The Prohibition Issue in National Politics

Report Outline
The Slavery Issue in National Politics
The Prohibition Party and the Anti-Saloon League
Prohibition Referenda Since 1920
Prohibition in the Party Platforms
Records of the Candidates on Prohibition
Special Focus

A conference of Democratic members of the Senate in the Seventieth Congress decided, March 5, 1927, that prohibition should not be made a national political issue by the Democratic party in the presidential campaign of 1928. The results of the conference were announced by Senator Robinson, Arkansas, Democratic leader of the Senate.

“It was recognized,” he said, “that differences exist in the various states respecting the subject of prohibition, and these differences are not regarded as partisan in nature. In the very nature of the question it cannot be made a party issue.”

The conference included such extreme drays as Senators Sheppard of Texas and Caraway of Arkansas, to whom its decision was entirely acceptable, and such extreme wets as Senators Bruce of Maryland and Edwards of New Jersey, who were vigorous in their protest but were overruled by the majority. Senators Bruce and Edwards both had previously asserted that prohibition would be “the dominant issue” in the 1928 campaign.