The Washington times. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1902-1939, 1923-06-14
LIQUOR WILL Be
BIC ISSUE IN
1924 RACE
Anti-SaIoon League Opposition
to Roosevelt Forcing It,
Says Hard.
By WILLIAM HARD.

By WILLIAM HARD.
With the attack on young Theo-
dore Roosevelt by the New York
Anti-Saloon League, all hope has
been abandoned here of saving the
1924 campaign from getting
floated down the political valley
to the lowest recorded level of
petty politics on flood of alec
hol and Volsteadism.
| Great economic and inter-
national issues are receding here
from vision. The National Capt.
tai is descending faster and faster
Il into absorbed calculations of the
potential thirsts of different parts
Of the country.
Tabulating Thirsts.
The States are getting tabulated
by the politicians not on what they
want to do for Europe and not on
what they want 20 do to the rail-
roads, but on what they want TO
put into their stomachs out of bot
ties. There are better calculations
here of wetness, nloistneSs, damp
ness, dryness and aridness, by
States, than there are of reaction
aryism, conservatism, progressivisnl
and radicalism, or of any other
series OF political distinctions.
1.-THE whole United States" said
an observant Democratic politician
today, after much touring of this
country, ''is about to fall into the
same political abyss in which Maine
- . NwYHR nYN
question whether a man was an Inn
beetle and q rogue and robber or
not was a. small question in COM
parison with whether he was run
ming as wet or running as a dry. ;"
The vets here in Washington are
now at last as genuinely active AS
the drys in their lobbying and in
their countrywide agitating. From
their standpoint, the United States
divides itself on the supreme issue
as follows:
States Are Grouped.
The really truly westward-bound
States, where the citizens are thirst
lest or, where at any rate they have
given the liveliest evidence OF hos
fifty TO the so-called "tyrannies of
the Volstead law are: Massachu-
sets, Rhode Island, Connecticut,
New York, New Jersey, Maryland,
Louisiana, Illinois, Wisconsin and
Missouri.
At the other extreme the States
which lie most supine beneath the
"tyrannies' of the Volstead law, or.
as the drys put it; which stand most
staunchly by the Constitution, the
Revised Statutes and the Stars and
Stripes, are: Alabama, Mississippi,
North Dakota, South Dakota, Kan
.sas, Wyoming. Idaho, Utah and
I8Nevada.
II The drys say that these States
are magnificent embodiments of un-
tcorrupted American manhood. The
lwets say that they are Illustrations
iof benighted provincialism in COM
pa ison with those shining mirrors
of metropolitanism which adorn the
other list beginning with Massachu-
sets.
In between these two lists Of ten
States. each there lie twenty-one
States ranging from Pennsylvania.
! which is classed as semi-humid, to
North Carolina, which is classed as
semi-saharic.
States On Border.
Finally there are seven States
which give the vets much pain
because, as the vets allege, these
States are so situated that they get
all saturated with foreign alcohol
along their borders and so do not
much care how dry they get farther
in. These States are:
Maine, Florida, Texas, New Mex
leo, Arizona, Michigan, and Wash
| ington.
The greatest possible impetus has
been lent to these calculations and
to corresponding political prepared
ness on both sides Of the wet and
dry fence or river by the pronounce
ment of the New York Anti-Saloon
League in the matter Of Assistant
Secretary of the Navy Roosevelt.
Here is q young man who for
two-and-a-half years has been dill
gently assisting Secretary DENLY
to polish all the brass in our naval
establishment and who seriously
has done it so earnestly and eff
fectively that he has become, in
fact, one of the inside influential
figures in national Republican af-
fairs. For some time now he has
been steadily consulted by leadin g
Republican managers regarding the
affairs Of the party and regarding
its policies on many subjects be-
| sides the navy. He has grown to
be an intimate Of many Of the
| elder statesmen in spite Of his
youth and has been Thought to
| have a faculty Of political judgment
in various important public direc-
| tons.
Opposing Roosevelt.
Now, on the one allegation that he
| Is wet or thought wet, the New York
Anti-Saloon League announces that
| he absolutely must not be governor
|