A.A.P.A.

A familiar phenomenon in the U. S. is the Anti-Saloon League, now 35 years old. Becoming familiar is another phenomenon, now nine years old, called the Association Against the Prohibition Amendment.

The A. S. L. has never had an individual membership; it has always consisted of 48 State leagues, with local chapters, governed throughout by "superintendents," "secretaries," "educational directors" (propagandists). Financed by churches and philanthropists, it spent some 45 millions up to 1919, some 15 millions since, to influence elections and legislation.

The A. S. L.'s antithesis, the A. A. P. A., has received money at various times from some 200,000 persons. A single contribution has been enough to get oneself listed as a member. Annual dues have not been collected. Only some 25,000 persons contributed last year. The bulk of the money for increasing the membership and influence has been contributed by wealthy members of the Pierre Samuel du Pont, Charles H. Sabin, Haley Fiske type. Until this year, the A. A. P. A. had only one office, in Baltimore. Its founder and guiding spirit, Captain William H. Stayton, was not dependent on the A. A. P. A. for his livelihood. Long before he began the A. A. P. A. he had, and has ever since, conducted a comfortable Baltimore shipping business.

The A. S. L. announced last winter that it would raise and spend $2,000,000 in this autumn's elections. Last week the A. A. P. A. announced that it was writing to its 200,000 enrolment and asking $10 from each person. It promised to send the money "straight to the firing line" to help elect anti-Prohibition or modificationist Congressmen. Also, to make sure which men it wanted to support and which to fight, the A. A. P. A. sent questionnaires to all Congressional candidates.