Mr. Morrow Speaks Out
MR. MORROW SPEAKS OUT EW political debuts have been more sensational than Mr. Dwight Morrow's. For anything comparable one would have to go back to Bryan's Cross of Gold speech, or even to...
...Simply and solely as an affair of practical government...
...From this point of view Mr...
...And since this is a nation founded on republican principles, there is no way out excepting to attempt to settle the matter again, in a different way if possible...
...Fort came forward solely to defend the Amendment—and to prevent the G.O.P...
...Nor could it expect any more of a political party...
...In states where drought is desired, it seems to prevail fairly widely...
...He has stated the issue as it needs to be stated, even if his advocacy of repeal can only be preliminary to any complete disposition of the liquor traffic...
...Instead of that he treated the Republican party to as great a shock as it has experienced in a generation...
...He experiences the normal hard-working financier's shyness in the presence of oratorical gestures and figures of speech...
...His speech can only mean that, after a silence of more than ten years, one great wing of the Republican party—and not the least conservative at that— has been led to believe that the conduct of government is hampered most seriously by prohibition...
...The public can expect of a candidate for office no greater honesty than that he should speak out this truth, and stake his destiny on the result...
...They will by no means agree that this law, which is not the embodiment of a principle but simply a statute, must be considered final and ineradicable...
...Franklin Fort, representative, intimate crony of Mr...
...He has been the trusted squire of Presidents, the confidant of outstanding industrial leaders, the reliable prognosticator of trends in public sentiment...
...Herbert Hoover...
...Some folk say that Democratic chieftains in the Garden commonwealth will divert a portion of their cohorts to Republicanism during the primaries thus defeating Mr...
...We applaud it wholeheartedly...
...But if prohibition is to become a central governmental issue, we must be prepared for a great deal of fierce skirmishing which may sometimes prove ugly and, perhaps, reminiscent of older debates which once divided the country into hostile factions...
...Not as a policy, a problem or an experiment...
...All of which remains to be seen...
...He has earned a title to public esteem as a sensible and efficient public servant...
...It is a matter of record that wet standard-bearers have often been openly pledged to interests identified with the old-fashioned, wide-open town...
...Morrow's action...
...Inside New Jersey one result was to project into the campaign Mr...
...MORROW SPEAKS OUT EW political debuts have been more sensational than Mr...
...Coolidge or that he would talk government efficiency in the guarded language of Mr...
...The rest of the New Jersey political scenery, always deceptive and likely to change in some unpredictable spot, is tottering at every angle...
...This model will not always be easy to live up to...
...The man who stepped out upon the stage of Krueger's Auditorium, Newark, to inaugurate a campaign as Republican candidate for the Senate from New Jersey, had precious little political savor...
...Cannonism may only be a sample of what the clash will bring forth...
...where it is not wanted, we have, "as a result, a lawless unregulated liquor traffic attended by shocking corruption"—and a resentment not entirely due "to a desire for unlimited license to be intemperate...
...Therefore Mr...
...Tonight," he said, reading from a carefully prepared manuscript, "I am going to discuss prohibition...
...Morrow has obviously set a standard and an example...
...from painting itself heel and head with the colors of antidrought warfare...
...For anything comparable one would have to go back to Bryan's Cross of Gold speech, or even to the first slavery addresses of Abraham Lincoln...
...Known to the public at large as one of "Morgan's men," endowed with a good deal of intelligence and a record of distinguished public service in Mexico, he has probably been advertised still more widely as Lindbergh's baggy-trousered father-in-law...
...Even the value of teetotalism is not under debate...
...Remember that, wholly apart from matters of civic welfare, every voter yearns for sweetness and light on election day...
...Morrow professed to believe that the way out "involves a repeal of the Eighteenth Amendment and the substitution therefor of an amendment which will restore to the states the power to determine their policy toward the liquor traffic and vest in the federal government power to give all possible protection and assistance to those states that desire complete prohibition...
...Hoover and former Republican National Committeeman...
...It is difficult to estimate the immediate effect of this pronouncement...
...Morrow and guaranteeing victory to their own man...
...Accordingly the advocates of repeal or modification will aid their cause greatly if they see to it that candidates professing their views are something better than one-issue pseudostatesmen...
...Of such a man it might have been expected either that he would be laconic like Mr...
...The thing of importance is that the Amendment proposed a solution of the liquor problem which a vast body of citizens not only feel is incorrect but which they oppose with determination...
...The question is no longer whether the existing dry Amendment is intrinsically right or wrong, from the social point of view...
...There is no secret about his rise to a position of importance in the political councils of the nation...
...What cannot be doubted is the national significance of Mr...
...But it must always be kept securely in sight...
...The shock may eventually prove to have blown things about a bit, but it is—at last—a sign of vitality...
Vol. 12 • June 1930 • No. 6
