500 Words

The Republican Party, in convention assembled in Chicago last week, took an elephantine step Wetward. Definitely deserted was National Prohibition as the G. 0. P. has tacitly endorsed it for the last twelve years. How close to reality the party's new declaration would bring legal beer, wine & spirits remained a matter of opinion, dispute, political contest. The fact in hand was that the Chicago convention gave Wets the substance of a change, Drys the shadow of kind words. The party had pulled on rubber boots to pussyfoot its way through the campaign. Whether this was possible or impossible only Election Day would show.

Professional Drys who hold the 18th Amendment sacrosanct found themselves beaten before the delegates assembled at the Stadium. So wide and deep has been the popular revulsion against Prohibition that the convention promptly settled down into a contest between Repeal and Revision, with never a thought of Retention. In the Florentine Room of the Congress Hotel were held perfunctory hearings for the extremists of both sides, after which a committee of 17 went into secret session to jigsaw a 500-word declaration on Prohibition. President Hoover would not stand for outright Repeal as Connecticut's Senator Bingham ardently demanded. Defying a majority of his own New York delegation, which wanted to sweep the 18th Amendment off the books. Secretary of the Treasury Mills became the White House spokesman in drafting a compromise plank. For 24 hours the Resolutions Committee wrote, scratched and wrote again until it perfected a declaration which it could telephone to Washington and get approved.

As a majority report from the Committee, this plank pledged the party to law enforcement and against nullification. It next detailed the workings of Article V whereby proposals to alter the Constitution are submitted by a two-thirds vote of Congress, or on application of two-thirds of the State Legislatures and are ratified by three-fourths of the State Legislatures or by conventions in three-fourths of the States. Turning thumbs down on referendums as meaningless and ineffectual, the majority plank continued:

"A nation-wide controversy over the 18th Amendment now distracts attention. . . . [It] is not a partisan political question. Members of the Republican party hold different opinions with respect to it and no public official or member of the party should be pledged or forced to choose between his party affiliations and his honest convictions. . . .

"We do not favor a submission limited to the issue of retention or repeal. . . . The progress that has been thus far made must be preserved while the evils must be eliminated.

"We therefore believe that the people should have an opportunity to pass upon a proposed amendment, the provision of which, while retaining in the Federal Government power to preserve the gains already made in dealing with the evils inherent in the liquor traffic, shall allow

States to deal with the problem as their citizens may determine but subject always to the power of the Federal Government to protect those States where Prohibition may exist and safeguard our citizens everywhere from the return of the saloon. . . .

"Such an amendment should be promptly submitted to the States by Congress to be acted upon by State conventions called for that sole purpose . . . and adequately safeguarded so as to be truly representative."

Dissatisfied with this declaration, Senator Bingham produced for the extreme Wets a minority report calling for immediate repeal, with ratification also by State conventions and pledging the party's "best efforts" to "promote temperance, abolish the saloon, whether open or concealed, and bring the liquor traffic under complete public supervision and control."

After a two-hour debate the convention rejected the Repeal plank by a vote of 681 to 472. Then it adopted the majority report, thus nailing down in the G. 0. Platform for the first time a declaration for a Change. On the roll call seven States voted solidly for Repeal; ten more showed a majority against the Administration plank. The populous Republican states of New York. Pennsylvania, Illinois. New Jersey, Connecticut, Michigan and Indiana all threw their weight against the White House. The fact that President Hoover was able to carry his plank at all was due to the votes of obedient job-holding delegates. The G. 0. P., South prevented Northern Republicans from committing their party to Repeal.

What the plank meant constitutionally was obvious. A Republican Congress was to propose to the States another amendment, not specifically repealing the 18th Amendment but superseding it exactly as the 17th Amendment for the direct election of Senators superseded the constitutional provision for their selection by State Legislatures; exactly as the 16th Amendment for an income tax superseded the constitutional limitation of direct taxes based on population. The new amendment would have to provide that States that wanted to be Wet might be Wet, regardless of the 18th Amendment, but would prohibit them from legalizing the saloon. Therefore a Wet State would probably have to set up a State liquor monopoly and keep the business out of private hands for private profit. Likewise the Federal Government would reserve the power to police Dry States and control interstate liquor shipments. Under such an amendment the Federal Government's power to regulate would be large, to prohibit nil.

Never has a Constitutional amendment been ratified by State conventions as now proposed. Purpose of the proposal is that voters may elect delegates to a State convention not as Democrats or Republicans but as Wets or Drys, unencumbered by other political issues. "Truly representative" was put into the plank to effect a fairer balance between city and country voters.

Politically and practically the G. O. P. plank meant less than it said because all Republican candidates, as individuals, were specifically freed from its provisions. This was the weasel paragraph. President Hoover, as nominee for reelection, might, if he chose, disavow, his party's pledge on the ground that "his honest convictions" were against any change. Likewise G. O. P. nominees for Congress are not bound to vote for the new amendment. Thus the voters might return a Republican majority to the House only to discover that most of them had Dry "convictions," were able to block resubmission at the very outset. Moreover, 13 Dry State conventions could still thwart ratification of any amendment Congress might pass. Thus only optimistic Wets thought the plank meant legalized liquor in the near future with Republicans running the country.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.