Five Mile Beach weekly journal., 1922-11-24

Of Hudson County both Senators Free
linghuysen and Runyon had a clear
majority.
"If any resolution calling on Con-
gress to repeal or modify the Volstead
law in favor of light wine and beer
be passed, it can only be passed by the
votes of those legislators who desire
to give notice to their constituents
that they themselves favor light wine
and beer The fact that they were
elected by upwards of 10000 Republi-
can majority on a party platform
pledged against this very thing, will
certainly call for some tall explana-
tions on their part to their constitu-
ents in the next primaries.
"The Hobart law was passed last
year as a Republican party measure,
with almost unanimous Republican
support, Senator Smith, of Passaic,
for instance, being the only Republic
can Senator to vote against it. It was
framed at the direction of a joint COM
mittee of the House and Senate, to run
as nearly as possible along the lines
suggested by members of the Court Of
Errors and Appeals in their Van Ness
law opinions, and has since been APP
proved by leading members of our SUI
preme Court as appropriate legisla-
ton.
"The people have also approved
these laws in the most emphatic
fashion by re-electing either those who
enacted the laws or in their places
those pledged to their maintenance
unimpaired. For those thus elected
to now turn and strangle their own
child in order to help the Democrats
carry out their platform pledge would
certainly be a strange way to COM
mend themselves to their constitu-
ents.
I'VE believe that Mr.. Evans, of Pas
sale County, who has never been ac-
cused of being overly dry but who
supported the main Hobart bills last
year, was wise when he suggested
that it would be futile to amend or
repeal the state laws until the ma
tional laws had been amended or re-
voked.
GAS to the position the twelve mem
bers from Essex will take, we have
only their own statement and position,
not only at the Primary but at the
State Convention and General Elec-
ton, from which to judge. Their pre-
primary pledge, which was entirely
voluntary on their part, and person
ally signed by each and all of them,
reads as follows:
eve pledge ourselves, if elected,
to stand firmly for the maintenance
of our present State Enforcement
laws
"On this platform they were nomi-
mated and at the Republican conven-
ton they insisted on the declaration
in the party platform standing for the
enforcement laws unimpaired. They
again reiterated this position in their
literature at the general election, and
on this platform they were then elect
ed by 10000 majority, despite the
Democratic landslide. That, in the
face of all this, they should be inf1u-
enced by the wet clamor to go back
on all their declarations and vote for
the repeal of these laws, or even to
support for majority leader a man
whose main platform is such repeal,
we refuse to believe.
at has been suggested that back of
all these 'wet'clamorings there is a
masters voice, the voice of our senior
Senator soon to be. AS yet, however,
we believe that Senator Edge is too
shrewd and intelligent to believe that
he can successfully ignore the ma
jority Of his own party in any such
h~igh-handed fashion as is indicated
by some of those who are presumed
to be speaking for him.