Evening star., 1932-01-22
League Stand on Candidates
Would Have Eliminated
Heroes, Debater Says.
DR.. WILSON SAYS LAW
HAS ACHIEVED s THINGS
Lists Curb of Traffic, License Sys-
tenn and Saloon and Political
Reforms.

Prohibition pro and con arguments,
barking back to George Washington
and the Boston Tea Party" echoed in
the Eighth Street Temple last night
when DR.. Clarence True Wilson, execu-
tive secretary of the Methodist Board
of Temperance, Prohibition and Public
Morals, and Capt. w. H. Stayton,
founder of the Association Against the
Prohibition Amendment, met in spir-
tied symposium on the prohibition issue,
arranged by the Brotherhood of the
Washington Hebrew Congregation.
George Washington was drawn into
the lively but friendly tilt when Capt.
Stayton attacked the announcement
three days ago of the Anti-Saloon
League to the effect that it would not
support any political candidate who
would not vote for the eighteenth
amendment. Capt. Stayton declared
that this policy set up a new and single
standard for American public men.
Would Have Had No Leaders.
''If this single standard set up by the
Anti-Saloon League had been IN force
for the $50 years of cur governmental
existence" Capt. Stayton asserted. we
would have had no George Washing
ton, no Abraham Lincoln, no James
Madison, no Thomas Jefferson to lead
us to national existence. In fact, cnly
| two Chief Executives in our history
would meet the Anti-Saloon Leagues
requirements-Rut Hayes and
Herbert Hoover"
At the close of the symposium, which
occupied 90 minutes of continuous talk
| ing by both of the two leading prota-
gonists of the opposing sides of the
| prohibition question, DR.. wilson was
| asked by member of his audience
! whether he believed it possible fer the
! drys and the vets to meet in quiet
conference and arrive at any common
ground.
IF all prohibitionists and the anti
prohibitionists could discuss the ques-
| ton in as friendly a fashion as Capt.
Stayton and I have tonight" DR.. VIII
! son replied, "I believe we could find
many things on which we could agree"
! During the same period DR.. Wilson
answered a question as to why the
buyer of bootleg liquor is not as guilty
of law violation as the seller, with the
assertion that he is convinced that the
buyer is guilty, and that, as a matter
| of fact the law prohibiting the sale OF
liqucr actually should be so construed.
| He based this view. he said, on the
assumption that a sale cannot be con-
SUNNI ated without both parties, each
of whom is a party to the unlawful
| transaction.
| Holds Law Applies to Buyer.
| "As a matter of fact" DR.. Wilson ad-
mitted, I'VE firmly believed that by this
| time we'd have decision holding just
! that AS for me, I firmly believe the
law does apply to the buyer as we'll as
/ the seller"
! DR.. Wilson was the first speaker to
| take the platform. He was presented
| to the audience by Rabbi Abram Simon
of the Washington Hebrew Congrega-
| ton. DR.. Wilson prefaCed his address
with the assertion that he would not
| claim that prohibition has been sue
| cessfully administered and enforced or
! that it has dried up the sources of
! supply of liquor" He asked his audi
ence however, not to believe that the
amendment should be repealed because
| of this fact. any more than it would
expect the Ten Commandments to be
scrapped because they are being, broken
| daily He asserted that prohibition
never was intended "to prevent men
| from drinking or to make men total
abstainerS," but that it was designed to
break up the liquor traffic.
He then cited categorically what he
contended prohibition has done. He
said:
/. 1t has outlawed the liquor traffic
in America which formerly ruled us,
tainted our. judges and wrote our
tickets; it has done away with the
"red-nosed bipeds-many of whom were
ex-convicts-who ran the saloons" and
has left in their places 1.-The puny boot
| leggers."
2. 1t has annihilated the license
system.
g. 1t has removed legalized tempta-
| tion, which was the corner saloon, from
the paths of men who Strove to live
right.
f. 1t has made news" of liquor man.
| ufacture, so that "one man with hip
| pocket flask gets more attention chan
| all the thousands of saloons which
| formerly existed"
Gave Us Prosperity.
| S. 1t gave the United States its great
est prosperity for the 10 years after the
war-a prosperity which gambling In
! Wall Street destroyed.
| 6. 1t gave more aid to the cleaning
Continued on Page BID.