PROHIBITION: Who’s Ashamed?

Wall Street last week beheld an unusual sight—Mrs. Vincent Astor, slim and chic, standing on the running board of a large yellow automobile shaking a coin box, begging contributions.

This was not the Depression’s last paradox. Mrs. Polly Lauder Tunney was similarly begging uptown on the steps of the Public Library. Over the radio, trim Mrs. Charles Hamilton Sabin, wife of the board chairman of potent Guaranty Trust Co., was exhorting a national audience,. So was intense little Mrs. Archibald Roosevelt. Out on Long Island and up in the fashionable suburbs of Westchester and Connecticut, scores and scores of well-dressed ladies, wives of substantial, responsible businessmen, were earnestly parading the streets and highways in their family automobiles, blaring their horns steadily with large blue & white banners proclaiming that the 18th Amendment must be repealed. It was “National Repeal Week,” sponsored by the Women’s Organization for National Prohibition Reform of which Mrs. Sabin is national chairman, Mrs. Roosevelt campaign chief. After their horn-blowing motorcades, during which they were careful not to smoke cigarets in conservative districts, the suburban ladies returned to make streetcorner speeches patterned after Mrs. Sabin’s radio address. Excerpts from the latter:

“When I speak of changed and changing attitudes toward Prohibition I cannot help thinking about the word ‘Wet,’ and how different is its meaning today from what it was intended when first the term was hurled at the opponents of the 18th Amendment. It was intended to be an insult, a sneer, or at best a flippancy. It was intended to indicate a person of uncontrolled appetite, a poor creature who placed thirst ahead of responsibility to his neighbor.

“Some of us women shrank from the characterization, were indignant about the injustice of it. We tried to think of ways to persuade public and press to give us a fairer, more accurate description. We failed. ‘Wet’ was brief, ‘Wet’ was easy, ‘Wet’ would fit neatly into headlines. And so we were fated to be ‘Wets’ to the end of the story. . . .

“In the circumstances there was only one thing to do. That was to convert the term of contempt and reproach into a term of distinction. . . . When the Dutch settlers of New York called their neighbors to the North ‘Yankees’ they thought they were speaking derisively. But who is ashamed of being a Yankee today?”*

Fashionable Eastern ladies were not the only ones to become enthusiastic over Repeal Week. The W. O. N. P. R. movement gained headway in 40 States & the District of Columbia. In Illinois, home of the W. C. T. U., 65,000 new members were signed up. At Omaha, in Dry Nebraska, 2,000 “Repeal” auto plates were sold to motorists in two days; additional literature had to come from Chicago by air. In St. Louis more than 100 billboards were posted; memberships were issued at ball games and the horse show. Portland, Ore. had a parade. Virginia had five. In Massachusetts 20 shops were rented as bases of operation. West Virginia more than doubled its membership, Tennessee quadrupled hers. Connecticut had two debates. From headquarters at Charleston S. C. came a telegram: MARKED INCREASE IN ABUSIVE LETTERS. CONSIDER THIS A GOOD SIGN.

<Footnote>*Answer: Any Southerner.