The New York herald., 1922-04-07
VETS Launch FIGHT
TO KILL DRY ACT AT
BIGCARNEGIE RALLY
Evening Dress Audience
Cheers Plan to Unite
Volstead Opposition.
100000 ENLISTED NOW
New Members Reported
Coming at Rate OF One
Thousand a Week.
WINE AND BEER FIRST
Capt. w. Fl. Stayton Outlines
Campaign; Roosevelt Boys
on Stage.
.WINE AND BEER FIRST

Inc view iorh ulFiSlOil ol the HcW
society which aims to flght the Anti
Saloon League with its own weapons
and to effect the repeal Of the volstead
act and eventually of the Eighteenth
Amendment was organized at de-
cidedly enthusiastic meeting in Car
negie Hall last night.
The society Is the Association
Against the Prohibition Amendment.
It was reported from TIE stage as
having more than 100000 members
already and to be gaining at the rate
of more than 1000 week. Carnegie
Hall was crowded Many Of the box
holders and men and women on the
platform and elsewhere are well
known in New York. For evening
dress the meeting rivalled SYM
phony concert.
Stuyvesant Fish was chairman. One
o. the speakers was Capt w. H. Stayton
o! Baltimore, founder and managing
vice-president of the association and
president of the Baltimore Steamship
Company. His audience roared with de-
light and could hardly be silenced when
he declared. after denouncing the
"cowardly politicians who had yielded
to political blackmailers and given us
prohibition. II want a glass of beer and
l don't care cuss who knows It."
Cthers who bespoke national attention
for the purposes and character OF the
society were Miss Elisabeth Marbury.
Col. Ransom A. Gillett of Albany and
Augustus Thomas, playwright.
Dollar membership cards were passed
around and boxes at the door we've
stuffed with them as the audience piled
out Some persons gave considershls'
more than dollar Son1ebody. fearful
OF trouble. had caysed police 2eser9os
tc be posted all Around and inside of
Carnegie Hall. but there wasn't any dis
trrbance. The Seventy first Regiment
Band played before and between the
speeches. It's most approved Offering
was How Dry I Am" Miss Marbury's s
was, Forbidden fruit has become the
staple diet Of the nation"
"The Power to Coerce."
Augustus Thomas presented resolu-
ttons which-if one may guess at the
authorship-he prepared They were
carried with a rising vote ana unmiti-
gated cheering. They recited. first,
that there is throughout the nation "a
deep and definite feeling that the Eigh-
teenth Amendment to the Constitution
was not an expression OF the free and
unfettered Judgment OF the people. but
Is rather a monument to the inherent
defects of our system of government
which gives to an organized and heay-
lily subsidized minority of our citizen
ship the power to cnjole. coerce and
.frxstI In&A II Il
into compliance with Its bidding, re-
eardless OF their oath of office, their
duties or their convictions as to the
merits Of any given question"
The volstead act was described in the
resolutions as the most derided. the
most contemned and the most gener-
ally disregarded law in the history of
legislation in this country" To II was
attributed spirit of defiance oe law
the unconcealed sympathy of juries for
lawbreakers, failure OF prosecutions
and vicious. broadening OF the area
OF tolerance to crime"
The resolutions continued:
And Whereas: these results, foreseen
by every man of intelligence and in
formation. and predicted by every per
son with even a schoolboy's familiarity
Win HistOTy, are stlIi ignored by the
deiirious bigotry which continues to
paraiyze such conscience and indcpend-
cnce as still reside in our debilitated
politics.
And whereas: the United states
has become a byword among the civil
iced and free peoples OF the world,
Summed by visitors from other lands.
despised as country whose people can
be coerced without protest and deprived
OF their liberties by a shameless farati-
cism with declining commerce and wan
Ing influence on the thought and action
OF the world with growing disafYection
ard dissympathy at home toward a gov-
ernment which is content to thwart and
harass It's own people without consult
Ing or pretending 70 express their judg-
ment. their preferences or their corwic-
tions:
The Train OF EVIL.
And whereas: there has arisen In
this country. as a consequence. a con-
dition OF affairs which free men have
always deemed irstolerable since history
was first written, beginning with the in
vasion, by lying statute proceeding
upon assumptions Of fact which are ad-
mittedly false. of the field OF personal
liberty and individual autonomy. ana
Continued on Page Nine.