The Sabines ravish the senators

JEFFERSON CHASE

Hinting that if you wish to know the hand that will deal the death blow to Prohibition: cherchez la femme

One of the more spirited episodes in the history of the Roman Republic, the Rape of the Sabines, occurred when the Roman Senators discovered that they needed wives and that their neighbors, the Sabine men, had plenty. So, with a directness all too rare in politics, they went out and dragged the Sabine women back to their bed and board. One of the most amusing reversals of an historical parallel is being staged in contemporary Washington, where the "Sabines", or Mrs. Sabin's Woman's National Organization for Prohibition Reform (to use its ungainly correct title), have discovered that they lack a sufficient number of Senators and are engaged in ravishing the American wearers of the toga virilis away from the fond embraces of the Women's Christian Temperance Union.

The Sabines have, through their Washington branch, set up one of the most amusing and effective of lobbies which the Capitol has ever seen. It is amusing, because it utilizes the full force of social blandishments and sex appeal upon the Senators and Congressmen; it is effective, because it is bafflingly disinterested.

Washington is used to lobbies but it has never had to deal with a lobby like this. With a local membership as great as that of the W.C.T.U. and, after two years of existence, a national membership within fifty thousand of the latter's membership after fifty-six years of existence, the Sabines have assets which no other lobby has ever enjoyed.

For Congress there have hitherto been only two types of lobbies: those who wanted something for themselves and those who wanted to take away something from others. Congress thoroughly understands the first and deals with it on a practical basis. When Manufacturers' Associations, Chambers of Commerce, Federations of Labor, Veterans, Bankers' Associations and the like speak to Congress, they want something and generally they want something pretty solid: higher tariffs, unregulated power and utility set-ups, franchises, pensions, bonuses, higher wages, money and privileges. Congress is used to appraising the numerical voting interest behind their artless appeals, just as it is used to disentangling the low material motive from the lofty invocation of moral principles, justice, the American standard, individualism and such, with which the more fragrant raids on the public pocket-book are conventionally cloaked.

Then there are the people who want to interfere with other people. Their lobbies are generally known as "moral" and they usually intimidate Congress with threats of ecclesiastical displeasure, excommunication and swift punishment at the polls. Inasmuch as the American definition of altruism is the practice of being generous at some one else's expense, the W.C.T.U., the Anti-Saloon League, the Methodist Churches, North and South, the Pacifists and the cranks, have habituated Congressmen to the view that the only lobbies which are not seeking something selfish are those which want to interfere with other people's pleasures. Anti-liquor, anti-cigarettes, anti-vice, Sunday observance, anti-gambling, and such "moral" lobbies have developed their own technique in bulldozing Congressmen and harassing Senators.

The "Sabines" do not fit into this picture anywhere. They do not want anything selfish. They do not represent the liquor traffic, the brewer's big horses, or the bootlegger's subcalibre machine gun. They are not acting as stalking horse for the beer industry, as Mabel Willebrandt is for the California vintners, nor do they have the support of the modern saloon, the speakeasy. Thus, they cannot be. discounted as self-seekers. At the same time, they cannot be ranked with the W.C.T.U. They are not trying to take the joy out of anybody's life. They do not want the Government to interfere with their neighbors. Their object is not to indulge a sense of vicarious power over their fellow-citizens. They want no jobs, glory or personal publicity. They merely want Congress to correct a nauseating abuse of political authority in this country by ceasing to dragoon the public in the interest of a law which nobody loves.

They have struck at a favorable moment. The W.C.T.U. and the Anti-Saloon League are waning in power. It is darkly hinted that the former is now padding its membership by conscripting innocent Sunday School children who do not know any better. The forces of militant self-righteousness have been hard hit by the drought. The farmers are less concerned with compelling the city slickers to act like Kansas and are engaged in trying to persuade the city slickers to feed them for the next year or so. The stock market crash of 1929, the Hoover depression of 1929-30, the drought of 1930-31, and the whole economic mess have cut into the funds of the Goodly. The country churches no longer plunk their pennies at the pleading of Mrs. Ella Boole and of Dr. F. Scott McBride. The big industrialists are no longer persuaded that Prohibition is the secret of our Prosperity when they see that we still have Prohibition although we seem to have mislaid Prosperity en route. The country as a whole is wrestling with economic problems of much greater importance than the problem of whether the heathen shall be allowed to drink alcoholic beverages. Even the strongest zealots admit that there is something wrong with the noble experiment and their indecision does not help them raise funds for the purpose of enslaving the thirst of their fellows.

At precisely this stage in the game, along came the Sabines, beautiful, cultured, and practical to their finger-tips. In two years of organization among the decent women of America they had come abreast of the. W.C.T.U. crowd. The Washington branch organized itself on the lines of a practical lobby. Teams of two were sent to interview all the Senators during the first year of the Wickersham era. Travelling in couples—for it is an unwritten law of the Capitol that single ladies visit Senators only in search of "adventure" —they simply asked the Senators where they stood on a great public question. No threats, no arguments, no protests. The first year, the Sabines met. with a cold reception. A few pointed inquiries as to the number of members and then—the gate!

In 1931, all is changed. Where once the Sabines were treated like orphans, today they are welcomed with open arms. The wet tide is running strongly. Both Senators and Congressmen were canvassed, again without threats, arguments or protests. A dry was considered as a future friend, a wet as a valued ally, and the non-committal attitude was treated with the mild contempt which it deserved. A check-up was followed by a national Sabine Congress at Washington. The Congressional Record was combed for bygone wet and dry measures. Sabines sat in on committee hearings and checked votes. It was all very disquieting and when the Howell Bill, to do away with liquor search warrants in the District of Columbia, came up before the Senate, the Sabines turned loose the conventional deluge of telegrams of protest from every State in the Union. The bill was blocked. For an organization which has been in the field only two years, that was not bad.

These are, however, only the more obvious moves in the game. The Sabines have instituted an effective social lobby for wet Senators and Congressmen. Senators and Congressmen are lonely folk. They really do not enjoy being treated as social calamities. They are human enough to resent the appearance of being valued for their votes alone. And most of them have wives, and most of their wives would really enjoy entering Washington Society. And, as a matter of fact, Congressional wives are distinctly worth having in Washington Society. It is here that the Sabines are getting in their dirty work. Young, pretty and intelligent women are not so numerous in political society that they can be turned away with impunity. A series of receptions, teas and dinners for the wet bloc in Congress has been started by the Washington branch of the Woman's National Organization for Prohibition Reform. It's simple, but it works. No longer do the wets duck roll-calls and have to explain that their attitude towards statutory abstinence is not based upon subservience to the Brewers' Association. They are gaining in individual morale and collective courage.

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The drys have nothing to offer as a counter-attraction. The number of prominent Washington people who have gone dry with Hoover can be counted on the fingers of two hands. The energetic Philadelphia lady who tried to prove, by the help of the Social Register and a smart secretary, that it's good form to be dry, has not made a ripple in society at the capital. No one would care to sit next to a member of the W.C.T.U. at a dinner or to cultivate the Anti-Saloon League for social graces.

What the Sabines are doing is to gather these isolated forces together and give them the enthusiasm and the power which comes of combination. The fight to overthrow the Eighteenth Amendment is in capable hands, but the fight must be won by enthusiasm plus organization. The Sabines supply both. Acting in close liaison with the Crusaders, that group of young men who are pledged to vote for any wet in preference to any dry, they are beginning to organize in the districts, where elections are won and lost, and to carry the war into the Anti-Saloon League's country. Moreover, the Sabines are able to give the lie to the bland statement that the W.C.T.U. "represents the women of America". It does not. It merely represents some of the women of America, for the most part the more parochial, hysterical and self-righteous element in our unanswerably rural womanhood. The Sabines can now claim to represent as many women as the W.C.T.U. and to represent a cultured, charming and temperate body of women, who do not propose to let the country be ruined or their children debauched in the name of American womanhood. They have employed all the tricks of the lobby and are invoking all the social and personal arts of their sex to win Congress to a more balanced view of the Crime of 1918. It is an interesting spectacle and the next Congress will see the high water mark of the dry power, as Senate and Congress permit themselves to be captured and carried off by the ruthless and bewitching group of ladies who have done more in two years to make Repeal possible than the men of America have done in a decade.