Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1930-01-01
Politics at Large
BY C. Could Lincoln.


| issues. The recent outburst in Wash
ington, with dry Senators demanding
the ofncial head Of Secretary Mellon,
is only a forerunner of what may be
expected. The effort of dry Demo-
cratic leaders-who followed Al Smith
in the last campaign and who now
must stand for reelection to Con-
gress-is to prove themselves more
enamored of prohibition than Presi-
dent Hoover and the Republicans. 1t
Is quite natural therefore, that they
| should attack the administration and
keep on attacking it because of the
fact that prohibition is not enforced
| 100 per cent, or even rs per cent.
Paradoxicaily the effort of the dry
Democrats to embarraSs the Repub-
lican administration Is not necessarily
| diSpleasing to the wet Democrats Of
New York and Massachusetts, who in
sist, and have insisted for years, that
prohibition cannot be enforced. All
the attacks now leveled at the adj
ministration, they say, merely bears
out the vets theory.
+ 4
President Hoover has set his shoulder
to the wheel. He defeated q wet In the
race for the presidency. He declared
prohibition noble experiment which
must be worked out conStructively."
He is expected now to work 1t out. The
dryS demand that he work it out one
way, and one way only-by absolute
enforcement of the law. The vets and
liberals want a modification of the dry
laws. The only thing which the Chief
Executive can do, however, until the
law is changed is to 60 ahead with its
enforcement. That he is planning to
DO. 1t is no secret that the question
OF prohibition enforcement in previous
administrations has been side-stepped
to a very considerable degree. But from
now on 1t Is not going to be enough
Tor public officials to declare themselves
IN favor OF law enforcement" They
have got to enforce the law or come in
for more and bitterer political attacks
than ever before.
With the Democrats divided so
strongly over the question Of prohibition,
and many OF the Republicans holding
opposing views on this subject, it is
difficult job to make of prohibition
an issue along strict party lines. But
the question of enforcement of the
law Is another matter. The vets as
well as the drys may be expected to at
tack an administration in which law
enforcement Is not success.
y
How much this issue of law enforce.
ment will color the coming COMPRESSION
al campaign and the results of the cleo
tons next November is still a question.
1t may be a dominant feature of the
campaign, especially If the administra-
ton goes ahead with all Of its force and
strength
Grafton the prohlbitory laws. It may
make the tariff issue, which the Demo-
Gratis have sought to raise with asSid-
uous care for the last year, a mere side
show. Prohibition and the enforcement
OF 1t is something that the people gen.
orally can understand far more easily
than complex arguments for or against
the tariff rates.
~
The year 1880, opening today, is to be
critical year for the Hoover admins
tration and the Republicans. If the
Democrats should win control Of one or
both houses of Congress, the admins
tration would be hamstrunR, so far as
putting its policies into effect are con-
cerned. The President under such cir
cumstances could make all the recon-
mendations in the world to Congress
and get nothing Even II the recon-
mendatlons were of the best the Demo-
Gratis would prefer to have such re-
forms put into effect with Democratic
administration In control. The mid
presidential term congressional elections
have spelled defeat for more than one
Republican and Democratic administra-
ton IN the past. There Is always the
| danger Of the swing back of the political
pendulum in these elections, following
two years on the heels of a presidential
4 election. The administration sometimes
has not had full opportunity to bring
about reforms which it promised during
the presidential campaign. or it has
cumstance has arisen to change the
picture entirely.
The collapse of the stock market. al
though the country'S business is con-
tinuing as usual, has upset not few
| people. The fact that so many hun
dreds of thousands and even millions of
men and women take to specializing in
an effort to get rich quick makes the
trouble. They all have votes. 1t seems
| quite clear that the crash would have
come had Calvin Coolidge chosen to
run and had been elected President IN
1928, or even If Alfred E. Smith had
been in the White House. Prices had
/ been pushed too high, and the profess
| SionalS undertook to push them down
again. What effect the stock market
fiasco is to have on the voting next Fall
adds to the uncertainty Of the political
situation today.
| The Republicans have large ma
| iority in the House-practically hun
dred more members than have the
Democrats in that body. While there
may be shifts, unless there were real
| upheaval, Republican control of the
| House in the next Congress seems in
evitable. The margin of Republican
control in the Senate Is less, but the
Democrats will have to travel some TO
| win control of the Upper House. 1t is
| true that with some Of the Republican
| insurgents joining them the Democrats
can now defeat the plans of the Repub-
lican leaders. But only one-third of
the membership of the Senate is up for
reelection this year, plus few vacan-
| cieS caused by death and resignation.
The Democrats may pick up few SEN
| ate seats. But they also may drop one
! or two. At present it looks as though
the Democrats would gain more seats
in both houses Of Congress than they
| would lose.
Both the Democrats and the Re-
publicans have their intraparty fights
in the coming senatorial elections.
Helm in Alabama and Norris in Ne
braska, for example. But generally
speaking the Republicans must go to
the polls on the record OF the Hoover
administration. The attacks on the
administration by the Democrats,
therefore, are likely to be intensified
from now until election day.
| X II y
President Hoover has appointed Sem
ator Sackett of Kentucky to be AM
bassador to Germany. This opens up,
first, the question over the Republican
nomination for the Senate In the Blue
Grass State, and second the question
| of tho n1acfinr, itself RanreSankQf tive