Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1930-09-29
WASHINGTON OBSERVATIONS

The Wickersham commission is being
drawn slowly but surely into the whirl-
pool OF the prohibition question and
some lively sessions of Mr.. Hooyer's
board OF enforcement experts are
in prospect when the commission re-
convenes here next week after a Sum-
| mer recess. A full and perhaps final
report has been promised in time for
the President to transmit to Congress
in December. That the commission
finds itself divided as to the form
and content of this report is an open
| secret. Whether it shall be confined
to factual survey of existing conditions,
leaving to the President and Congress
| the business OF formulating remedies, or
whether the commission itself shall as
sumo the initiative in recommending
changes In the prohibition enforce
r1ent laws Is a question Of sharp con-
| troversy. One widely circulated report
| last week pictured the commission as
ready to recommend 2.75 per cent beer
| This brought a prompt denial from
Commissioner Mcintosh of washington
| State, a dry jurist. Commissioner Ken
yon of Iowa, another dry, is bitterly
mission which implicitly impugns pro-
hibition. Senator Borah visited Judge
Kenyon in Maine in August. Borah
is said by his friends to be ready to
go on the warpath in the Senate this
Winter in criticism of the administra-
tons prohibition policies in general
and the Wickersham commission in par
ticular. Mr.. Hoover thus finds him
self between two fires on prohibition.
4 ~ k
Reports from Worcester, Mass, that
the Marine Reserve Corps company
there was proposing to disband on &C
count of the withdrawal of Federal aid
has brought from the Marine Corps
headquarters here the disclosure that
orders have recently been issued stopping
ali drill pay of Marine Corps Reserve
units throughout the country, as well
as curtailment of the issuance of uni
forms and other equipment This move,
it was reported, was part Of the Hoover
economy program whereby all branches
of the Army and Navy were to cut ex-
penses wherever possible. 1t is not
claimed that there is any actual de-
ficiency in the funds appropriated by
Congress, but rather is an effort TO
spend less than the allotted funds. The
drill pay Of enlisted men in the Naval
Reserve figures a bit under 81 per drill.
It means a pay check of about SITS per
month where units drill twice weekly.
officers draw pay of from $40 to $40
per month, for drill and other duties.
also stops the issuance Of Winter uni
forms. the blue, and oyercoats and other
equipment. There are upward of 5000
men in the Marine Corps Reserve az
fected by the new policy.
4 ~ \
The report OF Postmaster General
Brown of his own investigation of post
Office leases, made public at the White
House last week, gave a clean bill OF
health to his department. Government
officials were found to have been with
out fault in the negotiation OF post Of
fee leases which have been called into
question The special senatorial investi-
eating committee, headed by Blaine of
Wisconsin, which has been delving into
the subject may start public hearings
in st. Paul within the next few weeks.
John Holland, an aide to Walsh Of Mon
tana in the oil scandal exposure and last
Winter the official counsel for the Cara
way Lobby Probe Committee, is now at
tached to the Blaine Post ONCE Com
mittee. He has been busy all Summer
and announces he is ready to shoot rs
soon as the committee gets together.
4 II
Little Ia being heard here nowadays
| OF the all-Southern Republican organi-
cation announced with a flourish Of
trumpets a few months back by Col.
Horace Mann, which was to buck the
administrators Southern patronage
dispensers and was to take the Repub-
lican party machinery south OF the
Mason and Dixon line into Its own
hands and was TO gather IN its own un-
pledged delegates to the 1882 conven-
| ton. According to some returning
| travellers from the South this new or
| gani2ation has made very little head
way. 1t seems to be conceded that the
administration is pursuing the even
tenor Of its way In the South without
troubling itself in the least about Col.
Mann and hts cohorts. There does not
appear TO be the slightest basis for sup