Prohibition and the League The campaign for the Presidency has naturally become the most engrossing subject in America, and will continue to be 60 from now until the final election in November, says the Washington correspondent of the Observer." Two things have become clear: one is that prohibition will be an issue; the other that the League of Nations, in one form or another, will also be an issue.
When I say that prohibition will be an issue, I do not mean that any serious effort. to undo prohibition in America will be made. The probibition of the sale of intoxicating liquors is now incorporated into our Constitution. This Constitutional Amendment will last for as long a period as can now be foreseen; but while the prohibition of intoxicating liquors will endure, the definition of what constitutes an intoxicating liquor allows elasticity for change from time to time. For the present, Congress has defined an intoxieating liquor as one containing one-half of 1 per cent. of alcohol. The law containing this definition was pasted during wartime under such circumstances that laws were passed without very intent scrutiny and without much regard for normal public feeling. It is now realized that this rigid definition of an, intoxicating beverage as one containing one-half of 1 per cent. represents too autocratic a wartime spirit, and is disapproved by large numbers of people. The issue which will arise in the coming campaign will be to change this definition to something mors reasonable. As one of the landing candidates on the so-called "wet" platform put it: "Prohibition has come to stay; the saloon has been banished for good; brandy, and other strong liquors have been banished for good but some legal and harmless way must be found for the sale of beer and light wines." That substantially is the so-called "wet" versus "dry" issue which will come up in the American elections this year.
Tae Presipexr AND THE LeaGve.
It is not quite so clear in just what shape the League of Nations will figure in the campaign. The general feeling is that disapproval should be visited upon whichever party is responsible for the failure to compromise, and for the failure to pass the League in some form and get it out of the way. The difficulty is that the public is not clear in its own mind as to just which party is responsible for the failure to compromise. A close analysis of the situation at the end of the long debate would show that President Wilson is the one who is responsible for the final failure to compromise; but the Parliamentary situation was so involved that it is not easy for the public to grasp this, The general public feeling has become one of indifference; the main wish is to get a painful subject out of the way. What will probably happen in the future is
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.