Evening star., 1932-07-04

ties and the first decade of the century.
But the liquor interests, the allied
brewers and distillers, had prostituted
Government SO that control was farce
and prohibition seemed necessary.
Now the generation which fought the
World War is abandoning Federal pro-
hibition as their fathers abandoned con-
troll of the liquor traffic under local
option. The new generation is plan
ming to adopt new methods of control
which their fathers never knew.
The net result of the two conventions
was a tremendous fight in which the
cid Federal prohibitionists were not
antagcnistic. They faded out Of the
contest. The contest was between those
who wanted no Federal control and
those who demanded Federal control
to protect the so-called dry States.
Fortnight Repcalers Lose.
In each convention the straightout,
fortnight, immediate repealers lost.
They seemed to win in the Democratic
convention, but phrases were weaseled
into the platform which provided for
Federal control of the interstate traffic
In liquor under congressional legislation
In the Republican platform the re-
pealers lost, and had to take instead of
of a constitutional amendment cement
ing Federal control Of the State liquor
traffic into the Federal Constitution.
And then in a flash the repeaiers in
the Democratic convention lost half
their gains when Roosevelt was non1i-
mated. For with the nomination of
Roosevelt the fight between the parties
in the presidential election divided not
upon prohibition, but upon funda-
mentals-social and economic policies.
Indeed the parties divided sharply be-
tween the East on the one hand and
the South and West on the other, for
when Roosevelt appealed to the South
and West in his acceptance speech with
an issue of economic liberalism he In
effect scuttled the whole prohibition
issue. He gave 1t lip service, to be sure,
but in his speech he devoted to 1t less
than a minute and a half in a 40
minute speech.
Thereupon, he abandoned the militant
repealers Of the East, leaving them only
the stark words of their platform for
their comfort.
It was obvious in Roosevelt's accept
ance speech that prohibition as an
issue so far as he is concerned has
passed out of the campaign. Certainly
Hoover will not revive the issue nor
challenge Roosevelt on prohibition.
But, nevertheless, Federal prohibition,
though it passes out of the presidential
campaign, will, none the less, pass out
of American politics in due course and
in the regular order.
Want Substitute Amendment.
It cannot take less than year to get
rid of the eighteenth amendment. It
may take five years to repeal it and
substitute some other kind of amend
ment, for, although a majority of the
population of the United States may be
tremendously opposed to a substitute
amendment, majority of the States
entirely another matter-will not vote
to repeal the eighteenth amendment
without substitute amendment in the
Constitution guaranteeing Federal con-
trcl over interstate commerce in LIQUOR
to protect the dry States or even those
States which desire to set up the Ca
madam system
So in cold party facts, the months
Wcrk at Chicago. for all its idiotic lower
ing, yammering jabbering, posturing. |
screaming, booing, howling and hand |
clsppIng, was actually touching reality |
on at least one issue, the prohibition !
issue, even though it takes time to |
abanaon the eighteenth amendment. !
Two days perspective of the spectacle !
and the tumult of two terrible weeks |
IN Chicago something historically i'm
pcrtant came out Of it all.
More than that. In the last hour of /
the last convention the speech of
Franklin D. Roosevelt, accepting the |
Democratic nomination, marked another
deeply significant change in our poll |
tics. For the first time since 1912, 20
long years, a candidate OF one of the
major parties sounded an unterrihed
liberal note in the formal clarion call
to his party. In 1912, Woodrow will
son and Theodore Roosevelt were sound
ing liberal slogans In 1916 the war
muffied the liberalism of both parties.
In 1920 Wilson had retired. The
issues of the war turned both parties
reactionary. In 1924 both we're con-
servative, Coolidge was no more liberal
than Davis, nor Davis less conservative
than Coolidge. The platforms and the
candidates were virtually identical in
many major matters.
In 1928 prohibition and Tammany
and the presidential nomination of
Catholic-all tended to wipe out the
distinction between liberalism and con-
servatism in the election.
But here in 1882 we find suddenly,
almost without premedita ton, two plat
forms which are more or less identical,
but which are changed almost dia-
metrically by the men standing On
them.
Barricade for Liberalism.
The vast majority of the Democratic
delegates voting for Roosevelt had no
idea that he proposed to take their plat
form and erect with 1t a barricade for
his liberalism.
He made the platform. He knew what
he was doing. So did his friends. And
there 1t stands
With him behind the barTicade, the
guns Of the democracy are turned to-
ward Wall Street. toward big business,
toward the evils of monopoly, and we
have the Democratic party back where
1t was when Wilson was nominated by
the hands of Bryan. Also we have the
Republican party with Hoover standing
up on bis own platform where Taft
stood in 1912.
All this was made evident almost in
the fash Of an eye in the hour after
the landing of Franklin Roosevelt a.
Soldiers Field in Chicago. With his
words American politics turned into a
new phase Many of the Governors