Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1930-08-20
BAR ASSOCIATION
VOTES TO CONTINUE
DRY REFERENDUM
Prohibition Poll Opponents
Lose Convention Fight
in Chicago.
$4,000 MEMBERS ASKED
TO GIVE REPEAL VIEWS
Letters to Lawyers, uthorized
Last January, Given Support
of Executive Committee.

By the Associated Press
CHICAGO, August 20.-The Ameri-
can Bar Association today voted TO
continue its membership prohibition
referendum The action was taken at
the first plenary session of the or
ganization's sixty-third convention,
after opponents Of the prohibition poll
had taken to the floor their fight to
have it abandoned.
Leaders of the opposition, organized
yesterday, used the argument that pro-
hibition is now question of national
policy and not legal matter that
should come before the bar association.
$4,000 Members Given Questions.
The referendum, authorized by the
Executive Committee last January, con-
sisted of two questions and went to the
10000 members through the mails.
They were:
do you favor referendum on the
repeal of the eighteenth amendment?
Should the American Bar Asso-
citation go on record as favoring the
repeal of the eighteenth amendment"
There are separate envelopes for the
replies. II the first question shows a
majority unfavorable to the referendum,
the second set of envelopes will be
burned unopened. If favorable, the
Executive Committee will open the
second set some time this Fall and
announce the result.
It was understood that the action of
tn executive committee yesterday in
g. &laSar k1Rn foV-0 <3SHYSa
was unanimous.
Some of the leaders of the delegates
opposed 20 the poll were Judge Andrew
A. Bruce of Northwestern University
Judge John Weston Allen of Boston,
Judge Frederick F. Faville of Des
MONIES, Iowa, and George Wilson of
Quincy, Ill, prominent Anti-Saloon
League leader.
Wickersham 10 Speak.
A discussion of the work of Presi-
dent Hoover's law observance and en-
forcement commission by George W..
Wickershan, the chairman, was on the
afternoon program.
The convention was opened by the
presidential address of Henry Epson
Sims of Birmingham, Ala, who dis
cussed technically the relation OF con-
stitutionai limitations to the reform of
the law.
The reform of judicial administration,
he said, might be termed the dominant
problem before the American people.
1t Is not, however, the social impulse
but the social need that must be put
into law, he added.
ANY legislation" he said, within
the appropriate sphere of its action Is
constitutional IL reasonable under the
conditions of time and place to which
It is made applicable. and conceivably
directed to advance the public good.
Cites Prominent Conflict.
"A good deal has been said and writ
ten to the effect that during the last
few years there is a constant conflict
in the courts of the Nation between
proponents of what are referred to as
human rights and proponents OF what
are referred to as property rights"
The supposed obstacles of important
constitutional Limitations found in legal
decisions, he said, may really be re-
garded as guarantees of the soundness
of future legislative elaboration Of the
system of rights and the organized bar
may proceed without hesitation to the
systematic reform of the law.