National Affairs: Turning Tide?

For the first time in the current congressional uproar there was last week a small but possibly significant turn in the Prohibition tide. It came when large, benign Representative George Scott Graham of Pennsylvania, 79-year-old Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, announced that he would allow his committee to hold public hearings on seven bills for repeal or modification of the 18th Amendment. The date: Feb. 12.

Nobody expected the Judiciary Committee with its 19 Drys and four Wets to approve any of these measures, much less Congress, 75% dry, to vote any sort of change as a result of the hearings. Their significance lay in the fact that they were the first hearings that the Drys had ever given the Wets in the House since Prohibition. Heretofore Wet legislation has been smothered under parliamentary silence. What caused the change this time was the threat of the Wets to set up an unofficial committee of their own in the capitol and hold mock hearings on Prohibition changes. To prevent such an undignified procedure the Drys consented to official hearings before the Judiciary Committee.

Chairman Graham, wealthy, moustachioed, smart attorney for Pennsylvania R. R., was the special hero of the day. Successor to Andrew John Volstead as the head of the Judiciary Committee, he promised to “lift the lid” at the hearings and give the Wets all the latitude they wanted to make their points against the 18th Amendment. In addition to the repeal resolutions, arguments will be heard on 2-75% beer and on the Canadian system of government liquor control. Prime speaker for the Wets: Representative James Montgomery Beck, onetime Solicitor General of the U. S., expert guide through the legalistic mazes of the Constitution.

What Chairman Graham thought of Prohibition he made clear in a speech last week to the Federal Bar Association in Manhattan:

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“I wouldn’t want to restore the old condition but I do believe we could frame and fashion a new system of control that would not be Prohibition and would make the law enforceable and practical. What a sorry state this country is in today! Revenues have fallen off. Crimes have multiplied. We are under the reign of the bludgeon and of force. The very church, its bishops and ministers, cheer all sorts of pain and shootings; it applauds force. Have we lost the right of conscience? Are we slaves? We need emancipation ! . . . The Lord could have destroyed all alcohol and made men automatic creatures if he wished. Did He do it? No! He wanted a man!”

A congressman since 1913, Chairman Graham has worked through the rise of Dry sentiment which resulted in the 18th Amendment. Looking back over his legislatice career, he could pick out these dates as most significant in the history of Fed eral Prohibition:

Dec. 22, 1914 — The House first showed a Dry majority (197 to 189) on a resolution to amend the Constitution prohibiting intoxicating beverages. Offered by Congressman Richmond Pearson Hobson of Alabama the resolution failed to win the necessary two-thirds majority.

Dec. 17, 1917 — The House adopted (282 to 128) the 18th Amendment.

Dec. 18, 1917— The Senate adopted (65 to 20) the 18th Amendment.

Jan. 8, 1918 — ‘Mississippi was first state to ratify the 18th Amendment.

Jan. 16, 1919 — Nebraska was 36th-state to ratify the 18th Amendment, thus putting it into the Constitution. Pennsylvania was the last state to ratify (Feb. 26, 1919). States that never ratified: Rhode Island and Connecticut.

Nov. 21, 1918 — President Wilson signed an Act, passed as a War measure by Congress, temporarily prohibiting liquor manufacture and sale as a means of food conservation.

June 30, 1919 — Food-conservation prohibition went into effect, without the assistance of enforcement machinery.

July 22, 1919—The House passed the Volstead Act for general Prohibition enforcement.

Sept. 5, 1919—The Senate passed the Volstead Act.

Oct. 27, 1919—President Wilson vetoed the Volstead Act on the ground that it would enforce Wartime as well as Constitutional Prohibition. President Wilson held that Prohibition as a War measure should have been repealed with the completion of demobilization (May 1919). The same day the House repassed the Volstead Act (175 to 55) over Wrilson’s veto.

Oct. 28, 1919—The Senate repassed (65 to 20) the Volstead Act, which immediately became effective for enforcement of Wartime Prohibition.

Jan. 5, 1920—The Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the Volstead Act—a test case brought on by President Wilson’s point (see above).

Jan. 16, 1920—Constitutional Prohibition came into effect.