Evening star., 1932-07-03
BY WILLIAM HARD,

CHICAGO, July 2.-The Republican
and Democratic parties enter upon the
campaign with determination to effect
grand merry-go-round and criss-crosS
of their respective voters. The Repub-
licans hope to win with Democratic
drys. The Democrats hope to win with
Republican vets.
The loyal ultra bone drys are sure of
the location of their true home That
is, most of their leaders are. They con-
ferred together great deal in Chicago
in their hotel rooms and in their other
favorite spots of seclusion during the
Democratic convention. The dominant
ideas animating their views and inten-
tions were embodied in an editorial
which appeared in the Christian Gen.
tury, a weekly Protestant religious
magazine of high intellectual standing
and of vast influence among alert
Protestant religious managers of social
movements.
The wording of this editorial is of
the profoundest Importance politically
for the campaign. The arguments used
in it will be repeated in every State of
the Union in Protestant churches and
in assemblies of aroused drys in the
little local schoolhouses.
"Our opinion of the Republican
plank on liquor" says the Christian
Century, ''is that it should be CRATE
fully received and approved by every
reasonable dry. 1t formulates a plan
for the resubmission of the liquor
question in terms which prescribe a
just formula under which the issue is
to be submitted leaving untouched the
merits or the substance of the issue
itself"
That latter point is necessarily re-
peated throughout the editorial. The
drys claim that the Republican plank
leaves them absolutely uncommitted to
any anti-dry action whatsoever They
sunder themselves wholly from Senator
Borah. Instead of claiming. like him,
that the plank is surrender to wet
ness. they claim that it Is essentially
completely neutral
THE Republican plank" says the
Christian Century, lis neither wet nor
dry. 1t takes no position on the merits
of prohibition or on the desirability of
change. 1t explicitly states that no
public official or member of the party
should be pledged or forced to choose
between his party Affiliations and his
honest convictions upon this question.
The Republican party does favor re-
submission, but it refuses to prejudice
or influence the outcome. 1t puts itself
in the role of an umpire, concerned
only that the great game of resumbis-
sion shall be played fairly and re-
sponsibly."
In other words, under the Republican
prohibition platform formula the drys
IN n q {S
so-called, of the eighteenth amendment
and then feel free in their several States,
to vote against the proposed repeal or
revision of the amendment when it
has been sent to the States by the Con-
gress.
On the other hand, the Democratic
party, as the Christian Century init
mates, frankly endeavorS to commit its
followers to belief and to action on
certain side of the question-the side
which it regards as the right side. The
Democratic prohibition plank begins by
saying:
We favor the repeal of the eight
eenth amendment" Which means, as
the drys take it.
We advise the States and the peo-
pie. when Congress sends them the
proposal for repeal of the eighteenth
amendment, to favor and accept that
repeal"
In sum. the leading drys contend that
the Republicans are offering the people
an opportunity to get liquor. while the
Democrats are not only offering them
that opportunity, but advising them to
embrace it
Hence the militant tone in the last
paragraph of the Christian Century edi-
torial. expressed thus:
1T is perhaps unwise to venture a
prediction, but we have long felt that,
when once the issue is joined under a
fair and responsible formula. the pro-
moters of the present wet hysteria will
stand amazed at the undreamed-of re-
sources upon which the drys will draw,
in church, and home, and school, and
factory, to keep the Nation from slip
ping back a single step in the most
significant effort at voluntary social
self-control (namely, prohibition) which
history has ever known"
This writer is not surprised at the
vehemence of that last statement. A
certain great multitude of drys are to-
day wrought to pitch of indignation
and of zeal never exceeded and perhaps
indeed never equaled previously in the
whole history of the prohibition agita-
ton. They win fight battle of des-
peration and of militant mobilization
of all their oratorical and political re-
SECS between now and November. 1t
5uld be gross political error to con-
slider these people numerically negli-
gible.
u X
1t would be political error Of equal
grossness, contrariwise. to attribute nu-