Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1928-10-09
DRY ISSUE IS HELD
BEFORE KENTUCKY
Mrs. WiIIebrandt, Among
Those Appealing to Women,
Hits at Smith.
BY g. GOULD LINCOLN,
STAFF Correspondent Of The Star.

LOUISVILLE, KY, october 9.-One
hundred and twenty-five, pounds of
dry" political dynamite has hit the
Democratic line in Kentucky, a line
which already is staggering before the
Hoover attack. Mrs. Mabel Walker
Willebrandt. Assistant Attorney Gen
eral in charge of prohibition cases, is
here, beating the bushes, urging the
election of Herbert Hoover and attack
ing Gov Smith as a wet, Tammany
Democrat.
I drove rs miles to hear and see her
in action in Hardingsburg, county seat
of Breckenridge County, yesterday.
There, in a faded old courthouse.
jammed with 500 townsfolks and farm
ers and their wives, who had driven
or ridden into Hardingsburg, Mrs
Willebrandt alternately lambasted Gov.
Smith and the vets and praised Mr..
Hoover and the principles of the Re-
publican party. Whether or not all the
members of the crowd were with her
when she began, they all seemed to be
No one. outside of Mr.. Hoover and
Gov. Smith, has been so prominently
in the limelight during this campaign
as Mrs. Willebrandt, due in large part
to the fact that she delivered addresses
in Ohio urging the Methodist ministers
to campaign against Gov. Smith.
Hits Back at Curtis.
Immediately there was an uproar
from the Democratic camp. charging
Mrs. Willebrandt with raising the reli-
gious issue and melting Protestant min
listers and laymen against Gov. Smith
because he was Catholic.
Mrs. Willebrandt came back at her
critics hard yesterday, particularly Gov.
Smith, and is continuing to do the same
thing today. She spoke not only in
Hardinsburg yesterday, but also at
Owensboro. and today she is speaking
in Princeton and Hopkinsville. When
she leaves Kentucky, it will be to go
to Tennessee, where she is slated to
make several speeches.
At HardinSburg. Mrs Willebrandt
charged Gov. Smith with being unfair
to her when in his Oklahoma speech
he said she was attacking him on reh-
giouS grounds. Further, she charged
ann NAtAA OC11i6 ullAdA W lllS OWI
church.
He is doing the unfair thing to his
church when he tries to hide behind
it." said Mrs. Willebrandt, driving home
her statement with emphatic gesture.
Sees Issue DOdged.
when Gov. Smith bolted his own
party platform and became the lead
er of the ti-conStitutionalists, he
found himself in the position of boy
who had overturned hornets nest.
May it be said to Gov. Smiths ever
lasting credit that he does not run
away from opposition; but he does re-
sort to the well known Tammany meth
cd of DETECTING attention from the
real point and arousing prejudice. L.
for One, resent the suggestion that the
daily tide of opposition to Mr.. Smith
may be clasSed as an anti-Catholic
vote. Such a suggestion from him is
an injustice to his church and the
American people alike"
Mrs. Willebrandt is particularly
wrathy over what she terms Gov.
Smiths insinuation that her appeal to
the Methodist ministers was because
of his religion.
Because I spoke on platform at
q meeting sponsored by the Method
ists." she said, "the Democratic NOM
inee attacks me on the ground that I
attacked his religion. 1t is untrue. He
attacked me only to make the mil
lions believe I had said something
which never said 1t was not the
religion of Gov. Smith that made him
do this.
And now that I am here in your
state, there arises Kentucky gentle
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