BAY STATE POLITICS

It is significant that the question of their respective stands on the liquor issue has been the outstanding one in the consideration of the various candidates in the Massachusetts senatorial election Whether Mr. Eben S. Draper's decision to withdraw his support from William Butler, Republican nominee, springs from political spite or not, it at least adds weight to the growing anti prohibition sentiment along the North Atlantic seaboard. In New York, former Attorney General Tuffle has been nominated by the Republicans to run for governor on a repeal platform, while Democratic Governor Roosevelt has finally felt that wet sentiment was more than strong enough among is constituents to allow him to come out flatly for the repeal of the 18th Amendment, although he felt constrained to evade the liquor issue when he first ran for governor.

Marcus Coolidge, the Democratic senatorial nominee from Massachusetts, is running on a dripping wet platform. William Butler, however, is entering the race with a laissez-faire, evasive liquor statement which certainly does not satisfy the wets and should not please the drys. In the Era of Prosperity which carried Republican Mr. Coolidge to his second term as president of the United States and equally Republican Mr. Hoover to his first, it was very easy for the Republicans to run on platforms which "guaranteed" merely continuance of the status quo.

Times have changed. Even in these days of unintelligent voting, it is doubtful whether Mr. Butler can "get away" with his hypocritical, sidestepping, meaningless liquor platform.