Laredo Weekly Times

Washington, April 16.—High church men of many denominations united today in an appeal to congress to stand by the Volstead act. With one voice they informed the senate prohibition committee that conditions have improved under the dry law, that any modification would court a return of the saloons dominated by the whiskey interests, and that such evils as have arisen under the present dry regime will disappear once prohibition is given a fair chance under effective enforcement.

The Federal Council of Churches of Christ In America, in which 28 Protestant communions hold membership, opened the dry drive, while spokesmen for other church bodies. Wayne Wheeler, Anti-Saloon League representative. and the. Women's Christian Temperance Union sat at the committee table ready to follow up the attack. Several witnesses before the committee for the council contradicted directly and emphatically the testimony as to present conditions given the committee during the past ten days by the wets.

One of the lay witnesses called by the council was Mrs. Helen Green, member of the city council of Cleveland. She declared poverty, drunkenness and suffering had decreased under prohibition. Under the cross-examination of Senator Reed (Democrat) of Missouri. wet prosecutor of the committee, she insisted that the only acceptable change in the Volstead act would be an amendment putting more teeth into the statute.

The Call of the Hour.
Washington, April 16.—The call of the hour is for such thorough-going work, moral persuasion and legal enforcement as will give the policy of prohibition an adequate opportunity to demonstrate its full value to the nation and the world. said the statement presented today to the senate liquor committee by the administrative committee of the Federal Council of Churches. This declaration by the spokesmen for 28 Protestant communions marked the opening of the drive by the drys in response to assaults on prohibition which have been made by the wets during the past ten days.

"If serious evils have sprung up since prohibition." the statement said. "they are far less than the evils which arose from the liquor traffic prior to the Eighteenth amendment. The liquor traffic with the accompanying saloon was allied with political corruption. crime. gambling and prostitution. It meant the wreckage of men and the degradation of families." the statement added.

To Extinguish Sources.
Washington, April 16.—Practical extinction of present sources of liquor supply was promised today by Assistant Secretary Andrews, in charge of prohibition enforcement. In explaining to congress his need for an additional $3,000,000 appropriation for next year.