"State Rights"

In New York State the last election showed apparently that a wet platform carries the. support of a large vote. For a month there was before Governor Smith of New York a bill to repeal the state's prohibition enforcement law. He had the simple choice of offending either the Wets or the Drys, and he chose to offend the Drys. He signed the bill repealing New York's enforcement law.

He said in defence of his action:

1) That the power of Congress to enforce the 18th Amendment is not affected by what a state may do.

2) That the Volstead Act is law in New York whether or not the state has a similar law.

3) That, although the 18th Amendment permits states concurrent power of enforcement, it does not order that they shall avail themselves of it.

4) That the repeal of the state prohibition law will do away with the present system of double jeopardy whereby a man can be punished twice for one offence.

5) That President Harding in his letter to Mr. Wesley Wait, insisting on the obligation of states to exercise their power under the concurrent provision of the 18th Amendment (TIME, May 28), had voiced a "fundamental misconception." To insist that it is a state's duty, Governor Smith maintained, to pass the same laws as Congress, is to deny the fundamental rights of states under the Constitution.

The significance for Mr. Smith. The fact that President Harding had indicated what he wished Governor Smith to do, the fact that Governor Smith did the opposite, and in so doing reasserted the old Democratic doctrine of States Eights, lends an unusual political significance to his act. His friends assert that it makes him certain of the Vice Presidency nomination on the Democratic ticket next fall. Others are equally certain that he cut his political throat. Whichever may be the case, it was an unusually clever move of his to base his action, bound to offend the Drys, on a fundamental doctrine of the Democratic Party.

The significance for the Nation. Governor Smith's action lent a new inspiration to the Wet cause. Already a movement is under way to attempt a similar repeal of a state enforcement law in Wisconsin, although it is, to say the least, dubious of success. The outcome in New York will also place renewed burdens on the already overtasked Federal Prohibition Department. It also may help to force prohibition into one of the leading issues of the 1924 cam-paign.--if the two great parties dare to take it up, or can agree within their ranks on what stand to take.