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Show lfsTi MARTS N EST DRY SPEECH BY IDAHO SENATOR IN WET CITY OCCASIONS MUCH COMMENT Similar tements Heard On Floor In Debate By Walsh, And No Hurrahs; States Would Violate Vio-late Law Washington. Senator Borah is surprised sur-prised at the amount of comment excited ex-cited by his speech this week, because practically every point in the speech had already been made by him in the senate, many of them in the same words. Most of the points made by Borah had also been paralleled by Senator Walsh of Montana. As Senator Borah has made himself the outstanding dry leader among Republicans, Re-publicans, so is Walsh the outstanding dry leader among the Democrats. By "outstanding dry leader" is meant the possession of conviction that the prohibition pro-hibition amendment and the Volstead act should be enforced, plus conviction that prohibition is good, plus ability to discuss the constitutional aspects of the subject. Other leaders in both parties are as dependable to vote and speak dry as these two; it is their ability as constitutional lawyers that distinguish Borah and Walsh. One of the principal points made by both these senators is that the wets are really aiming to assert the right of a state to refuse to obey a an integral in-tegral part of the Constitution. Both Walsh and Borah take strongly the stand that the only way to change the present status of prohibition is by nation-wide action; and that the only kinds of nation-wide action possible are two; namely, by a new constitutional constitu-tional amendment, submitted in the regular way, or by the election of a congress with a majority pledged to the wet side. Senator Walsh derides the idea of a national referendum proposed pro-posed in a pending bill by Senator Edge of New Jersey and backed by other wets. "If the referendum shall result as hoped by the wets, obviously some change in the present policy of the government as represented in the Constitution Con-stitution and in the status will necessarily neces-sarily follow. But suppose, Mr. President, Pres-ident, the result shall be otherwise, and that the present policy shall be confirmed; then what? Does anyone imagine that the gentleman who tells you that the Volstead law and the constitutional amendment are violative viola-tive of the fundamentals of liberty and thus encourage violators of the law in their conduct,-will thereupon desist from so arguing." |