The Washington times. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1902-1939, 1923-04-18
P|NCHOT To- BE
HERO Of DRY
DRIVE

Hard Analyzies Factors IN
Fight to Open at Meet of
Governors Here.
| Continued from First Page.)
were given. He did not hesitate
| to invite foreign diplomats to din
ner and treat them to much food
with absolutely no drinks. He liked
/ it and he made them go through
with 1t. Now he is trying to do
the same thing to q wheel State,
and he is confident that he is going
to succeed.
Meanwhile across the Delaware
river from him in New Jersey,
Senator Edge, Republican, will
presently uphold the wet side Of
the prohibition argument in a pub
lie debate at Newark, with George
s. Hobart, leading light in the
New Jersey Anti-Saloon League.
Senator Edge is one Of, the few
Republicans Of national prominence
who seem to have been willing to
commit themselves outright to the
wet cause.
PinchOt To Be "Dry" Hero.
Inquiry here indicates that be-
tween now and the next Presi-
Dental campaign there will be two
somewhat contrary developments.
/. There will be a big law en-
forcement national surge with Gill
ford Pinchot riding on its crest as
its hero.
2. There will be a certain advance
in strength in certain regions by
the anti-prohibition forces in their
effort to create a feeling Of resent
ment against the drastic invasions
of peoples houses and business
premises and motor cars which strict
prohibition enforcement will re-
Quire.
The vets will turn to a general
defense Of what they regard as the
right Of the States to be free from
centralized Federal bureaucracy
free from arbitrary searches and
seizures of his person and property.
While the drys are developing an
enforcement movement, the vets
will be developing a "back-to-the-
constitution" movement and will be
leaguing themselves with the ad-
vocates of free speech and the OPP
ponents Of the moving-picture CEN
sorship and with all the other ele-
ments which now are making an
| issue of personal liberty and con-
stitutional rights.
( This combination has already ap-
peared in New York State, where
Governor Smith has represented g.
movement against political gag laws
and q movement against theatrical
censorship laws and movement
against bone-dry laws all at once.
In this direction-namely, in the
direction Of getting an increased
| number of people to dislike all in.
reference by so-called bureaucrats
with so-called free citfzenS-the vets
may make some progress, 1t is ad-
| mitted, between now and the time Of
the next Presidential conventions.
Modification Unlikely.
1t seems clear, however, that their
| progress in Congress toward any
actual modification of the Volstead
law will not reach the stage of any
slightest practical success.
The new progressive Senators
give them little comfort. Dill of
Washington Is dry. Wheeler Of
Montana is dry. Frazier of North
! Dakota is dry. Shipstead Of Mime
sofa is dry. Howell OF Nebraska
| is dry. Brookhart of Iowa Is so
dry that instead of calling him
bone dry, it would be better to
call him finder dry. The mere
mention Of alcohol causes him to
burst into flames and prophecy the
extinction of all bootleggers.
Senator Brookhart tells this
| writer that the bootleggers will
[ completely have persisted off the
face Of the earth in exactly fifteen
years from the date of the enact
ment of prohibition. He has calcu-
lated it all out, and the time is
fifteen yearS-nO less, no more,
The new Senator Copeland from
| New York is a reputed wet, and the
new Senator Edwards from New
Jersey is wringing and bell-ring-
| ing wet; but even Senator Edwards
shows really in practice no con.
WINGED and convincing belief that
any specific anti-Volstead measure
can get through the next Con-
grNss. ~.
Nor does Senator Stanley of Ken
lucky, who, along with Senator
Reed of Missouri and Senator
Shields of Tennessee and Senator
Broussard of Louisiana; carries one
Of the four defiant anti-Volstead
banners from an otherwise capitu-
lated and evaporated dry Bourbon
South in the United States Senate.
Aim Is Education"
The work which the vets really
have cut out for themselves is not
one of legislation, but Of what thew
call education" They will be for
1.-The Constitution" in its spirit, and
the drys will be for 1.-The law" in
| it's letter.
Governor Pinchot, in the an.
preaching convention of governors.
will demand 1.-The law" in it's letter.
Governor SilZer of New Jersey
(DemOcraD and Governor Smith of
New York DemocraD will be urged
to try to show that Governor Pin
chot's new law in Pennsylvania. for
enforcing the Eighteenth Amend
ment is a hideous violation of our