Glasses & Dollars

If Wets waxed optimistic fortnight ago because President Hoover publicly pledged Dwight Whitney Morrow, Wet Republican Senatorial nominee in New Jersey, "every support . . . every confidence" in the November election, their enthusiasm must have been diminished last week by two White House events: 1) President Hoover had the 1,800 wine glasses belonging to his official home packed in barrels and shipped to storage; 2) he returned vigorously to his old thesis that Prohibition is only one of many important elements in the general crime situation, boldly defied a move by Congress to reduce the appropriation for and thus limit the scope of his National Law Enforcement Commission.

It was easier to put away wine glasses than it was to make Congress like the N.L.E.C. Chairman Wickersham had asked Congress for another $250,000 to carry on his Commission's inquiry into all laws for a second year. He had $88,000 left unexpended out of the first year's allowance. The Commission had used only $8,000 specifically on Prohibition work. The House on a parliamentary technicality knocked out all new funds for the Commission. In the Senate Senator Carter Glass of Virginia assaulted the N.L.E.C. on the ground that it had frittered away time and money, submerged Prohibition under a mass of irrelevant matters and defied the intention of Congress. Result: the Senate voted the Commission only $50,000 ordered that this sum and last year's balance be used exclusively for Prohibition. When President Hoover heard that Congress had virtually orphaned his prize Commission, he was wroth. To newsmen he read a statement in which he said:

"Nothing indicates the situation better than the fact that in the last two years there was an increase of persons in Federal prisons for serious offenses from 8,400 to over 13,000, whereas in the previous two years the increase was from 7,100 to 8,400. Seventy per cent of these prisoners are for other crimes than those arising out of Prohibition.

With growing crime of all kinds . . . I cannot abandon the question for one moment or allow the work of this Commission to cease.

"I have no doubt that there are private citizens sufficiently anxious for the nation to know the whole truth as to what constructive remedies may be suggested by so eminent a body of men and women as this Commission, that I shall be able to secure from private sources the $100,000 necessary to carry this work forward to completion. . . ."

Chairman Wickersham called on President Hoover, came out to announce: "Were not quitters."

So determined was President Hoover to keep the Commission working along the broad track of all crime, to prevent its specialization on Prohibition, that House leaders scurried about in search of a parliamentary trick whereby the N. L. E. C. might in the end get $250,000 with no strings attached.

P: President Hoover went for the weekend to his Rapidan camp, saw his wife for the first time in three weeks. She told him her sprained back was making steady improvement.

P: Signed by the President was a bill to reorganize the Federal Power Commission. He immediately began to cast about for five good men to replace the three members of his cabinet who composed this small but potentially important agency.

P: Dwight Whitney Morrow, Ambassador to Mexico, called on President Hoover before returning temporarily to his post at Mexico City. He urged the President to visit Mexico this summer. The President said he would think about it.

P: President Hoover signed a resolution, backed by the American Legion, providing for a commission of six Cabinet members, four Senators, four Representatives, to study the problem of conscripting wealth and industry, as well as soldiers in time of war. Purpose: to take private profits out of war.

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