The Waterbury Democrat., 1931-02-28
At The National Capitol DAILY WASHINGTON LETTER
 Digest of Who's Who and What's What
 By BUTCHER
DAILY WASHINGTON LETTER

Washington-The theory that the democratic party is sure to make enough fool moves before the elec- tion of 1882 to wipe out the unus-
 ually bright hopes that it has for victory will have an initial test when the partys national committee meets here March 5. That theory is often advanced and is one which many re- publicans fondly treasure.
 There are some democrats who think that the decision of the Ras-
 kob-Shouse management to call the
 meeting at this time was not so wise.
 Anyway, it was bold one and there is also plenty of opinion that the
 best strategy at this time is to get the democrats together and elimin- ate as many party troubles as pos
 sible instead of stumbling with the
 whole lot through the next session of congress and on into the national convention.
 Hone for United Front
 If the meeting goes ahead and
 tackles the real issues facing dem
 ocracy, as expected, there is bound
 to be some hot internal fighting of
 the sort that sometimes in the past
 has made democrats famous for dis
 sension. The best the rank and fle
 of democrats can hope for is that
 their leaders will come out of 1t
 with a reasonably united front on
 most of the points now regarded as
 controversial, regardless of the an- ticfpated bitterness of arguments. Prohibition is the most obvious source of trouble. The stumbling
 block there has always been that the democratic solid south has remained
 dry while in most other states the party has been wet-and lately has become increasingly so. National Chairman Raskob and Chairman Shouse of the executive committee are personally wet and they hope that the party will adopt a wet stand, although both have been careful to refrain from at tempting to commit it to anything.
 There are bone-dry democrats, es- pecially from the south. who believe that the two chairmen will under take to force the party into wet position at the coming meeting. Such complaints come mostly from members of congress who are really talking to the dry constituents upon
 whom they depend for reelection. Look to Patronage
 Members of the national commit tee, no matter how dry their states may be, are more willing to go along with the majority or with the party
 management because their greatest hope of reward for their work is found in the possibilities of na- tional victory with it's resultant pa tronage opportunities, whereas the average member of congress is al- ways worried most of all about elec- tion.
 Anxiety about bad row over pro- hibition may prove to be exagger- ated because of two obvious and cor related facts. First. nearly every unprejudiced political expert be- lieves that the democrats cannot hope to win in 1892 unless they nominate a wet upon an at least moist platform. Second, many of the drys in the party are privately convinced that prohibition will not work, and that it will be modified in some way sooner or later. This group may remain technically dry, talking dry and voting dry, but 1t is likely to restrain itself from doing anything likely to work serious inn pairment on the party's chances. The matter of financing the party
 is also causing plenty of worry. The fact that MT Raskob had been doing virtually all the financing was inn pressed on the country recently in an exchange of compliments be- tween Raskob and a Washington correspondent. Raskob will put up to the committee a proposal to meet the $6OO,O00 democratic debt with