Crusader

A paunchy, baldheaded, double-chinned man, whose trousers seem never to have been pressed, smiled the smile of vindication. He, Roy Asa Haynes, bright morning star of the Anti-Saloon League from Hillsboro, Ohio, had suffered two years of nearly total eclipse. Last week President Coolidge had him appointed Acting Prohibition Commissioner, under the new re-organization act. For four years after President Harding appointed >> him Federal Prohibition Commissioner he held the center of the Prohibition Enforcement stage; since April, 1925, when General Lincoln C. Andrews became Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in charge of Prohibition, he has danced through an obscure and silent role in a chorus of underlings.* Secretary Mellon was obviously reluctant to appoint him to the new post of power, but the Anti-Saloon League desired it.

Significance. The Coolidge Administration has taken a definitely "bone-dry" stand on Prohibition. If, there is to be any Wet parade, Democrats must organize it, the most available drummer-boy being Senator James A. Reed of Missouri. Governors Smith of New York and Ritchie of Maryland are ardent foes of the Anti-Saloon League dogma, but are not so ready to exorcise it with tom-toms.

*Mr. Haynes, however, retained his position nominally, and a salary of $7,500 a year from the Government. During his absence from positive power, Mr. Haynes acted as a liaison officer between the Dry organizations and the Federal authorities.