices at Wheeling, stated that prohibition officers, both State and Federal, should be more thoroughly instructed with respect to the manner of securing and executing search warrants. He advised that a large portion of cases that failed of conviction in his district collapsed because of defective warrants, but added that Federal agents were less inclined to err in that respect.

The prosecutor for Marion County, with headquarters at Fairmont, commented unfavorably upon the low character of informers utilized by both State and Federal prohibition organizations. "Most of the informers brought to court," he stated, "are of low

repute in the community, and any testimony they give is not given credence."

The sheriff of Ohio County, with offices at Wheeling, volunteered the suggestion that enforcement of the prohibition law was a cinch if a plan he had conceived was put into execution. "Every policeman patrols a given beat," explained the sheriff, "and knows every bootlegger and prostitute who is working in that territory. If, then, every copper' were called in and told to either clean up his beat or hand in his badge, and were given to understand that the person who gave the orders would back him up, every bootlegger and prostitute would be driven out of business. But try and get them to issue such orders."

The sheriff of Cabell County, one-time Secret Service operative and personal bodyguard of the late President Roosevelt, advised that politics was the greatest deterrent to successful law enforcement.

Capt. H. L. Brooks, chief of the department of public safety for the State, is an enthusiastic supporter of the law-enforcement educational plan sponsored by the State prohibition commission and mentioned above.

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