Morrow Speaks Out

"Men and women of New Jersey--" On the stage of Krueger's Auditorium in Newark stood Dwight Whitney Morrow, Ambassador to Mexico. Republican candidate for the U. S. Senate. It was 9 o'clock of a rainy evening. Mr. Morrow's blue-grey suit looked mussed and wrinkled after an all-day auto tour among Jersey voters. In his hand he held a manuscript, his first campaign speech, from which he was about to read. No hard-boiled political stumpster, he seemed shy and nervous before the 2,000 clerks, farmers, Negroes, laborers, socialites -- Republican voters all -- who packed the hall. A swift smile from Mrs. Morrow who sat in a box with Manhattan Banker Otto Hermann Kahn gave him encouragement. As the din of sirens and noise makers died, Mr. Morrow cleared his throat, plunged straightway into his speech in a strong clear voice : "I come before the Republican voters of New Jersey as a candidate for the office of United States Senator. ... I am sensible of the great honor. ... If I am elected to the Senate, my only obligation will run to the voters of the State and my own conscience. . . . Tonight I am going to discuss Prohibition [loud applause]. It is a question which constantly confuses moral principles with the art of government. . . . "It is not my purpose to discuss the merits of Prohibition as a policy. That is not the issue. The issue is whether it is practicable and in the public interest to apply that policy to the United States as a whole through the agency of the Federal Government. . . . "In many States where it is in accord with popular sentiment, national Prohibition is generally believed to be successful. In other States the system works badly because the people and their officials do not cooperate. ... Is it well that large portions of our people should conceive of the Federal Government as an alien and even a hostile Power? Is it well to have, as a result, a lawless unregulated liquor traffic attended by shocking corruption? It is not fair to assume that all resentment against national Prohibition is due to a desire for unlimited license to be intemperate. . . .

"I bring to you no panacea for this deplorable condition. I know of no magical solution. ... I believe the way out of the present difficulty . . . involves a repeal of the 18th Amendment [tremendous applause] 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. . . .

"So long as the 18th Amendment and the statutes thereunder are the law of the land, I favor generous appropriations for their enforcement. ... I favor the use of such appropriations for that portion of enforcement which is pre-eminently the duty of the Federal Government . . . keeping liquor from coming into the country and passing into interstate commerce. . . . Until it performs that task, it might well leave all local police duty with the States. . . .

"I have tried to avoid the words 'wet' and 'dry.' Men labeled wet may be as much opposed to the saloon as men labeled dry. The saloon must not come back. The people of the U. S. are well rid of it. ...

"We hear on all sides that it is impossible to amend the Constitution. It is difficult but not impossible. Four times within the last 20 years the Constitution has been amended. It can be amended again. ... If those who propose a further change in the Constitution might only believe more in the reasonableness of other men it might well call forth some belief in the reasonableness of their proposals. . . ."

Thus began in earnest the New Jersey Republican senatorial campaign which will be decided in the party primary of June 17. Mr. Morrow's political speech almost overnight did two major things: 1) it made Prohibition the one and only issue in New Jersey; 2) it exalted Mr. Morrow into the vanguard of Wet leadership throughout the land, because he, a man of large public prestige, had spoken his mind forcefully and dispassionately on an issue on which most political figures were either violent partisans or mealy-mouthed weaslers.

But the speech which aligned Mr. Morrow against Prohibition produced immediate political complications within New Jersey. Ahead of him in the field as a senatorial candidate was Joseph Sherman Frelinghuysen, a Dry who had turned Wet for this campaign (TIME, May 5). As Mr. Morrow was speaking. New Jersey's Representative Franklin William Fort, ardent Dry, good friend of President Hoover, onetime secretary of the Republican National Committee, cut short a political talk he was giving in a Presbyterian Church in East Orange to rush to a radio and hear the Ambassador's words from Newark. Twelve hours later, palpitating with excitement, he declared himself as a third candidate for the Republican senatorial nomination.

In a long statement in which he insisted it was "unjust" to tangle presidential friendship in the Jersey campaign because all three candidates were on good terms at the White House, Mr. Fort declared:

"I cannot permit the issue to go by default. ... I am opposed to any return of the sale of intoxicating liquor under any form of law or regulation. I believe in the 18th Amendment and I am unwilling that my native State should go on record for its repeal. The issue is Prohibition. The liquor is outlaw and must remain so. ... I recognize that apparently the odds are against my victory. . . ."

With cries of "Bully! Fine!" the Anti-Saloon League and W. C. T. U. swung in behind the Fort candidacy. To complicate matters even more, he filed, not for the short (until March 4, 1931) and long (1931-37) Senate term as did Messrs. Morrow and Frelinghuysen, but for the long term only. A great confusion of names and dates will thus confront Jersey voters on the primary ballot.

The contest between two Wets and a Dry immediately raised the prospect of the nomination given to Mr. Fort by a minority vote, with a combined Wet majority divided fruitlessly between Mr. Morrow and Mr. Frelinghuysen.

Jersey Democrats, solidly Wet, watched the excited confusion over Prohibition among Jersey Republicans with vast satisfaction. State Senator Alexander Simpson, famed Hall-Mills murder case prosecutor, is the unopposed choice as Democratic senatorial nominee. Aware of the Wetmen of Jersey, Democratic leaders were positive Mr. Simpson could defeat Mr. Fort, if nominated, in the November election. Likewise they felt fairly certain they could dispose of Mr. Frelinghuysen. even as a Wet, if the Republicans put him up. But Mr. Morrow's candidacy thoroughly worried them. In Jersey City there was gossip to the effect that Mayor Frank Hague, Democrat boss, would put 50,000 of his followers into the Republican primary to try to defeat Mr. Morrow.

While the Wet press of Jersey and elsewhere hailed Mr. Morrow's speech as a great public utterance and predicted that in the Senate he would give much-needed tone, intelligence and character to the Wet movement, the Drys opened their attack on him by the charge that his proposal was nothing more than a return to the State-control system and the saloon as they existed before the 18th Amendment.

But the Morrow speech had repercussions far beyond the borders of New Jersey. Political writers in Washington began to speculate upon him as a Wet rival to Herbert Hoover for the Presidency in 1932. Mark Sullivan, shrewd observer that he is, remarked that Mr. Morrow's address was "the most outstanding step toward leadership of the anti-Prohibition position ever taken by any Republican. . . ."

Meanwhile President Hoover observed a vigorous neutrality.

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