During the two or three weeks directly following repeal loud promises were made by the Federal government that it would guarantee that prices charged for liquor would not be excessive, even if it had to exercise its right to regulate prices charged by the distiller; whiskey at $1.50 a quart was predicted for the near future, and Health Commissioner Wynne of New York put through regulations which were supposed to insure the purity and correct labeling of liquor.

Unfortunately, it is now apparent that these high-minded attentions were nothing but intentions, for while the price of liquor has been reduced somewhat it is still literally twice as high as it should be, and due to the increase in the Federal tax, prices have been increased still further. Still worse, it seems that efforts to stamp out bootlegging have not only met with complete failure, but that illegal liquor is actually being sold in licensed stores. In a letter to the House Judiciary Committee, Mr. John S. Hurley, Assistant Attorney General, reveals the amazing situation which exists; he says that "the country is at the present time, flooded with imitations of various domestic blended and rectified spirits, all of which are non-tax-paid . . . in states where alcohol control laws do not provide for a county or state store system, but only require a license or some similar system, these fictitious imitations are being sold promiscuously in every sort of establishment." That this continuance of bootlegging on the grand scale can be, to a considerable degree, attributed to the high prices charged by the distiller goes without saying. That the Federal Government will be sufficiently cognizant of its own interests to remedy the situation by forcing the dislitters to lower their charges or by allowing larger importations of foreign liquors is not so easy to assume.

The only chance of improvement, then, would seem to rest with the individual states; and here, oddly enough, there is a good deal of encouragement to be found in Pennsylvania. Liquor stores in the state are operated as a state owned monopoly; in spite of the direct predictions when the system was inaugurated, it has survived to confound its critics, for it has not only been run without corruption and with a substantial profit to the state, but it has also made a good brand of whiskey available at a cost of one dollar a fifth. The example of Pennsylvania stands as a rebuke and a challenge to both the Roosevelt Administration and the various state governments. NEMO.