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"We hear on all sides that it is impossible to amend the Constitution. It is difficult but not impossible. Four times within the last 20 years the Constitution has been amended. It can be amended again. ... If those who propose a further change in the Constitution might only believe more in the reasonableness of other men it might well call forth some belief in the reasonableness of their proposals. . . ."
Thus began in earnest the New Jersey Republican senatorial campaign which will be decided in the party primary of June 17. Mr. Morrow's political speech almost overnight did two major things: 1) it made Prohibition the one and only issue in New Jersey; 2) it exalted Mr. Morrow into the vanguard of Wet leadership throughout the land, because he, a man of large public prestige, had spoken his mind forcefully and dispassionately on an issue on which most political figures were either violent partisans or mealy-mouthed weaslers.
But the speech which aligned Mr. Morrow against Prohibition produced immediate political complications within New Jersey. Ahead of him in the field as a senatorial candidate was Joseph Sherman Frelinghuysen, a Dry who had turned Wet for this campaign (TIME, May 5). As Mr. Morrow was speaking. New Jersey's Representative Franklin William Fort, ardent Dry, good friend of President Hoover, onetime secretary of the Republican National Committee, cut short a political talk he was giving in a Presbyterian Church in East Orange to rush to a radio and hear the Ambassador's words from Newark. Twelve hours later, palpitating with excitement, he declared himself as a third candidate for the Republican senatorial nomination.
In a long statement in which he insisted it was "unjust" to tangle presidential friendship in the Jersey campaign because all three candidates were on good terms at the White House, Mr. Fort declared:
"I cannot permit the issue to go by default. ... I am opposed to any return of the sale of intoxicating liquor under any form of law or regulation. I believe in the 18th Amendment and I am unwilling that my native State should go on record for its repeal. The issue is Prohibition. The liquor is outlaw and must remain so. ... I recognize that apparently the odds are against my victory. . . ."
With cries of "Bully! Fine!" the Anti-Saloon League and W. C. T. U. swung in behind the Fort candidacy. To complicate matters even more, he filed, not for the short (until March 4, 1931) and long (1931-37) Senate term as did Messrs. Morrow and Frelinghuysen, but for the long term only. A great confusion of names and dates will thus confront Jersey voters on the primary ballot.
The contest between two Wets and a Dry immediately raised the prospect of the nomination given to Mr. Fort by a minority vote, with a combined Wet majority divided fruitlessly between Mr. Morrow and Mr. Frelinghuysen.