Evening star., 1935-04-03
WASHINGTON OBSERVATIONS
BY FREDERIC WILLIAM VILE.

we'll. but even its stanchest adher-
entS concede that it needs rest cure.
Believe it or not, prohibitionistS
are still on the warpath. Their
spearhead is the National United
Committee for Law Enforcement, Of
which Clinton N. Howard is chair
man. with headquarters at Roches-
ter, N. Y. Mr.. Howard, in a recent
lamentation, captioned Confusion
Worse Confounded," regrets that Sem
ator Sheppard, Democrat, of Texas
has introduced simultaneously two
bills. One provides for constitutional
restoration of national prohibition by
recovering" the eighteenth amend
ment and substituting in it the words
alcoholic liquors" for Intoxicating
liquors" as means of promoting en-
forcement. The other Sheppard pro-
posal would establish statutory pro-
hibition by comforting upon Congress
the power to adopt dry laws for all
the States, with or without their con-
sent, by majority vote. Hr. Howard
deplores introduction of the two pro-
posals "as tending to divide the dry
forces at time when unity is essen
tial to victory"
* x +
Senator Harry F. Byrd, Democrat,
of Virginia has been showing the
Senate ropes to his son and heir,
Harry F., jr., a senior at the Uni
versity of Virginia. Youthful father
and son look almost enough alike to
be twins. Harry, jr., upon gradua-
tion in June, is not going TO follow
paternal political footsteps or tread
the polar paths of his uncle, Admiral
Dick Byrd He's to take charge of
the Senator's apple-growing business
in the Shenandoah Valley, compre-
hending an orchard of $500 acres
and 175,00O trees.
Apropos this weeks anniversary of
Thomas Jefferson's birth, Claude G..
Bowers, our historian Ambassador to
Spain, sends word that his new book
on the author of the Declaration of
| independence is nearing completion.
Finishing touches will not be applied
until the Ambassador does some addi-
tional research in the United States
| this Summer. Mr.. Bowers is also at
work on another book, "The Spanish
Adventures of Washington Irving"
while a third volume in the hopper
deals with Spain. Evidently the
Hoosier diplomat hasn't let trifies like
Spanish revolutions hamper his lit
erary energies.
X X y X
Representative william B. Bank
head, Democrat, of Alabama, House
majority leader, who has been kept
from congressional activities by ILL
ness ever since his election to that
post, is steadily on the mend. He
drives out in pleasant weather, sees
congressional colleagues at his apart
| ment and hopes to return to the House
| in time to conduct the last roundup
for Roosevelt legislation.
y \ X X
President Roosevelt is to serve as
honorary chairman of a national
committee of 80 prominent Ameri-
| cans, headed by DR.. Nicholas Murray
Butler of Columbia University, who
will organize Nation wide celebra-
tions of the centennial anniversary of
the birth of Mark Twain on Novem-
ber 80 next. The celebrations will
mainly take the form of exercises in
the public schools and simultaneous
dinners in the principal cities of each
State. Ceremonies will start early in
| the Fall and culminate with Mark
Twain day" at the end of November.
The national committee is co-operat-
ing with a similar body at oxford
University, in England. which be-
slowed its honorary LII. D. on the
| humorist.
(copyright. 1851