The unverifiable statement that the American authori- ties will drop
the prosecution of Captain Randell and the crew of the auxiliary schooner ' I'm Alone was-prompted by the recognition that the authorities have a very difficult ease to prove. There has never been a dispute quite like this. By a strange irony the indignation and taunts come not from those whose rights on the high seas seem to have been outraged, but from Americans themselveS, who ask• jeering questions about the Freedom of the Seas, who admire the gallant stolidity exhibited by Captain Randell while his unarmed ship was pounded by shells, and who obviously have a good deal of sympathy with the man who was helping them to outwit the Volstead Act. According to the New York correspondent of the Daily News the American Department of Justice has only Captain Randell's own statement 'to go upon, and this is insufficient to secure conviction. The Coastguard; how- ever, still insist that they can justify the shelling and sinking. If they areright they Will have at least to prove that the -pursuit began within a distance from the' shore which the ' I'm Alone ' could have traversed in one hour. The captain and crew of the ' I'm Alone ' who •were landed in irons are now being hospitably treated; * * * *
Previous page
