National Affairs: 500 Words

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The Republican Party, in convention assembled in Chicago last week, took an elephantine step Wetward. Definitely deserted was National Prohibition as the G. 0. P. has tacitly endorsed it for the last twelve years. How close to reality the party's new declaration would bring legal beer, wine & spirits remained a matter of opinion, dispute, political contest. The fact in hand was that the Chicago convention gave Wets the substance of a change, Drys the shadow of kind words. The party had pulled on rubber boots to pussyfoot its way through the campaign. Whether this was possible or impossible only Election Day would show.

Professional Drys who hold the 18th Amendment sacrosanct found themselves beaten before the delegates assembled at the Stadium. So wide and deep has been the popular revulsion against Prohibition that the convention promptly settled down into a contest between Repeal and Revision, with never a thought of Retention. In the Florentine Room of the Congress Hotel were held perfunctory hearings for the extremists of both sides, after which a committee of 17 went into secret session to jigsaw a 500-word declaration on Prohibition. President Hoover would not stand for outright Repeal as Connecticut's Senator Bingham ardently demanded. Defying a majority of his own New York delegation, which wanted to sweep the 18th Amendment off the books. Secretary of the Treasury Mills became the White House spokesman in drafting a compromise plank. For 24 hours the Resolutions Committee wrote, scratched and wrote again until it perfected a declaration which it could telephone to Washington and get approved.

As a majority report from the Committee, this plank pledged the party to law enforcement and against nullification. It next detailed the workings of Article V whereby proposals to alter the Constitution are submitted by a two-thirds vote of Congress, or on application of two-thirds of the State Legislatures and are ratified by three-fourths of the State Legislatures or by conventions in three-fourths of the States. Turning thumbs down on referendums as meaningless and ineffectual, the majority plank continued:

"A nation-wide controversy over the 18th Amendment now distracts attention. . . . [It] is not a partisan political question. Members of the Republican party hold different opinions with respect to it and no public official or member of the party should be pledged or forced to choose between his party affiliations and his honest convictions. . . .

"We do not favor a submission limited to the issue of retention or repeal. . . . The progress that has been thus far made must be preserved while the evils must be eliminated.

"We therefore believe that the people should have an opportunity to pass upon a proposed amendment, the provision of which, while retaining in the Federal Government power to preserve the gains already made in dealing with the evils inherent in the liquor traffic, shall allow

States to deal with the problem as their citizens may determine but subject always to the power of the Federal Government to protect those States where Prohibition may exist and safeguard our citizens everywhere from the return of the saloon. . . .