First Ten

Michigan, Wisconsin, Rhode Island. New Jersey, Wyoming, New York, Delaware, Nevada--and last week Illinois, by a 4-to-1 landslide, and Indiana, by 2-to-1, voted to ratify the 21st Amendment. Illinois, home State of the W. C. T. U. (at Evanston) had been conceded Wet since its 1931 Repeal referendum. Indiana, home of militantly Dry Senator Arthur Robinson, seat of the Northern Ku Klux Klan and of the Prohibition Party's last national convention, provided the first real test of strength of U. S. Drys, Consolidated.

Bishop James Cannon Jr. stumped the State at the head of a vigorous Prohibitionist faction, told Indianapolitans: ''Indiana is the first State in which we have had an even chance. If we can win here we can prevent Repeal." Day after the voting, resilient Prohibitor Francis Scott McBride was declaring: "The vote in Indiana is heartening to those fighting Repeal. We had decided in advance that anything less than a 2-to-1 victory for Repeal would be a moral victory for us there." He thereupon vanished in Alabama. "The Wets had the support of both the national and State administrations," observed L. E. York, superintendent of the Indiana Anti-Saloon League, "and ample funds supplied by the breweries and distillers." Exulting in their tenth straight victory, Wet organizations looked with optimism on the outcome of six more ratification votes this month: in Massachusetts, Connecticut, Iowa, New Hampshire, California, West Virginia. Anti-Repealists began concentrating their campaign in the arid South. They found some satisfaction last week in proclaiming "the greatest Dry victory in Ohio in ten years." Ohio's law provides that no measure passed by the Legislature becomes effective until 90 days have elapsed (unless an emergency clause is attached). If during that period at least 6% of the State's voters petition the Secretary of State protesting the legislative act, the act becomes inoperative until the electorate has a chance to vote on it. Last week Ohio Drys managed to delay a ratification vote ordered by the Legislature for November by rallying 242,000 petitioners, 88,000 more than necessary. Instead of voting for or against Repeal in November, Ohio voters will ballot on whether or not to hold such a referendum. The Dry maneuver lessened the possibility of 36 States ratifying the 21st Amendment before the end of the vear.

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