Crusade

Spirits started in the wood last January now should be nearing potability. Last week at dinners in Detroit, Cleveland and Manhattan, young and youngish socialites pulled the bungs, not from swashing charred kegs but from the cask of obscurity within which they have been maturing a potent anti-Prohibition organization, the Crusaders, which they laid down in Cleveland at the first of the year (TIME, Jan. 27). Mostly able sons of able fathers, mostly college graduates, their average age about 35 years, they made robust speeches against Prohibition's evils, planned an ambitious political campaign, a drive for membership.

Men. The founder and Commander-in-Chief of the Crusaders, 36-year-old Oilman Fred G. Clark of Cleveland (president, Fred G. Clark Co.), could claim last week a minimum of 100,000 members towards the 1,000,000 set as goal for 1932. If this was not all that had been anticipated, Crusaders took comfort from the thought that five notable young men enthusiastically working in a community are worth 500 zealless ordinary citizens. Notable Crusader Commanders last week included: Charles Hamilton Sabin, Jr.

John Hay ("Jock") Whitney;Robert Tyre ("Bobby") Jones, Jr.

Jess Sweetser; RobertCharles Benchley ;Donald Ogden Stewart ;Leonard C. Hanna, Jr.

Dan Rhodes Hanna, Jr.

Julius Fleischmann; Edgar Allan Poe; Lawrence Mervil Tibbett ;Lammot du Pont ;Peter Bernard Kyne; James Jeremiah Wadsworth ;Alexander J. Cassatt; Malcom W. Greenough; Paul Hyde Bonner ;James Joseph ("Gene") Tunney ;William E. Boeing ;John N. Garfield ;Philip Richard Mather; Edward Aloysius Cudahy; Lester Armour; William H. Mitchell; Sturtevant Erdmann; Pierrepont D. Schreiber.

Money. With $1 dues from each member, the Crusaders possess at least $100,-000 with which to campaign for Wet Congressional candidates this autumn.*/Part of the crusade will be soliciting funds From wealthy Wets throughout the land.

Speeches. In Manhattan, Executive Commander Sabin told his followers: "If each person opposed to Prohibition would contribute to the Crusaders or similar organizations one-tenth of what he spends each year for liquor, Prohibition would soon be ended." In Cleveland there was earnest talk of raising immediately $200,000, the city's share in a prospective $10,000,000 national fund. In Detroit, Henry Bourne Joy, Packard tycoon, cried: "I pray our President may soon recommend that the Federal Government cease to encroach upon the responsibilities of the States!"

Map. The Washington Crusaders chapter held no dinner but uncorked its campaign with a loud report. It last week issued a 1930 Speakeasy Map of Washington, compiled from a seven-month raid record of the capital's police. The map showed 934 black dots, many of them grouped around the Capitol, the White House, the Department of Justice building and other Dry and official centres. Two dots reputedly were on Government prop erty. An accompanying statement said: "The Police Department has made an average of four and a half raids per day, including Sunday, during the time covered by this report. In many cases the same places have been raided two or three times within a week. ... The Crusaders of New York regret that they are unable, for a mechanical reason, to make up a similar map of Manhattan. ... So many dots would be required on it that the re sult would be merely a large blot."

*;The Women's Organization for Prohibition Reform, founded by Crusader Sabin's mother (TIME, June 10), has about $200,000 for this campaign. The Association Against the Prohibition Amendment, headed by Major Henry Hastings Curran (TIME, April 28, et seq.~), already has spent about $600,000. Estimate of organized Wet expenditures this year: $ 1,000,000. Estimated Anti-Saloon League campaign -expenditures: about $1,250,000.

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