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Jersey Democrats, solidly Wet, watched the excited confusion over Prohibition among Jersey Republicans with vast satisfaction. State Senator Alexander Simpson, famed Hall-Mills murder case prosecutor, is the unopposed choice as Democratic senatorial nominee. Aware of the Wetmen of Jersey, Democratic leaders were positive Mr. Simpson could defeat Mr. Fort, if nominated, in the November election. Likewise they felt fairly certain they could dispose of Mr. Frelinghuysen. even as a Wet, if the Republicans put him up. But Mr. Morrow's candidacy thoroughly worried them. In Jersey City there was gossip to the effect that Mayor Frank Hague, Democrat boss, would put 50,000 of his followers into the Republican primary to try to defeat Mr. Morrow.
While the Wet press of Jersey and elsewhere hailed Mr. Morrow's speech as a great public utterance and predicted that in the Senate he would give much-needed tone, intelligence and character to the Wet movement, the Drys opened their attack on him by the charge that his proposal was nothing more than a return to the State-control system and the saloon as they existed before the 18th Amendment.
But the Morrow speech had repercussions far beyond the borders of New Jersey. Political writers in Washington began to speculate upon him as a Wet rival to Herbert Hoover for the Presidency in 1932. Mark Sullivan, shrewd observer that he is, remarked that Mr. Morrow's address was "the most outstanding step toward leadership of the anti-Prohibition position ever taken by any Republican. . . ."
Meanwhile President Hoover observed a vigorous neutrality.