The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1930-02-07
Republican Representative
Warns House Party
Faces Oblivion.
URGES STATE CONTROL
Wine and Beer Question
Can Be Solved, Beck
Tells Colleagues.
BY KENNETH G. CRAWFORD,
United Press stan Correspondent

WASHINGTON, Feb. 7.-Repre-
sentative James M. Beck (Rep., Pa
former solicitor general Of the
United States advanced the legal
contention today in a house speech
that congress itself has power to
legalize light wines and beer, with
out repeating the eighteenth
amendment, by vesting in the states
the enforcing powers.
Congress, Beck said, could, with
out any violation of the Constitu-
ton, reach the conclusion that the
methods of enforcement and the
actual enforcement of the eight
zenith amendment were best left to
the states"
The Pennsylvania congressman,
who is recognized as a constitutional
authority not only in this country
but abroad, capped this proposal
with a denunciaCion of the Repub-
lican party for its stand On prohi-
bition, asserting it is destined to
follow the footsteps of its Wing
predecessors into oblivion if it con-
tinues to sell it's soul to the
fanatical drys and thus becomes the
party of prohibition
Congress Has Discretion
A clear distinction, he said, must
be made between the clauses of
the Constitution that are in them
selves a mandate to congress and
those that are a mere delegation to
congress of power to do thing"
He pointed out that the Constitu-
ton "often leaves to the political
discretion of congress the question
as to the manner of their exercise"
1.-THE second section shows the
Eighteenth Amendment is not self
enforcing, for it vests in congress
and the several states concurrent
power to enforce this article by
appropriate legislation he de-
clared.
Beck boldly showed his oft-dis-
played independence in his warn
ing to the Republican party about
prohibition.
1T must be remembered" Beck
said, that the fugitive slave law
was also a part of the Constitution,
but the attempt to make the people
Of the north involuntary slave
catchers, provoked such an intense
moral revolt that Webster did not
avert the Civil war, but simply
destroyed himself in his honest at
tempt to save the Union by making
the fugitive slave section of the
Constitution more obligatory.
Party's Life Threatened
1.-THE result is a sinister omen to
the Republican party, even in this
day of its great power. The Wing
party persisted and the Republican
party came into being. I say, with
regret, it is a necessary warning.
The party did not emancipate the
slave to put the white man in the
chains of an intolerant policy"
Beck chose for the theme of his
speech the opening statement OF the
law enforcement commissions pre-
liminary report, which warned that
in any consideration of the prohi-
bition question the Wing tradition
of the fright of revolution" must be
taken into account.
ITO many, the preliminary ex-
PLANTATION of the commission may be
as enigmatic as the Delphian or
acle," he said, but if the prohibi-
ton leaders had caught its full sig
niflcance, they would have rent
their garments, sat themselves
down in sackcloth and ashes, or
possibly have had to resort to the
wine which in high scriptural
authority 'gladdens the troubled
heart of man."
He also undertook to reply to the
recent speech of Representative
Fort CRep.. N. j. close friend and
advisor of President Hoover, in
which he upheld the right Of the
individual, under present laws to
make and consume light wine and
beer in the home.
Opposes Home Manufacture
st believe that the greatest evil
Of our age" Beck said, has been
the destruction of the home. I am
not impressed with the argument
that either its dignity or welfare
as the greatest asset of civilization
is promoted by the manufacture Of
intoxicating liquors within the
home"
Beck declared that when the
American people recognized that
the nonexercise of a power is not
necessarily a challenge to the Con-
stitution. they will, in due time,
wholly sweep away that monStrous
compound of iniquity and folly, the
Volstead law, and, upon its ruin,
build afreSh.
"They will recognize that the nor
NAL use Of light wines and beer not
only does not lead to intoxication,
but promotes temperance by pre-
venting hard drinking and the use
of narcotics
Beck said he might never liz { to
see repeal of the eighteenth an end
ment. adding: Fortunately the
American people are nct so Impo-
tent that they can not Indo this gil
gantc folly without first securing the
consent of three-fourths of the
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