Wickersham Commission

[2][3] From 1929 to 1930, Alger Hiss worked in legal research for the general counsel of the "Wickersham Committee" (as William L. Marbury, Jr. described it in a 1935 letter, in which he sought the support of U.S.

[4] The Commission focused its investigations almost entirely on the widespread violations of national alcohol prohibition to study and recommend changes to the Eighteenth Amendment and to observe police practices in the states.

They observed police interrogation tactics and reported that "the inflicting of pain, physical or mental, to extract confessions or statements... is widespread throughout the country."

The report castigated the police for their "general failure... to detect and arrest criminals guilty of the many murders, spectacular bank, payroll and other holdups and sensational robberies with guns."

Monte M. Lemann was the only commission member who refused to sign the report, issuing a separate opinion, where he concluded that there was "no alternative but repeal of the [Eighteenth] Amendment."