"Try a Little Longer"

When President Hoover reached his office one morning last week, he found lying on his desk the Prohibition report of his Commission on Law Enforcement & Law Observance. After 20 months, Chairman George Woodward Wickersham had brought it in a large manila envelope before 9 a. m., left it with a secretary. Running his eye through its 286 printed pages. President Hoover could perceive that it was simply one colossal job of weaseling. "Let us try a little longer," was its gist.

Its headline conclusions read as follows: "THE COMMISSION IS OPPOSED TO":

1) Repeal of the 15th Amendment.

2) Restoration in any manner of the legalized saloon.

3) Federal or State Governments as such going into the liquor business.

4) The proposal to modify the National Prohibition Act so as to permit manufacture and sale of light wines or beer.

"THE COMMISSION IS OF THE OPINION THAT":

1) The co-operation of the States is an essential element in the enforcement of the 18th Amendment.

2) The support of public opinion in the several States is necessary to insure such cooperation.

3) Prior to 1927 the agencies for enforcement were badly organized and inadequate.

4) Subsequently there has been continued improvement in organization and effort for enforcement.

5) There is yet no adequate enforcement or observance.

6) The present organization for enforcement of the law is still inadequate.

7) Federal appropriations for enforcement . . . should be substantially increased.

8) Better organized efforts should be furthered by certain improvements in the statutes.

President Hoover read further: "Some of the Commission are not convinced that Prohibition under the 18th Amendment is unenforceable and believe that a further trial should be made . . . and if after such trial effective enforcement is not secured, there should be a revision of the Amendment. . . . Others are convinced it has been demonstrated that Prohibition is unenforceable and that the Amendment should be immediately revised."

Agreed was the Commission that any revision of the 18th Amendment should read: The Congress shall have power to regulate or to prohibit the manufacture, traffic in or transportation of intoxicating liquors. The ''regulate" would open the way for a change.

President Hoover found that individual Commissioners reserved the right to individual views, but that only Commissioner Monte M. Lemann of Louisiana did not sign the full report. Shortest separate report came from the only woman commissioner, Ada L. Comstock, president of Radcliffe College. She is convinced that "enforcement of the Eighteenth Amendment is impossible without the support of a larger proportion of our population." She favors an immediate change. Most politically important was the short report of Newton Diehl Baker which began: ''In my opinion the Eighteenth Amendment should be repealed and the whole question of policy and enforcement with regard to intoxicating liquors remitted to the State." Mr. Baker was two weeks out on a world cruise when the report appeared. But friends immediately began to bespeak for him the 1932 Democratic nomination for President. A favorite son of Ohio, a Wilsonian to appease the South, a superb orator, a lawyer respected by business, and now a Wet,--he has friends, the essential ingredients.

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