A Turmoil

In its genesis there is no question that it was a comedy of misintention. When Assistant Secretary of the Treasury Lincoln C. Andrews laid it upon Mr. Mellon's desk; when Mr. Mellon nodded his head and sent it to the President; when the President looked down at the routine sheet before him and affixed his signature--none of them expected that the little sheet of paper would arouse attention, much less controversy. For two weeks thereafter the little sheet lay around somewhere without exciting any interest, and then quite casually some prohibition officer handed it to the press for publication. This is the uneventful prenatal history of the controversy over the President's executive order (TIME, May 31) authorizing the appointment of state and other local officers as dollar-a-year Federal prohibition agents so that they could make arrests not only in other cities and counties but also in other states.

There followed a few minor eruptions in the press and then more and more vigorous ebullitions in Congress. Not only did such men as Senator Bruce (Wet and Democratic) of Maryland denounce the order as an invasion of state rights, but such men as Senator Goff (Dry and Republican) of West Virginia inveighed against it. Democrats such as Robinson of Arkansas, King of Utah, George of Georgia, turned upon the order. So did Wadsworth, Republican, of New York.

The Senate speedily adopted a resolution without a record vote--a resolution which could not have passed if either a united Republican or a united Dry group had stood against it. It directed the Judiciary Committee to examine the legality of the order.

Only Senator Walsh of Montana (Democratic, Dry) opposed the resolution vigorously.

The events which followed when the press went back to the White House for explanations showed that the Administration scarcely knew what it had done--that for once the President's careful foot had been set down in a puddle.

Attorney General Sargent was hastily ordered to turn out a legal opinion on the President's order. Mr. Sargent told the press:

"There does not appear to be any Federal law, constitutional or statutory, incapacitating a citizen from holding a Federal and State office at the same time."

Secretary Mellon said that the matter had been attended to as routine, without expectation that it would arouse controversy.

The President told correspondents that the order had merely been routine, that already local officers were being employed as Federal agents in California, and the order was intended only to legalize their status. He went on to say that there was no intention to extend the arrangement to other states or to employ it where there was local opposition. He said that if the use of the order should prove oppressive the order would probably be modified. His description of his action prompted some journalists to remark that it paralleled the procedure of Attorney General Sargent, who when asked a question by the press sometimes picks up a report from his desk and reads it, then if asked another question answers, "I have nothing more before me."

More vigorous reaction came from some of the Democrats in the House. Representative Linthicum of Maryland exclaimed:

"We were on the verge of believing that the President had become a follower of the Jeffersonian policy of state rights rather than that of the Hamiltonian doctrine of centralization, but before the echoes of his Williamsburg speech [TIME, May 24] have died away, we find him entering upon the most centralized power of the national Government by this executive order."

Not only the Wets who stood against the order, but also the opponents of the President--and that includes all Democrats and most Republicans, even those called Regulars--seized on the order as a means for making trouble. The questions of personal politics, of prohibition and of state rights were inextricably intertwined. B

ut the Wets tried to press their advantage. Senator Bruce and Senator Edge would like a national referendum on prohibition. (It is doubtful if any legal way could be found to bring about such a referendum.) An apparently unusual event occurred--Senator Joseph T. Robinson, the Democratic leader, indorsed this idea. The current explanation of Mr. Robinson's support of the proposal is that he regards himself as a presidential candidate for 1928, and wants, to dodge the prohibition issue by a referendum or its promise.