Las Vegas Age

STORMY NIGHT SESSION MARKS DEBATE ON PROHIBITION PLANK PLATFORM VOTE UNITES FORCES Convention Throbs With New Life After Dull Opening; Gallery Participation Nearly Disrupts Republican Parley
(The Republican Platform Will Be Found on Page Six)
CONVENTION STADIUM, CHICAGO, June 16. (Thursday) (U.P.) The Republican party early today deserted the ranks of the bone drys, after defeating the flat Bingham repeal plank.
The national convention adopted a platform carrying a plank favoring submission to the states of a program to revise and liberalize the prohibition laws.
Although the platform carried 30 other planks, many of importance in this year of economic depression, the excited throng in the convention hall considered no other factor than the prohibition plank.
Thirty-seven thousand people heard the debate.
Advocates of complete repeal of the 18th amendment, led by Senator Hiram Bingham of Connecticut, carried to the convention floor their demands that the party completely reverse its prohibition stand. Bingham presented a substitute plank calling for a vote of the states upon the question of repeal.
SHARP DEBATE
For two hours, champions of repeal and of the more conservative plank drawn by the resolutions committee, engaged in sharp debate.
Galleries plainly sympathetic with the repeal forces, jeered and heckled the supporters of the committee plank.
Illinois delegates paraded with buckets of beer.
Four hundred police were on hand to maintain order.
The presiding officer pounded his desk with a gavel that once had been a bung starter.
No such scene ever had been enacted in the history of the Republican party.
When a vote was taken the repeal forces were defeated by a vote of 681 to 472.
Immediately thereafter the convention adopted, by acclamation, the complete platform as drawn by the resolutions committee and recessed at 11 a. m. (C.D.T.).
DELEGATES CHEER
During the reading of the balance of the platform, earlier in the session, the crowd demonstrated its enthusiasm at the mention of upholding the gold standard and at the pledge endorsing President Hoover's economic program.
Nevada, Utah and other western states cheered at the recommendation for an international conference to consider silver and other monetary problems.
The audience cheered a reference to the conservative policy of Theodore Roosevelt, and cheered again when Garfield read a sentence linking Roosevelt, Coolidge and Hoover as supporting conservation.
It was the first time former President Coolidge's name had been mentioned in the convention but Chairman Garfield glided over it so quickly that few in the audience caught it.
The platform plank favoring laws to stamp out "gangsters, racketeers and kidnapers" was loudly cheered.
WET DEMONSTRATION
At 10:17 p. m., Garfield reached the prohibition plank. When he announced "The 18th amendment," a cheer went up. Floodlights were turned on in anticipation of a demonstration during the reading of this plank. Almost every sentence was greeted with demonstration. A chorus of boos greeted the declaration that the law must be enforced. Boos were greeted in increased volume. On the other hand cheers and applause greeted the sentence saying nullification by non observance by individuals or state action threatens the stability of the government.