Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1931-12-02
VETS GAIN LITTLE
IN HOUSE RULES
Liberalization Plan Fails to
Remove Control by Dry
Majority.
BY MARK SULLIVAN.

The action Of Republican Candidate
for Speaker Smell and the Republican
caucus committing the party to liberal
zation" of the rules Of the House makes
it certain liberalization will take place,
because the Democrats as whole are
fully as sure to favor the innovation as
the Republicans. Indeed, the Demo-
Gratis may be said to have favored 1t
first. The change in the rules, there
fore, can be taken completely for
granted.
From this the deduction is almost
universally made that there will be in
this Congress vote on prohibition.
Liberalization of the House rules and
liberalization of the Volstead law, or Of
prohibition generally, are commonly
mentioned together, as if the two were
coupled. A frequent assumption is that
after liberalization of the rules the vets
IN Congress will be able to force vote
on prohibition. This Is by no means
correct. Liberalization of the House
rules Is certain to come. Action by the
House on some phase Of prohibition
may come in this session or it may not.
Probably the better guess is 1t will not.
Qualification Necessary.
The confusion on this point is so
nearly universal as to make Qualification
desirable The Qualification can be best
achieved by starting with the wet group
in the House. The vets say they num-
her ITO. This, if correct, is large, but
1t is less than majority of the House,
which is 218. The vets can, and will,
introduce a wet bill. The bill will be
referred to committee. Under the old
rules, in the past, the bill remained in
committee and never came on the floor
for vote, because the committee and
the Republican party leaders took the
safe ground that there was no majority
favoring the holding of vote on pro-
hibition. 1t is this power of the COM
mittee to hold the bill off the floor that
the change in rules is meant to reduce.
Under the proposed new rule, 100
members or 125 or $50, depending on
which figure is finally chosen, can by
petition move to bring wet measure
or any other measure out of committee
Quite certainly 100 wet members, If
that is the number chosen, will thus
move to bring a wet bill to a vote. 1t
is right here that the universal mistake
is made. The wet members cannot
bring their wet bill to a vote. They
can only move to bring it to a vote.
Dry Majority TO Rule.
What the vets can accomplish under
liberalization of the rules is to make the
House vote on whether the bill should
be brought out of committee They
cannot make the House vote on the bill
itself. Since majority of the House
is dry, presumably majority would
vote to leave the wet measure in the
committee.
1t is true the vets will be able to
make certain amount of progress. To
express it accurately, the vets can
make the drys go on record as to
whether they are willing to vote on
prohibition. The vets cannot make the
drys actually vote on prohibition itself
The vets will be able to make the
drys and others go on record in roll
call with their refusal to vote on a pro-
hibition bill That is about the limit
of the advantage given the vets by the
change in rules.
The greater probability is there will
be a majority in favor Of not having q
vote on prohibition. Most of the dry;
will take that position. Those who
have constituencies partly dry and part
ly wet will be sure to take that position
Very probably the vets will be able
to make their drive only once in the
session. Just how the liberalization Of