Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1931-01-21
Two Questions
on Meaning
Raised.
DENIAL ISSUED
ASTOPRESSURE
Col. Anderson Says
Modification Was
Intended.
BY the Associated Press.

BY the Associated Press.
The growing tumult OF discus
sion, dispute and speculation over
the Wickersham prohibition re-
port centered today around two
salient queries:
How far did the commission
mean to go toward recommending
revision of the eighteenth amend
ment? And what will be the pol
itical effect of President Hoover's
opposition to such a step?
So aroused were the commits
sion members over reports that
the President had interviewed to
forestall an unequivocal modifica-
ton proposal that the following
statement was issued by Chair
man WickerSham:
Denies Hoover Pressure.
THE statement this morning in the
Washington Herald that the President
persuaded this commission to abandon
a tentative recommendation in favor
of revision of the eighteenth amend
ment is absolutely untrue and without
foundation"
After reading the denial of Chairman
Wickersham that President Hoover had
sought to influence the commissions
report, United States Circuit Judge
William S. Kenyon, a member of the
Wickersham commission, today issued
the following statement at st. Louis:
IT have never talked with the Presi-
dent concerning the report of the COM
mission. I have never talked with any
one who claimed to have talked with
him about 1t, and any statement that
he influenced the commission IN any
way as to its report is absolutely false"
Neither the chairman nor any MEM
Der of Il commission now in Wash
ington, 'wever, was willing to tell the
full story of the weeks of discussion
within the commission, or explain how
or when the decision against an OUT
and-out revision proposal was reached.
AS it appears in the combined COM
mission report, signed by all OF the
members but one, the suggested draft
of a new eighteenth amendment was
preceded by an IF" and by state
ment that opinion among members was
divided.
Yet at least of the II declared In
appended statements that they favored
either revision or repeal, and at least
two of these individual expressions al
luded to revision as if they understood
the full commission was for 1t.
Dry, Wet or Straddle.
Col Henry w. Anderson, the member
who proposed complete substitute for
the present system, said in Richmond
the report as q whole "fayors modifica-
ton of the eighteenth amendment"
Until other members speak, the Cap
ital and the country apparently will be
left TO draw their own conclusions and
place their own Interpretation on a re-
port, which Is being variously inter-
preted today as dry wet, and straddle.
There was less dispute over the posi-
ton taken by the President in sending
the report to Congress.
With whatever effect on his fortunes
in 1882, he said definitely that he not
only agreed the amendment should not
be repealed, but did not want to be
| understood even as favoring a revision
of it,
A Democratic Senator opposing pro-
hibition, Walsh of Massachusetts,,
placed upon the Presidents message
the Interpretation that Mr.. Hoover had
definitely taken up the dry side, and
would lead his party in 1882 against
revision.
May Require Survey.
Another Democratic nti-prohibition-
list, Representative Mary r. Norton of
New Jersey, described the President
stand as amazing" in view of the re-
vision leanings she saw in the report
itself.
From Republican opposed to the
dry statutes, Representative Schafer of
Wisconsin, came this observation:
1T may be necessary for Congress to
conduct survey to ascertain what con-
clusion was really reached"
La Guardia Offers Resolution.
Senator Smoot, Republican, Utah.
| joined the President in Directing to the
proposal for replacing the eighteenth
amendment to empower Congress to
regulate traffic in liquor.
A resolution to that end as well as
one for congressional investigation of
enforcement was introduced by Repre-
Continued on Page S, Column a.