"I Don't Switch"

Mrs. Ruth Hanna McCormick, Illinois Republican Senatorial nominee, last week gave Dry officeholders throughout the land a smart demonstration of how a long-time Prohibitor may turn Wet without losing political face. Mrs. McCormick was elected Representative-at-Large in 1928 as an out-&-out Dry. She voted Dry in the House. In the Illinois primary last April she was nominated for the Senate as a Dry. Afterward she declared: "I'll run as a Dry in the election. I've always been a Dry and I don't switch on things." Because Illinois Democrats had nominated James Hamilton Lewis, a thoroughgoing Wet for the Senate and had declared for the repeal of the 18th Amendment, a clean-cut Wet-&-Dry contest between Nominees McCormick and Lewis was in prospect.

Last week, however, that prospect was materially altered when Illinois Republicans held their State convention at Springfield. A Prohibition referendum goes on the Illinois ballot this November, due to the 400,000 petition signatures obtained by Chairman Bernard Snow of the Cook County Republican Committee and his Wet friends. Voters are asked three questions: 1) Shall the 18th Amendment be repealed? 2) Shall the Volstead Act be modified? 3) Shall the State Dry law be repealed? On two previous Prohibition polls (1922, 1926), Illinois voted Wet two-to-one. Observers last week could detect no shift in sentiment this year toward Dryness. The Republican leaders at Springfield therefore framed a party plank pledging themselves to go Wet if the referendum should go Wet. Up rose Nominee McCormick to declare:

"I heartily approve my party's declaration that it will be responsive to the popular expression on these referendum questions. ... If a majority are recorded as favorable to repeal of the 18th Amendment, I stand ready, when elected Senator, to obey their mandate and I shall vote to submit the question of its repeal to the several States. If the expressed will of the people is for modification of the Volstead Act, my course would be in sympathy with the principle so approved."

Mrs. McCormick's willingness to go along with the Wets if they carried the State stirred the ire of the Drys. An independent Dry ticket headed by Mrs. Lottie Holman O'Neill, longtime McCormick foe. was widely discussed. Such a ticket, it was conceded, might cost Mrs. McCormick many a Dry vote, throw the election to Nominee Lewis.

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