OCR Text |
Show "DRYNESS" WILL BE " ISSUEJ IDAHO : Question of State-wi3e Prohibition Pro-hibition Probably Paramount Para-mount in Campaign. Special to The Tribune. BOISE, Idaho, Jan. 31. Will the three chief political purtios in this stato nail etato-Vrido prohibition planka in their respective platforms this year, and if they do or do not in wholo or in part, what effect will it have on them? Thin iB one of the paramount queries in Idaho politica today and will become more bo as tho campaign, now loss than six months off, approaches, for statewide state-wide prohibition is to be an issue, more bo, probably, than in any other general election year. The primary election this year will bo held Soptombcr 1, the first Tuesday iu that month, but the Elatforma of tho respective parties must o promulgated in party conventions at noon in Boise, Juno 30, tho lost Tuesday of tho month. Stato-wido prohibition was carefully avoided as a plank at tho party platform plat-form conventions two years ago. yet there were moro than enough dry" votes in tho last legislature to havo J)laced Idaho in the prohibition column lad it been a Republican party pledge. It was not, however. The anti-saloon advocates themselves seemed to be Bat-ififiod Bat-ififiod thou with tho way tho local option op-tion law was operntiug, as they had then, aa now, two-thirds of the counties in tho state in the "dry" column. Moro consideration will be given to tho prohibition plank by tho Republican and Democratic parties this year than boforo and tho Progressive party, now activoly installed in Idaho politics, will also give it tho samo consideration. That some one of them will nail it in the platform is now believed certain and they mav all do it. It ia largely because of the evident "dry" tendency of this state that therc is much activity (over which little lit-tle if anything has been 6aid so far in tho political developments) among the frionds of G. H. Ileitman, former stato chairman of tho Republican party, to bring him out as a candidate for gov-'crnor. gov-'crnor. It is given out here on excellent authority that letters havo been pouring pour-ing iu urging action of this kind because be-cause of iiis prominenco in Kootenai county, where he has been and ib today conspicuous as the "dry" leader. The "drys" recently filed a petition in that county to liold a local option election elec-tion next month and bring it back into tho prohibition column. Heitman. how-over, how-over, would not be the only "dry" candidate can-didate if lie did rim, for, with the warm-hip warm-hip up of this issue, every other gubernatorial guber-natorial candidate 'would not be slow to declare himself as perfectly willing to sign a state-wide prohibition bill- iT the legislature passes one, which will probably bo tho case. The announcement that O. H. Potts of Coeur d 'Alcne, senator from Kootenai Koo-tenai county in tho eleventh legislature and former countv attorney there, may be a candidate for congressman, subject sub-ject to the will of the Republican primaries, pri-maries, and that William E. Lee, Republican Re-publican stato central committeeman from tho neighboring county, Latah, may shy his hat into tho same ringj caused soniowhat of a stir horo, where stato politics aro beginning to brew. From progressive and conservative Republican Re-publican standpoints, both are generally considered progressive Republicans. |