Congress Argues Over Poisoned Alcohol as Senator Edwards Urges Repeal

Lawmakers returning from the holidays plunged on Monday into a debate over deaths from poisoned industrial alcohol, the Associated Press reported, while Treasury chemists worked at Secretary Mellon’s direction on a nonpoisonous formula for denaturing it.

In the House, Representative Celler, a New York Democrat, urged that poison be kept out of industrial alcohol on humanitarian grounds and said members of both chambers drink to excess. Representative Blanton of Texas replied that it is against the law to drink the stuff. Representative La Guardia demanded action on a resolution asking Mellon about enforcement in New York.

In the Senate, Edwards, a New Jersey Democrat, read statistics on holiday deaths from 15 cities and offered a resolution asking Mellon for information on the poisoning of alcohol. He proposed repealing the Eighteenth Amendment through state conventions before the 1928 election and sent his resolution to the judiciary committee.