The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-02-25
SEEKING TO DEFEAT ALABAMA

MT. Bryan's attack upon the candidacy of Oscar Underwood in Alabama is based alto- gether on what the lawyers icall "construc- tive evidence" That is to say. MT. Bryan spins his argument thinly out of the tenuous tissues of sophstry, and not out of the sub stantial material of actual fact Like build- ing fort out of the snows of yesteryear is this attempt to make political capital of m issue that has passed into the realm of things accomplished. Prohibition is the law of the land, an integral part of the federal consti- tuition, before which all differences of off cial opinion subside and dissolve away in the official obligation of enforcement.
 Mir Bryan declares that Oscar Underwood is wet" and that therefore he cannot be expected to approve the national enforce ment of prohibition. In that declaration the Commoner does Alabama's distinguished son grave injustice. It is not in the record that Oscar Underwood based his opposition to the Eighteenth Amendment on the ground hat he favored the liquor traffic. Such l attitude would not at all conform to the habits of thought of the great Alabamian
 
 of the first rank Oscar Underwood in his speeches on prohibition declared that it was a question for the states to handle, and not a requirement that the central government should place upon the states.
 What was Oscar Underwood defending when he took this position during the debates in Congress? When he declared that the states should for themselves handle the liquor question, is there only one interpretation that can be put upon his argument? Would a fairminded man say that Oscar Under wood was thereby seeking to protect the liquor industry! Or would fair-mnded man say that Oscar Underwood was reso- lutely adhering to principle which he em- braced when first he entered public life, and from which he did not depart, even when to adhere to that principle exposed his position to deliberate misinterpreation by his political enemies? What was that principle for which Oscar Underwood stood, when he declared that prohibition was a question for the several states to handle? What other principle could it have been except the basic Democratic principle of States Rights?
 But when prohibition was incorporated into the federal constitution and thereby be- came the law of the land, what position was taken by Alabama's eminent son? He took the very position that attests his eminence and his right to the title of statesman When prohibition became a fact, Oscar Underwood declared that it must be enforced. When 1 the Volstead Act was presented to the Sen ate, Oscar Underwood accepted it's purpose and acknowledged its propriety, but objected to certain of it's provisions which he believed not to be in harmony with the intent of the federal amendment. High court decisions have since affirmed these objections, show ing the soundness of Underwoods thought and logic. So much for the liquor charge.
 But the real purpose of the drive in Ala bama is based on the old truth, that house divided against itself shall fall. If Alabama can be divided against itself, then Alabama can be made to lose the biggest political op- portunity it has had in generations The op- ponents of Mir. Underwood are straw men, set up to distract public attention, but with no serious purpose of achieving the distinc- tion for which they are allegedly candidates. To vote for the opponents of Mir. Underwood is to vote against Alabama's opportunity to furnish the nation with leadership for the next four years at least. Which shall it be? To follow the will o-the-wisp of party di- vision in this state, or to follow the sub stantial figure who has brought such great renown upon the state he has faithfully and unfalteringly represented and served for the past thirty years in Washington?