The Liquor Problem in Politics

Report Outline
President Hoover's Enforcement Program
Proposed Changes in Prohibition Policy
Specific Programs of Political Leaders
Prohibition in the 1930 Campaign
Prospects of 1932

Prohibition has emerged as the dominant issue of the 1930 elections in half a dozen or more states, and the impossibility of settling the question during the next two years, in the presence of increasing agitation, points to its reappearance as the paramount issue in the presidential campaign of 1932.

The nomination by the opposing parties of wet and dry candidates for state and federal offices in such states as Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Delaware, the appearance of prohibition as the chief issue in political contests in New Jersey, New York, and Illinois, the recommendations of outstanding political leaders for change in the method of liquor control, the prohibition planks of the party platforms in various states, and recent tests of public sentiment on the question—all indicate the prominence which the problem of prohibition is assuming in the opinion of the people and in the councils of the major parties.

In Massachusetts and other states where the parties have taken opposite sides of the question, prohibition is a partisan issue. In New York and other states where both parties now favor repeal of the 18th amendment, prohibition has ceased to be a partisan issue. In the nation as recently as 1928, prohibition was an issue both within the Democratic party and between it and the Republican party. It helped to disrupt the minority party whose candidate, Governor Smith, stood for state monopoly of alcoholic beverages, and it now threatens the internal peace of the Republican party which stands nationally for prohibition enforcement, but which in New York and New Jersey favors repeal of the 18th amendment.