PROHIBITION AND POLITICS.

Press, Volume LX, Issue 18129, 19 July 1924, Page 14

PROHIBITION AND POLITICS.

TO THE EDITOR OF "THE PRESS." Sir,—"The Press" in relation to Prohibition is fast becoming the joke of the Dominion. It came a bad cropper over the Dunedin Presbytery business, and it doesn't cut a much more respectable figure when it de;ils with the question raised in connexion with the recent nominations for the presidency and .vice-presidency of the United States. It is amusing to note your hesitancy in accepting as a fact "the statement of your correspondent that the nominees on both the Republican side and the Democratic side were "dry." If the cables had been as clear in announcing that they were all "Wet" as that they were all "dry," 1 wonder ii that "fact" would have escaped your observation? It is amusing also to read your reasons for the important admission you make that : "neither of the parties would at tliis juncture dare to make the repeal of prohibition a plank in its platform." Your explanation of this is, "If the ■Republican party adopted a "wet" plank or a "Wet" candidate, it would merely turn over to the enemy the "drys" among its supporters. It would not gain any "wets" from the enemy because those who dislike Prohibition • are not fanatics, and give their votes on other issues." Was there ever a more delicious piece of bluff? "Wets," of course, are nowhere, fanatics where liquor is concerned! You never heard, I suppose, of the slogan "Our trade, our politics!" And if the forty odd liquor organisations in America that are fighting hard to secure a modification or repeal of the Prohibition. law could have convinced either the Republican or the Democratic Conventions that there was any chance whatever of swinging round a majority of votes on the side of. the "wets," does/ anyone really suppose that a "wet" . plank or a "wot" candidate would not have been nominated. The "wets" had a lesson a't the last election which they are not likely to forget. The Democrats nominated Governor Cox, who was a "wet." The Republicans nominated Senator Hard>'g, who was a "dry." There were other reasons, 1 •know, that helped to explain the Democratic landslide, but what was not Jfcai upon either of the parties was the iact. that the "dry" Harding beat the "wet" Cox by more than seven million votes. This year both parties have pledged themselves to an enforcement of the Prohibition law, and both, parties have nominated "dry" candidates. In view of these facts it is absurd for 'anybody to say that the recent political nominations have no bearing on the trend of American opinion in relation to Prohibition. It'is equally absurd for anyone to speak of the commanding, intellectual, moral and religious forces behind the Prohibition movement in America, as "massed fanaticism." A lower depth still is leached when at attempt is made to

fasten upon American Prohibition the . moral stigma of association with "that criminal and murderous organisation, the Ku Klux Kktn." When- argument fails abuse is. resorted to, and it is the recklessness of a bankruptcy of argument that asserts itself in this.; gross and utterly unfounded attempt to., vilify the fair fame of Yours, etc,, •■ ■ " W. J. WILLIAMS. July 17th. •