BILLARD BELIEVES RUM RUNNING ON WANE DUE TO ACTIVITIES OF U.S. COAST GUARD

"There is not the slightest doubt that the smuggling of liquor on the northern Atlantic seaboard has been tremendously curtailed since last spring," Rear Admiral F. C. Billard, Commandant of the Coast Guard who is to address a Union audience on Thursday, yesterday told a CRIMSON reporter.

When the Rear Admiral was shown press dispatches from New York announcing the arrival of 14 vessels off Rum Row, he said that he had heard of the renewed activities of the smugglers who are anchoring at a safe distance from New York, Boston, and the ports in the south in anticipation of a brisk holiday trade.

Continually on the move, keeping safely away from government boats, and luring them into long pursuits that exhaust their fuel, the runners from shore are trying to reach the beleaguered fleet in time to land their cargoes for the Christmas holidays.

Coast Guard Ready for Runners

Commandant Billard admitted that the Coast Guard would encounter a severe test in keeping New York and other ports dry this winter. He declared, however, that the Coast Guard was ready to take up the Christmas challenge of the liquor ships and that a new 100-foot patrol boat was due to arrive in New York during this week. A dozen more are expected from the Great Lakes region, and will be brought through the Erie Canal before the ice forms.

In the interview Rear Admiral Billard disposed shortly of the constitutional and moral sides of the prohibition question, and then devoted his time to recounting briefly the history of the United States Coast Guard.

"Surely," said the Rear Admiral in discussing the legal and ethical side of prohibition enforcement, "the subject of supporting the Constitution of the United States, of enforcing laws placed upon the statute books by the representatives of the people in Congress, and the duty of every citizen to obey the law as solemnly enacted, are outside the realms of controversy and argument."

Guard for Customs Enforcement

The Commandant of the Coast Guard made it particularly clear to the reporter that the enforcement of the prohibition was only a small part of the work done by his men. "The Coast Guard was started," said Rear Admiral Billard, in 1790. Its purpose is to protect the customs laws of the United States. In these days, around the end of the eighteenth century, smugglers were very active in running contraband into secluded bays and inlets along the Atlantic seaboard. The original Coast Guard cutters had to combat this activity, which they succeeded in stamping out, and smuggling of that character practically disappeared.

"Following the enactment of the Eighteenth amendment, the practice in the form of liquor smuggling, was again resumed."

Rear Admiral Billard has denied that the Coast Guard was charged with enforcing the prohibition laws. "Only a small part of prohibition enforcement falls upon our men," the Commandant said. "The Coast Guard is charged with the duty of preventing the smuggling of intoxicating liquor into the United States from the sea, but of course this is not enough to stop drinking in the United States."

Says Results Due to Personnel

Asked whether he thought that the Coast Guard would ever succeed in downing the rum ships, Rear Admiral Billard said: "Napoleon is reported to have said that 'in any military operation, the importance of personnel to material is three to one.' This I believe to be true, not only of operations in war, but also of the present determined fight that is being waged by the government to uphold the law. Any body of men actuated by high traditions and by the ingrained habit of doing their duty under all circumstances, and sustained by high morale, are bound to win out eventually in any task assigned to them if given the necessary resources with which to operate."

The reporter expressed some surprise when told that the Coast Guard was a military organization, and took part in the conflicts against other nations.

"Why, of course they do," Mr. Billard told his interviewer, and rapidly went over the history of the Coast Guard. "The first commission issued by President Washington to any officer for service afloat was bestowed upon Hopley Yeaton of New Hampshire, as Captain in the Coast Guard.

Coast Guard Active in Defense

"Do you know," continued the Rear Admiral, "that of the 22 boats captured by the United States during the differences will France in 1798 and 1799, the Coast Guard cutters captured 18, unaided, and assisted in the capture of two others; that a Coast Guard vessel made the first capture during the War of 1812; that piracy, which prevailed during the first part of the nineteenth century in the Gulf of Mexico, owed its suppression chiefly to the Coast Guard; that the cutters participated actively in the Seminole Indian War, the Mexican War, the Paraguayan Expedition in 1858, and, in the Civil War?

"The famous dispatch by the Secretary of the Treasury, General John A. Dix, Which contained the direction: 'If any man attempts to haul down the American flag, shoot him on the shot', was transmitted on the evening of January 15, 1861, for the purpose of retaining under the control of the Federal government the United State Coast Guard cutter 'Robert McLelland', then in the port of New Orleans.

Rear Admiral Billard cited many examples of actual war work done by the Coast Guard branch of the Navy during the World War. It was in the convoying of troop ships, that the Coast Guard was particularly of service in the recent war