THE LAST DAYS

The glove is cast. The words yesterday of F. Scott McBride, superintendent of the Anti-Saloon League, that the prohibition issue is "more clearly drawn than at anytime since the coming of prohibition" is steadily growing more apparent to the American citizenry. After ten years of a notable experiment in which one thousand lives, millions of dollars, racketeering, and the worst corruption of public office in the history of the United States, have all been heaped helter-skelter in the crucible of the experimenters, with a new code of lawlessness and immorality as the only product, "the time has come" for a true test of the continuance or disappearance of the eighteenth amendment. The November elections are the battleground.

The die, too, is cast. True, both the Democrats and the Republicans meeting in solemn conclave in various states have rigidly avoided a definite stand in their party planks with a persistence that is nothing more nor less than praiseworthy. The repeal of Prohibition will be successful only at the polls. The parties exist for another purpose, difficult though it may be to ascertain that purpose. Twenty-nine new supporters have found their way into the sacred halls of justice down Washington way. According to the prognostications of local experts the wet candidate in Massachusetts should attain a comfortable majority in November. In the west, Senator Walsh of Montana, with a brilliant career while wrapped in the toga, faces quite likely defeat by an inferior candidate, purely because the latter is wringing wet. Rolph of California will bear a moist gubernatorial standard to victory against a dry Democrat, according to past elections in a Republican state. New York, Wisconsin and others are already damp.

And then, too, the clever Mr. Curran, head of the Anti-prohibition crusade, showed in his remarks to a senatorial investigating committee, to paraphrase the statement of late President Roosevelt when someone said that Labor would soon overcome Capital, "that brains are necessary." Comparing the quality and quantity of the selfsame ingredient reposing in both camps, "the handwriting on the wall" which forecasts the last days is showing a tendency more every day toward bold-face print.