New Lobbyist

Carefree young U. S. citizens whose understanding of prohibition ends with the hard grins on the face of men that bring heavy bundles to their parents, last week turned a name over in their minds trying to think where they had heard it before. "F. Scott McBride?" they said. "Where before have I heard of F. Scott McBride?"

A few of them realized that they had never before heard of F. Scott McBride. The name they were half-remembering was F. Scott Fitzgerald. They had read novels by F. Scott Fitzgerald, works in which cocktails make the characters say unexpected things and in which highballs, gin fizzes, champagne inspire exciting conduct.

Older U. S. citizens, people who read their newspapers more carefully, repeated the name top. "Francis Scott McBride? Francis Scott McBride?" they said. "Do you suppose that he is a descendant of Francis Scott Key, who wrote 'The Star-Spangled Banner?' "

As a matter of fact, Francis Scott McBride is no more related to Francis Scott Key than he is to Francis Scott Fitzgerald. Strange things have happened in the home of the brave and the land of the free, but for the general superintendent of the Anti-Saloon League of America to be related to the author of This Side of Paradise is a little too bizarre to be true. The author of Flappers and Philosophers and The Great Gatsby is indeed a connection of the author of "The Star-Spangled Banner." But not so the Anti-Saloon League Superintendent.

This confusion of names and traditions arose last week out of a comparatively routine matter. With the passing of Lawyer Wayne B. Wheeler (TIME, Sept. 12, Milestones), some one had to take over his labors as the Anti-Saloon League's representative in the lobbies of Congress. The Anti-Saloon League spent 50 millions putting prohibition on paper as the law of the land. It has been spending about two millions per annum ever since to prod politicians into enforcing the law of the land. Enforcement having made scarcely any headway lately, and many a politician who is neither wet nor dry having lately for- gotten to be dry outwardly, the Anti-Saloon League is reported ready to spend $600,000 the next few months to remind forgetful politicians of its power. As soon as may be, a successor to the late Mr. Wheeler as high-salaried, legalistic manipulator of funds and politicians, will be chosen. In the meantime, the League announced last week, double duty will be done by Dr. F. Scott McBride, whose functions hitherto have been to berate alcohol at conventions of people who agree with him that it is sinful, and to issue reports telling how the League gets on.

Dr. McBride, as active lobbyist of the largest volunteer auxiliary the U. S. government possesses, will now have to buttonhole politicians and admonish them himself. Dr. McBride, a United Presbyterian preacher and long head of the Anti-Saloon League in woefully wet Illinois, will now have to battle singlehanded the causes of "crooks and bribery," which U. S. Prohibition Commissioner Lowman says are "rampant" in the Federal enforcement system. Last week, Dr. McBride was known to be picking a band of dry workers to rush into southern and midwestern states whence ominous sentiment has been issuing in favor of the wet presidential candidate, Governor Alfred Emanuel Smith. In Indiana. Not in the least helpful to Dr. McBride were sounds issuing last week from Indiana. With the trial for alleged corruption of the mayor of Indianapolis and Governor Ed Jackson (TIME, Sept. 19), Dr. McBride was doubtless heartily sympathetic. But what could he think and feel about Attorney General Arthur L. Gillon of Indiana ? The latter, not content that the Reverend E. S. Shumaker, State Anti-Saloon superintendent of Indiana, had been sentenced to two months on a penal farm for contempt of court, was last week seeking to extend the Reverend Shumaker's sentence considerably for alleged efforts to cor- rupt the Supreme Court of Indiana in its review of his case.