Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1928-09-16
Opposition to Saloon Cited.
G. O. P. Enforcement
Failure Stressed.
HOOVER AND MELLON
ARE MADE TARGETS
Summary to Be Issued Next Week.
Statistics Quoted to Show Gain
in Rum Traffic.
BY the Associated Press.

NEW YORK, September 15-Sum-
mary of Gov Smiths declarations on
prohibition, beginning with his mes
sage to the State Legislature in 1920,
is presented in the Democratic cam
paign handbook, Democratic national
headquarters announced today.
Twenty-six pages Of the book are de-
voted to the prohibition issue, and the
chapter includes extracts from Gov.
Smiths correspondence on the subject
and from the nominees speeches. The
book is to be issued next week.
so far as the partys presidential
candidate is concerned personally" the
announcement said, "the three main
facts that stand out in the record are
that he is absolutely opposed to the re-
turn of the saloon as the most pro-
nounced dry could be; that he pledges
himself to enforce the existing pro-
hibition law to the limit of his capacity,
and that If elected he will suggest to
Congress and the country at large a
different method which, in his opinion,
will be more conducive to true temper
ance in the United States than the
present system"
Cites G. o. p. Failure.
The book does not attack prohibition,
but there is a long chapter devoted to
the alleged failure of the Harding
Coolidge administrator to enforce the
law. There are statistics purporting to
show that arrests for drunkenness have
virtually doubled in the seven years of
Republican methods of enforcement;
that prisons are more crowded than
ever; that various indices show great
increase of intemperance, crime and
illicit LIQUOR traffic. The indiceS, the
announcement said, were taken from
such sources as the United States CEN
sus, State prison reports and official
records of charity organizations.
Concerning the Republican candi-
dates stand on prohibition, the hand
book says:
"But the most amazing thing about
Candidate Hoover'S public reference to
prohibition is his admission now that
there have been grave abuses and that
IlONs oCtCl1 NCd1o uAAAA q AAcbA4 oAONA NAAOS-
abuses began, under his own nose and
eyes in the Presidents cabinet chamber,
there should be study CT the matter
to find out what the abuses really are
and to end them. Gen. Andrews. Maj.
Mills and Emory r. Buckner, all good
Republicans, told what those abuses
were long time ago and nothing came
of It, If Mr.. Hoover, as an engineer,
had shown the same delay. the same
asserting to wrong in his professional
affairs that have characterized his con-
duct as a Cabinet Minister in the mat
ter of prohibition, he never would have
been heard of outside of West Branch,
Iowa, and Palo Alto, Calf.
Mellon Is Attacked.
when Mr.. Harding became Presi-
dent he made Mr.. Mellon his Secretary
of the Treasury with full executive au-
thority in the matter of prohibition en-
forcement," the handbook says. when
Mr.. Mellon moved from his home in
Pittsburgh to Washington he sent his
stock of wines and liquors along with
his oil paintings in a moving van. 1t
was prewar stuff, some of it made in
Mr.. Melons own distillery. and he had
a complete legal right to keep and use
1t in his Pittsburgh home. That moving
van might we'll be taken as a symbol
of the Republican attitude toward pro-
hibition."
The handbook recalls that President
Coolidge called the governors of all the
States to Washington for a conference
on liquor law enforcement and adds:
Two of the governors kept that prom
Use. One of the two was Gov. Alfred
e Smith 0f NpW York"
He called the promised conference
in Albany in February, 1924" the hand
book continues. when he said: There
Is one thing we cannot disagree on, and
that is that unless the Constitution
is obeyed and sustained in its every
letter. 1t can serve no useful purpose,
The eighteenth amendment Is a part
of that Constitution and just as sacred
as any other part. The So-called Vol
stead act. making operative that eight
eenth amendment. is just as sacred as
any other law in the country"
Under the caption Political Drys and
Personal Wets," the handbook says:
THE Washington police recently made
the accidental discovery of thousand
gallon still near Capitol Hill, within a
pretzels toss of where the dry Repub-
lican speaker. Nicholas Longworth, pre-
sides over his bone dry House. with
his tongue in his cheek. All such dis
coveries by the Washington police are
accidental"
The handbook says that mo matter
how many thousands of stills and
speakeasies" and "a thousand other
things of like import" there may be,
they 'are less poisonous to the morals
and integrity of this country than is
the hypocrisy of the gentlemen in Con-
gress who are dry on the roll call and
nowhere else, or the cynicism of that
other Washington group supposed to di-
rect enforcement throughout the coun-
try of the law that Congress makes"