Evening star., 1932-07-10

/ ors and his services to the country
entitled him to restful long afternoons
/ on the porch Of one of those peaceful
! farm houses. He looked out the WIN
/ dow, little longingly. at the scene OF
rest and quiet, but replied, If man
| goes into public life, if he accepts re-
/ sponsibilities. he must serve.
| A good many youths just now, re-
Gently out of college, are lingering the
thought of public service, politics.
Some, so wears from now, will be alive
and looking back upon completed
careers Few men in American public
life better deserve to be taken for
models than Tom Walsh. The so years
since he quit teaching a country school
in Wisconsin and went to Montana at
a time when Indian wars were an
event of yesterday, is long, long
span. One hopes that Walsh, in the
evening of his days, gets the satisfac-
tion and comfort he deserves from the
promise of his church Of reward for
life of rectitude and well-doing.
This country, Just now. has a good
many needs. The greatest is more
Tom Walshs and few Huey Longs.
That thought should be expressed diff
ferently. What this country needs Is
more trust by the people in the Tom
Walshs, less in the Huey Longs.
Change In Prohibition.
We know now that we are going 10
do something about prohibition. The
present status of it is as doomed as
slavery was in 1860. And in making
the coming change the need is to
avoid another mistake; to try to
achieve just that step which, when
looked back upon 10 years hence, will
1, rx-ico M nf vNnndi1n
to be undone
We know that the eighteenth amend
ment was a mistake. The fact that
both parties have admitted the neces-
Sity of change is sufficient proof Of
that. Regardless of any question about
the merit of total prohibition, the most
ardent dry must admit that in de-
mocracy it is an error to attempt
something which will fail to get con-
tinuing support from a sufficient ma
jority of the people.
BY considering the nature Of the
mistake of 1920, we may avoid SINH
lar mistake in 1882 or 1888, or when
ever we get around to determining
what is to be the next status cf liquor
This mistake Of 1920 was made by
the drys. 1t lay in letting their angry
emotions carr them too far. A ma
jority of the people at that time were
aroused over the evils associated with
liquor. They thought-or rather they
felt, for it was in the world of
emotion-the thing to do was to stamp
it out utterly
am not going to say now that the
mistake the vets are about to make
is a perfect analogy to the one the
drys made In 1920. The vets are en-
ragged against the eighteenth amend
ment. as the drys were enraged against
the liquor business in 1920. The vets
feel they can only satisfy their anger
by killing the eighteenth amendment
utterly-just as the drys in 1920 could
only satisfy their anger by killing the
liquor business utterly.
1t may very well be that complete
repeal of the eighteenth amendment
may be necessary to clear the ground
for doing the thing that we ought now
to do about liquor. But it must GER
teinly be that it would be a mistake
to leap all the way back to exactly
where we were In 1920. That would
mean duplication Of precisely those
conditions which were so intolerable as
to cause an overwhelming majority Of
the people to want national prohibi-
ton. That kind of violent swing from
one extreme position to another ex-
treme position and then back to the
original extreme position-that cannot
possibly be progress. 1t would be un-
worthy of a reasonable and intelligent
country. 1t would merely re-create, in
about 1914. the original condition of
1920.
One other mistake the drys made in
1920. They fought for the prohibition
amendment. When they got 1t they
xr,ork doY1p IIIct
the vets are now likely to quit with
getting both parties to adopt repeal, in
whole or in part, of the eighteenth
amendment.
Must Accept Responsibility.
What the vets need to do Is to accept
a continuing responsibility for Bringing
about and maintaining proper control
of liquor. Somebody, some element Of
the population, will always take a
direct and continuing interest in
liquor. If the vets who are really
earnest and high-minded fail to do 1t,
there is one element that will always
step in.
That element is the distillers and
brewers, commercial interest In liquor.
The possibility of that condition is just
ahead of us. The other day some one
blldb bAlC OCA1ONLabO hOhAA
have difficulty getting a campaign fund.
The cynical reply-and the perfectly
truthful one-was that the Democrats
can get, if they will take 1t, the big
gest campaign fund that ever was.
The Democrats will have difficulty in
keeping the commercial liquor interests
at arms length. In 1908, when the
very dry William Jennings Bryan was
the Democratic candidate, the brewers,
without Bryan's knowledge. slipped an
immense bunch of thousand dollar bills
into the campaign fund Of the party.
This generation knows nothing of the
ruthless sordidness Of the commercial
liquor interests. 1t was their domi-
nance in politics, as much as the direct
evils Of liquor, that gave rise TO the
popular rage which resulted in the
eighteenth amendment.
Many of the vets are as fine and
high-minded as were that same type
of person who in 1920 were enraged at
the evils of liquor, and by their indig-
nation and zeal brought about prohibi-
ton. The most Illuminating expert
ence this writer had at the Democratic
National Convention was the look into
the faces of the delegates from several
States, especially those from Maryland
and Virginia, who, with the elation of
crusaders in their faces, carried ban
ners and marched and sang when wet
Gov. Ritchie and Al Smith were put
in nomination. No group of people
could be more safely trusted with. the
fate of the Nation. They are perfectly
capable of being fine custodianS of "the
moral forces of the courtry"-of which
some of the drys assert a proprietary
monopoly. But this class of vets are
headed for grief, and will bring grief
upon the country unless they accept
responsibility for keeping a continuing
restraint upon the thing they are in
tent upon bringing back.
Persons who have been made anxious
by the power the Anti-Saloon League
had in politics few years ago forget
that that power arose solely as a result
of, and relief from, the previous power
Of the organized liquor interests. What
power they had-in Congress. State