The Press Tuesday, April 20, 1926. Opinions from New York.

Press, Volume LXII, Issue 18670, 20 April 1926, Page 6

The Press Tuesday, April 20, 1926. Opinions from New York.

In each of his recent letters to us the Executive Secretary of the N.Z. Alliance quoted opinions from the New York " Times " which seemed to indicate that the " Times" neither expects nor favours any modification in the Volstead Act. The first of those opinions (from the New York "Times" of February Bth) was correctly qioted, and we do not complain of Mr Murray's laying hold of the sentences he wanted although other sentences in the same article ran like this:

In their several districts the np-State Republicans will be expected to vote for a Dry [Representative and a Wet Senator ... In the National Democratic and National Bepublican Party, there is a similar equivocation and cowardice. . . Multitudes of Democrats and Republicans detest Prohibition. . . From time to time new, but still not numerous, recruits against Tolsteadism aro reported.

As the general purport of the article was that modification will come when "the farmers, 'making their own' in " peace, cease to chuckle that they have " put hooks into tho laws of the urban "leviathan," when "prosperous boot"leggers and speak-easy men want to "hurt their own business," and when the election returns prove "sharp " enough arrows of conviction to pierce " the ordinary political hide," we shall say no more of Mr Murray's quotation in that first letter than that it was a rather lucky find for him. But Mr Murray offered us another New York "Times" opinion (February 14th) about which we find it necessary to say a little more —and this to begin with: that it was not a " Times " opinion at all, but a part of the opinion of a special contributor to the "Times," a Mr Evans Clark, whose name appeared over the article, and whose words no more committed the " Times " than do those of Mr Murray himself commit " The Press." Instead of the " Times " saying that "the year 1926 will go "down in Prohibition history as the "year of the great talk," etc., Mr Clark said it, and then went on to explain what he meant by it —viz., that both Houses will be flooded by Bills, most of which will be talked out, as estimates of definitely "Wet" Congressmen vary from 100 to 170, and it is unlikely that they will find enough recruits among the 235 who are " open "to conviction" to bring their strength up to the 268 votes without which they cannot change the law. And Mr Murray not only omitted to say that he was quoting from a contributor and ,not from the "Times" itself. He omitted to say that the sentences he quoted were from the first paragraph of this contributor's forecast of the future, and that the last paragraph was this:

If the year 1926 is to be the year of the great talk, the years of 1927-1928 are to be the years of action, if the plans of the Wets succeed. While even the most sanguine do not believe the Prohibition law can be modified by the present Congress, they pin their faith on the Congressional elections this Fall. The next Congress, which begins its sessions in December of 1927, will, they hope, contain a sufficient sentiment for modification to result in concrete legislation. To that end all their energies are now directed.

As we have said, the "Times" on February 14th said nothing at all about Prohibition. But if Mr Murray had wished our readers to know what the " Times" says about the subject editorially he need not have turned back to February. He- could have quoted from this March article:

Prohibition seems to have on some people the effect of drink. In Congress, Wednesday, who had contentions! Who had babblings? Who had Vounds, mental and moral, without cause? Senator Bruce and Senator Glass, old friends, looking upon the Volstead Act when it was near-red, wrangled acridly. It might almost be said, without too much abuse of metaphor, that they bit each other like serpents, and stung each other like adders ... If "the people" are not equal to the moral fervours of Congress; if the butplus of votes may be on the side of the forces of unrighteousness, why, we are men of the world of politics. If Prohibition isn't popular, the Devil take it!

And if he thought that too frivolous, why did he not quote from the "Times" comment on the "straw" vote?—

The Anti-Saloon League declares that "such tests of public opinion are not only valueless but subversive of the truth." How does it know this in advance? Is it trying to break the force of a demonstration which it knows will go against its .own boastful predictions? . . . There are to-day the best of reasons for trying to find out what tho people think on this subject. Not since tho passage of the Eighteenth Amendment has the enforcement of Prohibition been so sharply challenged . . .

From the first, Prohibition was confessed to be a great experiment . . . Well, what is the use of trying an experiment if you are unwilling to look nto it, from time to time, to see how t is working! ... To oppose even

the asking [of questions about it], as the Anti-Saloon Leaguo is doing, is a kind of political suicide that amounts to confession.