STIMULANT FOR THE VOTER

The publicity given Governor Smith's Statement on the right of the people to organize against Prohibition indicates that this will probably be the only issue of great popular interest in the coming presidential campaign. Senator Borah, in demanding that the subject be brought into the open and voted upon, emphasizes the reluctance of the two major parties to touch the question, and shows confidence in the general belief that the country, however wet in sentiment, will unfailingly give a dry vote. What the opposition needs is a slogan that might convince citizens that the desire for disreputable indulgence is not implied in a vote for a repeal. This, with the exertion of the newspapers might very well blow the Prohibition question into enough of a bugaboo to arouse voters; for it is seen that even the loosely iconoclastic like Mencken who go berserk on the mention of liquor and moral censorship, can attract audiences until their hearers grow tired with the yelling on these questions that never before have been of political importance.

But on the whole the flurry in this quarter shows the absence of interest in any other. The voters are too well fed to be moved. An article in the Sunday Times on the domination of industrial and economic considerations over purely political movements in Europe, declares that the age of politics has passed, and taken with it the demagogue. Certainly in this country the laborers riding in cars produced by the most pronounced capitalism are too prosperous to cry out against Wall Street. The words Republican or Democrat are no longer clannish distinctions because the differences over farm relief, ship building, and the tariff, little interest the unaffected majority. Politics has yielded place as the prime subject for discussion. Even the irregularities of the Harding administration aroused little feeling, and few demands for disclosures. The public attitude in its present dangerous complacency quite belies the state of democracy.