Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1932-06-13
CHICAGO OBSERVATIONS
BY FREDERIC WILLIAM VILE.

CHICAGO. June 13.-Another battle
of the century is on. Chicago is its
arena. 1t will rage for the next four
days-possibly longer. The opposing
forces are in line. their heavy guns
have been brought up and the zero
hour Is at hand. At stake is nothing
more nor less than the life Of prohi-
bition in general and the eighteenth
amendment in particular. Today, the
eve Of the Republican National Con-
vention, the final skirmishing opera
lions are in progress. Tomorrow, when
Field Marshal Nicholas Murray Butler,
introduces his resolution for a fiat
footed platform declaration in favor
of repeal, hostilities will be In full
blast Overnight, as at present ar
ranged, the Resolutions Committee
will mill over the Butter proposal. II
the committee reports to the conven-
ton against it on Wednesday. Gen.
Butler will execute a new attack. He
will demand the adoption Of q minority
report in favor Of repeal, thus pre-
cipitating a knock-down and drag out
on the convention floor and fight to
the finish.
Anybody who thought the G. o: P.
convention was doomed to be drao
and colorless. affair failed to recognize
the bitter intensity of this war between
the prohibition repealers and the prohl-
bition resubmiSSionistS. Chicago must
bark back SO years for the like OF 1t,
when the gold Democrats and the sill
yer Democrats fought 1t out in 1896 ana
ended by nominating William Jennings
Bryan for President on 16-to-1 plat.
form. Politicians who remember that
In
today runs UNNECESSARILY higher. The
forces assailing the eighteenth amend
ment are far more militant than its de-
tenders. The drys present. as far as
the external activities reveal, almost the
aspect of an army in defeat. They
are letting the vets do all the boasting
and all the claiming. When dry leaders
are besought to explain their apathy and
apparent resignation to the inevitable,
they quietly observe that counting
chickens before they are Matched Is
common convention custom. This Is
the drys' commonest retort to DR.. But
ler's statement that the repealers con-
troll the votes of 81 States at Chicago,
accounting for roundly $40 delegates,
or substantially more than majority,
enabling them to write repeal into the
party platform.
GllC ulyS lCllCCt q SdAih SoAA
fidence that they can hold the fort, they
are frankly afraid Of a stampede which
might rush the convention OIL its feet
and into a repeal vote. They talk about
mob psychology" in Chicago. They
fear what galleries full of Mayor Ger
mak's wet fellow-citizens may do.
They feel sure the Hoover administra-
ton resubmissionist forces can stem
the wet onrush on normally con-
Quoted roll call. But should the vote
on the liquor resolution be close, and
fluctuate spectacularly from dry to wet,
and vice versa, as the delegations are
polled, the prohibition leaders concede
that anything may happen. The situa-
ton Is tense. dramatic and incalculable
In the highest degree.
X X
Practically no more doubt whatever
exists that the least the convention Will
do is the adoption of plank favoring
submission of the entire prohibltlon
question to the States for individual
self-determination. President Hoover,
by every indication available here, mas
been won over to that concession to the
vets. If the plank goes the length OF
condemning prohibition because OF ltS
failure, or on any other ground. 1t Will
constitute almost as much OF rebun
for the administration as the adoption
of the Butler repeal plank would be-
Mr.. Hoovcr's embarrassment as a can
didate under such circumstances would
be Immense and might lead. bib ardent