the Alleghanies. For Prohibition is the settled policy of the West. Here Prohibition majorities-and by that is meant the Volstead Law or more of it-pile up higher and higher every time we have a referendum. Prohibition is here to stay and it is likely to bring with it four more years of Harding and a Republican Congress."

In this speech, says the Denver Rocky Mountain News (Rep.), the President "struck the keynote for next year," and as a result "the law-abiding anti-booze elements in the country are looking to him and his party to hold high the white flag of Prohibition against the Smiths

and others less open who would return by a devious track to the old days and the old ways." With the enforcement of the Eighteenth Amendment as the big issue, declares the Buffalo Evening News (Rep.), "the Republican party can meet the campaign of 1924 with every assurance of success." President Harding "has raised a moral issue second only in importance to the moral issue of the abolition of slavery, for the support of which the Republican party was created," avers the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle (Rep.), which continues:

Disobeying it as individuals or ignoring it as States men invites to far more serious situations in later years."

And in another independent paper, the New York Ere Post, we read:

"President Harding has not spoken hastily. He knows m about public sentiment in the various sections of the coun than the enemies of Prohibition realize. In our opinion, Democratic party will hesitate long before it takes a differ attitude upon Prohibition from that adopted by Preside Harding."

"States' rights were made the pretense for the action of the Democratic party in supporting slavery, just as States' rights have been made the issue by Governor Smith in attempting to nullify the Eighteenth Amendment. Honest enforcement of Prohibition by the States and honest observance of the law by the individual represent the only patriotic course so long as the Prohibition Amendment remains a part of the Federal Constitution and responsibility for its enforcement rests with equal force upon the National and State Governments."

No one, agrees the Rep can Buffalo Express, will ope challenge President Hardin doctrine that the law must enforced while it remains law. For this reason, it arg "it is unlikely that there be any nation-wide politi division on the subject Prohibition at the next Pr dential election." His spee may be a challenge to Democrats to nominate Sm and to stand on a wet pl form, remarks the Wich Eagle (Ind.), but "the Dem crats will not do either these things." For

As a result of the President's Denver address, says the Philadelphia Inquirer (Rep.), "the Republican party in the Convention next year will unquestionably make a flat-footed declaration for enforcement and the obligation of the people to uphold the law." The Omaha Bee (Rep.) applauds the President for taking issue with "those who urge that because the Prohibition laws are difficult to enforce they should be repealed." To the Spokane Spokesman-Review (Rep.) his words are "like a burst of sunshine, dispelling the foggy reasoning of men like Governor Smith." His stand, says the Pittsburgh Gazette Times (Rep.), is that of "a faithful executive and a wise politician."

Turning to the independent press, we find there also a large volume of comment favorable to the President's position. He commits his party to "unmitigated Prohibition," remarks the Providence Journal. He "gives voice to the overwhelming sentiment of the people of the Middle West," adds the Kansas City Star. He "calls attention to a serious menace," says the Seattle Times. He "throws a revealing light on the real issue raised by the effort of the liquor interests to have the States nullify the Eighteenth Amendment," observes the New York Evening Mail, which goes on to say:

"Law, not liquor, is the paramount question. It is every citizen's privilege to seek to amend any law he does not favor. It is equally his duty to obey it so long as it stands as the law. The Eighteenth Amendment is the law of the land.

Democratic papers very generally agree with the Birminghar Herald (Dem.), "it is not easy to contemplate law enforceme as a political issue"; and papers of both major parties point ou that one may advocate a modification of the Volstead La without being an enemy of enforcement.

"But the Democratic party must be warned against a false step," declares the Little Rock Arkansas Gazette (Dem.), for

"There will be more or less powerful Democrats who will talk of 'Liberal liquor laws' and who will see political opportunity I their party choosing a course opposed in greater or less degree to that laid down by the titular head of the Republican party Not only must the Democratic party take the highest ground on prohibition enforcement, but it must guard the language of its Declaration to make sure that no loophole is left for equivoca interpretation. Something more than words will be needed. the prohibition planks of the 1924 platforms of the great partie Such a declaration must breathe complete sincerity of purpose. And in the Cleveland Plain Dealer (Dem.), we read:

"Mr. Harding makes it plain that if either major party goes before the country next year on an anti-Volstead platform it will not be the Republican party. Our own firm conviction, often exprest, is that the Democratic party will not offer such a platform. If protesting wets demand the privilege of voting as they talk, they will have to turn to some third party; and, oddly enough, the most discust third-party possibility is himself a dry. "It was shown in 1916 that the electoral vote of New York is

no longer necessary to win the Presidency. New York and other Eastern States are wet; Illinois and Wisconsin are, perhaps, wet. But the great West and the Mid-West and the Northwest, where Presidents are made in these days, are dry.

"It would be politically suicidal for any party which hopes to win the Presidency next year to make itself tail to the antiVolstead kite. The country re

mains dry, New York and its popular Governor to the contrary notwithstanding."

Turning now to those papers which would see the Volstead Law amended in some of its clauses, we find the Republican Rochester Post Express doubting the President's uncompromising stand will help him "with his party as a whole or with the electorate." This paper admits, however, that he has demonstrated "his eligibility for renomination on an Anti-Saloon League platform." It goes on to say:

"That fraction of our population, whatever it may be, which believes (as the President professes to) that the law enforcing the Eighteenth Amendment should be made more rigorous and enforced at any cost, is fighting on

the defensive and dwindling day by day. The conviction grows and deepens that the law must be rationalized before it is respected, and this, in the judgment of many Republicans, and in our own, will be the majority sentiment of the party before convention time comes around. If this be so, the President is putting himself out of the available list."

strict enforcement of the law as written, the other demanding changes in the Volstead Law in the interest of more tolerable conditions. It is patent that President Harding has made of Prohibition the most tremendous issue in the next campaign, As a result of this, former party affiliations may mean nothing to millions of voters."

THE BASEMENT DELIVERY

-Brown in the Chicago Daily News.

The independent Lowell Courier-Citizen doubts if President Harding's speech was really "good politics," because

"Wholesale disgust with the cant and piffle of men in high places is rather likely to appreciate the stock of such outspoken free thinkers as Governor Al Smith; in spite of all the twaddle talked about his recent political suicide the people of the United States differ on many things, notably on this liquor question. But they agree pretty generally in approving the men who say right out in meeting what they really believe, and who act boldly in accordance with their actual convictions. Only as the country sees in Mr. Harding a genuine apostle of bone drouth can it make his speeches on strict inforcement a Source of much political profit to him."

issues of the Presidential and Congressional campaigns." As the Richmond Times-Dispatch (Dem.) sees it:

"Perhaps the most significant result of the President's determination to be a fighting dry will be the division of the country, irrespective of party, into two camps, one holding out for

-Darling in Colliers.

Under the heading, "Why Not Change the Law?" the New York World (Dem.) has this to

say:

"It is significant that President Harding's address at Denver on law enforcement should have turned almost from the beginning into a discussion of the enforcement of the Volstead Law. That Law has taken a preeminent position among the laws of the land. "Mr. Harding is aware that a law to be obeyed must have the respect of a large majority. On the Volstead Law the United States is divided.

"The President concludes that the violation of one law must not be allowed to break down the morale of an entire nation, and his remedy is Volstead enforcement. But the Volstead Law, being neither wise nor representative, can not be strictly enforced as it stands. If it were altered, if the definition of 'intoxicating' were revised or left to the States, the thing might be done. At present that statute corrupts the authority of all government with its ineffectiveness. If Mr. Harding wants the law enforced he should ask the Anti-Saloon League for a law that can be enforced."

BUSINESS WITH THE BRAKES ON

IT'S CERTAINLY

HEY TOOK OFF THE EIGHTEEN-HOUR FLYERS between New York and Chicago because it was found out that maximum speed doesn't always pay. So in the business world, observes one writer for the daily press, "we have learned by experience that high speed generally results in a smash-up, and in the East, as well as in the West, the brakes are now being applied whenever the train of business seems to be moving too rapidly." The most significant fact in recent business history, it is universally acknowledged, is the lull in business activity following the high peak of the boom in March. It has been accompanied by the "buyers' strike" in building, by a notable slump on the New York Stock Exchange and the failure of certain Curb and Stock Exchange brokerage houses-altho for these special circumstances are said to have been as much responsible as general business conditions. To the pessimist this means the end of all the dreams of coming great prosperity which were published abroad so freely at the opening of the year; to the optimist it is simply a timely setting of the brakes which will avert disaster, or to take a more homely figure, a chance for rest like that afforded by one of those "thank you - ma'ams' which in the old horse

A WONDERFUL VIEW

BUYING PUBLIC

PROSPERITY

PEAK

James H. Collins in The Saturday Evening Post, "business is wondering if the public will be ugly about it and react in another consumer's strike." The shut-downs and curtailments in cotton and other mills show that the rapid pace set since the beginning of the year can not be maintained in view of lessened demand, we read in the market columns of the New York Times. That is:

"A distinct halt has come to the raising of price levels because of the general belief that prices must be readjusted before long. In such an event, business casualties will be the greater the bigger the drop. No one in the line, from producer to retailer, is willing to be caught with large amounts of goods on hand if and when commodities in general reach lower levels. There is a general disposition to hold back as long as possible and to delay purchases until customers are available."

WAGES

PRICES

and-buggy days made uphill travel possible. Which view is correct? To enable our readers to answer the question intelligently for themselves, we are here putting together a few representative selections from the mass of interpretations of the present business situation vouchsafed by bankers, financial writers, and the daily and weekly press.

We had become so accustomed to take our business boom for granted that it came as quite a shock, we read in The Magazine of Wall Street, "to find that all is not as well as pictured and that there are reasons for believing that the boom may not last as long as expected." As we are reminded:

"One of the first signals that the situation was changing, was the announcement by a number of important companies and institutions that they had decided to suspend building operations on account of the soaring cost of construction. This was followed shortly by a virtual boycott of sugar by American housewives, who in that simple and striking way gave notice that they did not intend to follow the sugar market in its mad rush upward. At about the same time, the bottom practically fell out of the cotton market, the copper market fell into a slough of despond, there was an unmerciful thrashing of the oil interests, who were thus painfully reminded of the inherent difficulty of dragging oil prices upward on top of an enormous overproduction, bonds became dreadfully sick, sterling descended with monotonous regularity, the mark went down to nothing or thereabouts again, and to top it off, the stock market went to pieces in one of the worst smashes of the past two years."

The change "was more than a seasonal let-up," writes William O. Scroggs in the New York Evening Post, and it "came with surprizing suddenness." "Materials and wages have gone up, so it will be necessary to raise prices on most things"; and, remarks

LETS GO HIGHER

-Brown in the Chicago Daily News.

Business sentiment has "received a shock from which it may not recover," we read in the market letter of a leading Stock Exchange firm, which thinks that "business improvement has already gone as far as it is likely to go," and

looks "for a tapering off of business in the next

few months and for a depression next year." After examining figures on production and consumption, the editor of the Cleveland Trust Company's Business Bulletin is forced to the conclusion that our factories and mines have pretty well made up accumulated shortages and

"are now producing goods at a rate that can not be indefinitely maintained." And so, "the weight of evidence seems to indicate that the old rule that short prosperities follow big depressions will again hold good in the present instance, and that no longextended continuance of such conditions as have been maintained in the spring of 1923 is to be expected, despite our great gold surplus and our ample credit resources."

A serious view is likewise taken by the New York Journal of Commerce. It challenges the idea that the spring lull in business has helped to conserve prosperity. For, it argues, if costs and prices have reached levels which make it impossible for goods to move freely, then a mere halt in the rise will not make "prosperity" permanent. And in the second place, the probability of declining prices certainly does not tend toward continued activity in business. Next year being election year, says this daily, the present Administration "has sedulously encouraged prosperity of a sort by sundry artificial stimulants and can be counted on to make every effort to keep the patient in a buoyant frame of mind until after the election, regardless of the real state of its health." But "true well-being" can not thus be fostered "sooner or later we must get on a better basis of cost and prices or cease to flourish." "One thing is beyond dispute," we are told

"Costs and prices generally can not be permitted to go higher than they have already done. Inflation has, of course, reached greater extremes in some branches of business than in others, but in few is it likely that they can go materially further without bringing trouble of the most serious sort. In some cases it is a very grave question whether business can continue even under existing conditions. The building trades afford the most striking example of this condition. The textiles are another. Raw

materials have been forced up by tariffs, shortages and other influences to the danger point, to say the least, and, in addition, labor costs have risen by 15 or 20 per cent. within the past few months. In less degree only has essentially the same state of affairs arisen in numerous other lines of activity.

"Pause to consider what this means. It indicates first of all that labor must cease all its demands for higher wages and must in addition see to it that there is no further let-down in efficiency of the workers. Can the unions gain their own consent to such a policy? That they must do in the near future, or the hope of continued good times must be abandoned.

"It will be necessary for capitalists to be willing to continue to produce and distribute goods on the narrowest margin of profit, unless, indeed, it proves possible for them to reduce their costs, a possibility unfortunately only too remote. It is practically the unanimous opinion of all well-informed observers that should retail prices in the early autumn reflect anything in the nature of large profits taken either by the manufacturer or the distributer, consumers are more than likely to resist to an extent that would place the entire situation in serious jeopardy.

"It is thus seen that much care, no little self-control and considerable wisdom are essential in the management of our affairs if the hopes of continued prosperity are, in fact, to be realized. Shall we be able to meet these requirements?"

This is the darker side of the picture. The brighter side is sketched by B. C. Forbes in his column of business comment in the New York American. He points out that consumption has not fallen off greatly, that the country is not overstocked with goods, that there are no signs of any considerable unemployment or wage recessions, that bank savings are increasing rapidly, that agricultural buying is well maintained and new crop money will soon be in the hands of the farmers, that our railroads are enjoying almost unprecedented purchasing power, that only very moderate price recessions accompanied the lull in business, that the housing shortage still exists, and that hydro-electric construction is going forward on a large scale. The "housecleaning" in Wall Street, marked by several failures of Curb and Stock Exchange houses, will have most wholesome effects, in this observer's opinion. Finally, because warnings against inflation were heeded, the result is "that we have to-day a sound banking

THOSE KATZENJAMMER KIDS

BUSINESS: "Something tells me dose kids will spoil mine solo." -Marcus in Forbes.

position; we have few, if any, awkward accumulations of goods; we have a fairly equitable wage level; and the lull in ordering, combined with the prospect of increased immigration after this month, is tending to prevent disaster-breeding labor scarcity."

Facts like those noted by Mr. Forbes are also emphasized by such authorities as the Mechanics and Metals National Bank of New York, the Continental and Commercial Banks of Chicago, the Federal Reserve Banks of Boston and Cleveland; by President Wheeler of the Union Trust Company of Chicago; by W. S. Cousins, who regularly reviews business conditions; by The Dry Goods Economist; by the Harvard Economic Service; by several financial writers in the New York World; by The Editor and Publisher, which bases its opinions largely on the volume of newspaper advertising; by President Julius H. Barnes of the United States Chamber of Commerce; by Frank A. Vanderlip, and finally, by the Advisory Council of the Federal Reserve Board. According to The Wall Street Journal, business men and financiers generally consider the recent lull in business as a "well-timed breathing-spell." Financial America argues that when we know about the crops, "the mid-West will move ahead on a sound business way and the so-called pessimism of the East will disappear with it." Some writers are completely out of patience with the warnings against inflation, which they consider overdone and harmful. For instance, The Manufacturers' Record (Baltimore) thunders against the croakers and the faint-hearted who are trying to enthrone pessimism:

"What a pitiable spectacle! With more work ahead of us than can be accomplished in a hundred years; with resources so great that the mind is staggered as we attempt to contemplate the limitless opportunities for expansion; with building activities, even those of the National Government, as testified by Secretary Mellon, ten years behind; with highways to be built not only by the tens, but by the hundreds of thousands of miles; with river and harbor improvements pressing for immediate attention in order to lessen the strain upon the railroads; with our railroad transportation so inadequate that we need to spend at least $12,000,000,000 to $15,000,000,000 to provide facilities equal to the actual requirements of the country's trade, the pessimists wanted us to go over into a corner and sulk and suck our thumb, and croak and worship Pessimism."

WAR-TIME PRISONERS LET OUT OF JAIL

P

RESIDENT HARDING will be pretty generally commended, believes the Philadelphia Inquirer, for his commutation of the sentences of twenty-seven of the fiftyone war-time offenders who were serving terms for violation of Federal laws in interfering with the conduct of the World War by the United States. And a survey of editorial opinion proves The Inquirer's conjecture to be correct in the main. "The law has been vindicated," thinks the New York Tribune; “the lesson to the community has been taught." All of the so-called political prisoners whose sentences have been commuted by the President to take effect immediately already had served at least five years of terms ranging up to 20-year sentences. And the commutation of sentence is granted upon the condition that the erstwhile prisoners are to be law-abiding and loyal to the Government; if not, they are to be returned to the penitentiary. No one of the twenty-seven is to receive a pardon or have his rights as a citizen restored, and two who were not citizens of the United States are freed on the condition that they be deported from this country.

In commuting the sentences of these prisoners, President Harding followed the policy he has so consistently enunciated, observes the Pittsburgh Chronicle-Telegraph: "to order no wholesale release of this class of offenders, but to judge each case strictly according to its circumstances." In this paper's opinion:

"The persistent propaganda in behalf of these public enemies has had no effect on President Harding. He has refused to issue a general amnesty proclamation.

"The political prisoner' propaganda should now cease. President Harding has shown that where he believes an offender has been sufficiently punished he is willing to exercise clemency and that he gives careful consideration to every case of alleged injustice brought to his attention. But he is not going to be stampeded into ordering the release of all war-time prisoners on any plea of persecution. The United States Government is not persecuting anybody."

Forty-eight of the fifty-one war-time offenders mentioned were members of the Industrial Workers of the World. According to a Department of Justice announcement:

"Twenty-two of the prisoners were sentenced after the trial at Chicago, four were sentenced after the Wichita, Kans., trial, and twenty-two were sentenced after the Sacramento trial.

"Those sentenced at Chicago were guilty of conspiring to cause insubordination, disloyalty and refusal of duty in the military and naval forces of the United States when at war. The sentences of all of these men were commuted to the term already served, upon the condition that they be law-abiding and loyal to the Government of the United States, and upon the further condition that if any of such persons violate the foregoing conditions such commutation will be immediately revoked and the prisoner returned to the penitentiary where he is now confined.

"Those sentenced at Wichita, Kans., were guilty of conspiring to urge and incite others to disobedience of law, and disloyalty. "Those sentenced at Sacramento were guilty of conspiring to oppose by force the authority of the United States by intimidating and oppressing citizens of the United States in the exercise of their rights and to prevent them from furnishing munitions, ships and supplies to the Government for war purposes. Two of these prisoners are released upon condition that they be deported to the countries from which they came.

"As to the remaining twenty prisoners convicted at Sacramento, the facts offered in evidence during the trial showed that they were vicious in the extreme. They were not convicted for mere expressions of opinion. They assisted in the destruction of property necessary to be conserved for the welfare of the people and the protection of the Government. They actively urged, solicited and incited others to acts of violence, disloyalty and disobedience, for the express purpose of hampering the Government in the prosecution of the war, and created and promoted disloyalty and insubordination in the military and naval forces. As to them executive clemency is denied."

Of the Sacramento offenders the Philadelphia Inquirer says:

"The kind-hearted persons belonging to organizations opposing any kind of punishment for political offenses have been particularly zealous on behalf of twenty prisoners who were convicted in Sacramento during the war. Many will wonder why they were excepted from the clemency of the President. He has good reasons. The evidence at their trial proved that they had assisted in the destruction of Government property. If it be a crime to destroy private property, it should not be any less a crime to destroy the property which belongs to all of the people. In other words, there is a great difference between mere expressions of opinion and what are called overt acts in hampering the Government in its prosecution of the war."

But the New York Evening Post maintains that "the men now released might have been released just as well a year ago." And two other conservative dailies, the New York World and the Springfield Republican, feel, in the words of The World, that President Harding is "under a strong obligation to complete his work of clemency." "All the other governments have released their war offenders," recalls the Socialist New York Call, “but Mr. Harding has carried governmental policy in this matter back to the fashion maintained by the Russian Czars, who never made any distinction between the political offender and ordinary criminals." Referring again to the Evening Post editorial, we find that

"All of the cases were examined by the Attorney-General's office together. No new evidence is cited in explanation of the present action. A few months from now a few more of the pris oners will be freed, and so the process will be strung out for no apparent reason except that of reluctance to act at all. This procedure is the opposite of that which has been adopted by countries much closer to the war zone than we were. England and France released their prisoners soon after the Armistice in recognition of the fact that the war was over.

"Attorney-General Daugherty pictures the activities of the I. W. W. prisoners as criminal in the extreme, but his statement will be heavily discounted by those who recall Senator Pepper's conclusion reached after an independent investigation of the trial of the defendants in the I. W. W. case at Chicago. 'I am satisfied,' said Senator Pepper, 'that in not one of the twentyeight cases I looked into did the evidence justify a continuance of restraint.' Mr. Pepper went so far as to recommend both to Attorney-General Daugherty and to President Harding that unconditional amnesty be granted to these men. If Senator Pepper has ever been accused of sympathy for radicalism, we have never heard of it. His recommendation, weighty as it must be considered by any impartial person who knows the standing of Mr. Pepper as a lawyer, failed to alter the grudging course of the Administration.

"It is too late for use to do what we ought to have done with reference to our political prisoners. Nearly five years have passed since the Armistice. We can not undo the record. But it is not too late to finish the process by a stroke. If Senator Pepper is correct, we are depriving men of their liberty because of their mere opinions with reference to a state of affairs that no longer exists. It is an anomalous position for the United States to occupy. President Harding can end it by a word. It is his duty to say that word."

Assuming that the President eventually will commute the sentences of the remaining twenty-four, what of their future? In the opinion of the Philadelphia Public Ledger

"To the day of their death they will be marked men. Always the world that fought and worked in the days of danger will walk a little way around them. Fingers will point them out. Whispers will follow and run before them. They are of those who failed the Nation in the day of its need.

"These twenty-seven men whose sentences were commuted did not take up arms against the United States. They did not commit acts of violence or so-called overt acts. They took no lives. It is not certain that they destroyed property or incited strikes.

"Their tongues were their weapons. They were of the war's soap-boxers. They did what they could with words, in a dangerous hour, to weaken the American will to make war. Their activities were far, far back of the fighting lines and behind the backs of the men who carried rifles. As other men came forward offering their lives they skulked and mouthed fine words and made phrases. . . . They now have their freedom, but the respect of millions of their brethren they will not and can not have."