July 30, 1917

1\lr. SHEPPARD. I ask unanimous - consent that the joint resolution providing for nation-wide prohibition be laid before the Senate.

The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Texas asks unanimous consent that Senate joint resolution 17, subject to the unanimous-consent agreement which goes into effect at 2 o'clock, shall be laid before the Senate. Is there objection?

There being no objection, the Senate, as in Committee of the Whole, resumed the consideration of the joint resolution ( S. J. Res. 17) proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which was read, as follows:

Resolved by the S.enate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled (two-thirds of eacli House concurring therein), That the following amendment to the Constitution be, and hereby is, proposed to the States, to become valid as a part of the Constitution when ratified by the legislatures of the several States as provided by the Constitution:

"ARTICLE-.

" SECTION 1. The manufacture, sale, or transportation of into;icat- . ing liquors within, the importation thereof into. and the exportation thereof from the United States and all territory subject to the juris diction thereof ·for beverage purposes are hereby prohibited.

" SEC. 2. The Congress shall have the ~ow er to enforce this article by appropriate legislation, and nothing m this article shall deprive the several States of their power to enact and enforce laws prohibiting the traffic in intoxicating liquors."

The PRESIDENT pro tempore. There are several amendments proposed by the committee.

. Mr. SHEPPARD. 1\fr. President, as I understand, under the unanimous-consent agreement we are to vote on the joint resolution and the amendments at 4 o'clock Wednesday afternoon.

1\fr. CURTIS. Mr. President, was it the understanding that the .votes on the amendments were to be bad to-day, or are the votes to be taken Wednesday after 4 o'clock p. m.?

The PRESIDENT pro tempore. · The Chair does not think there is anything to prohibit a vote being taken before that time. :

Mr. SHEPPARD. I ask unanimous consent that we take the resolution up now for the purpose of discussion until 2 . o'clock, and after 2 o'clock the unanimous-consent agreement will be in force .

. 1\fr. GRONNA. l\1r. President, I trust the Senator will not insist upon taking up the amendments at this time. ·

1\fr. SHEPPARD. I do not. On the other hand, I suggested that we do not consider the amendments until 4 o'clock .o n Wednesday afternoon.

1\Ir. GRONNA. I did not hear the Senator.

:\Ir. CURTIS. I did not hear the Senator make that suggestion, either. I think that is the proper course. 4 • •

Mr. SHAFROTH. Mr. PreSident, I think the amendments ought to be considered before - 4 o'clock, but ought not to be "fOted upon until the day of Wednesday.

Mr. SHEPPARD. That was what I meant to say-to vote on them at 4 o'clock. Of course, they may be discus ed between now and then.

Mr. UNDERWOOD. Mr. President-- ·

The PRESIDENT . pro tempore. Does the 'Senator from Texas yield to the Senator from Alabama? . l\Ir. SHEPPARD. Certainly.

l\1r. UNDERWOOD. We have - come to a definite agreement for the consideration of this measure. I do not think it ought to be changed in any respect; and, although I do not desire to ' propose any amendment myself, I understand that at least one important amendment will be proposed. I think it ought to come up at a time when it can have some discussion and consideration; but, without changing the agreement, I think it would be very well if we reached an understanding-not an agreement but an understanding-between ourselves that the general debate shall run to-day and to-morrow, and when we reach the 10-minute rule on Wednesday that the amendments shall be considered. As I understand, the unanimous-consent agreement which has already been made contemplates that procedure.

Mr. SHEPPARD. It is contemplated under this agreement that all amendments and the joint resolution itself may be discussed until 4 o'clock on Wednesday afternoon.

Mr. STONE. It is understood, I presume, that amendments may be offered at any time, to be pending.

Mr. SHEPPARD. That is correct.

Mr. STONE. From this date until the final disposition of the bill.

Mr. SHEPPARD. That is true; until 4 o'clock Wednesday afternoon.

'!:be PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Chair will state that any question regarding what · this unanimous-consent agreement provides for, the present occupant of the chair, if in the chair, will leave to the Senate for determination under the rule.

Mr. SHEPPARD. Mr. President, this is a historic occasion. For the first time in its annals the Senate is to vote on the submission of a constitutional amendment for nation-wide prohibition. The method ordained by the Federal Constitution for its own alteration is being strictly followed. If the proposed amendment should be adopted by three-fourths of the States, the traffic in intoxicating liquors for beverage purposes would be forbidden anywhere within the . American Republic. Prohibi­ - tion would be imbedded in the organic law of the Nation.

At the outset an inquiry may arise as to why a subject of this kind should have assumed such importance as to justify the proposal of an amendment to the Federal Constitution.

Let Abraham Lincoln give answer:

The liquor traffic is a cancer in society, eating the vitals and threatening destruction, and all attempts to r e gulate it will not only prove abortive but will aggravate the evil. There must be no attempts to regulate the cancer. It must be eradicated, not a root must be left behind, for until this is done all classes must continue in danger of becoming victims of strong drink. • • • Slavery is abolished. The next great question would be the overthrow of the legalized liquor traffic. I And you know, Merwin that my head and my heart, my hand and my purse; will go into that work. In 1842, less than . a quarter of a century ago, I predicted that the day would come when there would be neither a slave nor a drunkard in the land. I have lived to see one prediction fulfilled ; I hope to see the other realized.

Senators, a vote for the amendment now pending will help to realize the dream of Lincoln.

Let one of the foremost scientific and professional bodies of the Nation, the American Medical Association, give answer. At its sixty-eighth annual session in the city of New York, in .June of this year, the following resolutions were adopted: Whereas we believe that the . use of alcohol as a beverage is detrimental to the human economy ; and

Whereas its use in therapeutics, as a tonic or a stimulant, or as a food, · has no scientific basis : Th ~ Therefore .

Resol 'V ed, That the American Medical Association opposes the use of alcohol as a beverage ; and be it further

Resolved, That the use of alcohol as a therapeutic ag e nt should l>e dlsc om·aged. ·

To make the second resolution plainer, l~t it be said that therapeutics is that branch of medicine dealing with the treat: ment of disease.

Let Arthur 1\Iee and Stuart Holden, noted students of the drink · problem in England give answer: : ..

The drink trade in these . 50 years has deprived the country of man power equivalent to the whole of the British Army under arms. • • • It you would know how we destroy our children, there is a little new b<lob: that will te>I you. ,It is Dr. Norman McLean's noble book, "Stand Up, Ye Dead." • • • You will learn from 1t that w~ sacrifice onetlllrd of our possible growth of population losing in the way of France, which cries in vain to-day for her best men. There are other causes than drink for these things, but there ts tragic meaning in the words of one of our great medical officers of health, Dr. Millard, of Leicester, which says that were he offered the abolition of drink alone or of aU the other enemies of public health put together, be would choose the - abolition of drink. • • • Is 1t nothing to us that these so c ial Zep· pelins of ours, not content to have stolen our man power in the past, not content to imperil our land to-day, not content to turn the happiness of millions into misery through au the years they Uve, saps the very found . foundations of our future and writes across the entrance of the world for millions of children who come through its gates-"All hope abandon, ye who enter here "?

Let the New York Tribune give answer:

Upon what does the liquor traffic depend? Upon debased manhood, wronged womanhood, and defrauded childhood. It holds a mortgaae on every cradle, a deed written in the heart's blood on every human life. Let Dr. Howard A. Kelly, medical professor of .Johns Hopkins Hospital, give answer: tut~~) Alcohol is nonefficient as .a food, a most awful, wasteful substi- 2) May be classed as a drug and a poison.

! 6 Greatest foe to civilization in heathen lands.

3) Has no rightful position as a medicine.

5! Increases taxation by filling prisons, madhouses, and workhouses. 4) Destroys individual domestic and civil felicity.

(7 Therefore could be wholly abolished with profit.

(8 Therefore, as one of the human family, an individual member has no right to introduce into the household or use for his own pleasure that which hurts even one other member or set at work an evil influence he has no well-grounded hope of controlling. • • • It i s clear in the light of experience anti of recent research work that alcohol ought to be classed in the list of dangerous drugs, along with morphine, cocaine, and chloral, a drug which may so affect the will power as to gain the complete mastery over a patient and in the end destroy him. • • • As a citizen, I note that it is alcohol which fills our prisons, whether taken in the form ot a strong beverage as whisky, or beer, as a representative of milder beverages. It is at the bottom of most crimes, domestic infidelity, poverty, seductions, murders; it is allied to all that is evil and destructive of the high aims of civilization, Let Rudyard Kipling give answer. He had seen two young men in a concert hall in one of our American cities get · two - young women drunk and then take them into a dark street. He had not been a total abstainer himself, nor had he commended temperance in his writings, but he wrote as follows of that scene:

Then, despite previous opinions, I became a prohibitionist. Better H is a man should go without his beer in public places and cont-ent himself with swearing at a narrow-minded majority; better it is to poison the inside with very vile temperance drinks and to buy lage.r furtlyely at back doors than to bring temptation to the lips of young fools such as the four I bad seen. I understand now why th e preachers rage against drink. I had said : " There is no harm in it, taken moderately ; " and yet my own demand for beer helped dir ec tly to send these two girls reeling down the dark street to--God alone knows what end •.

Let the following facts also give answer:

Alcohol is a liquid poison. It attacks the tissues that compose the various parts of the human organism. These tissues are immersed in water containing salts, and from the water and the salts the organs of life obtain nutrition. Alcohol absorbs this vital fluid, without which there can be no normal life, amt then attacks the organ itself. It thus disturbs, impairs, and finally destroys the vital functions, the process being slow or rapid in proportion to the amount consumed, the regularity and persistence of the drink habit. Six ot• eight ounces taken at one time may produce death very shortly, even in those long accustomed to intoxicating liquors. It produces structural changes in the tissues, making them more and more dependent on its presence, as disintegration and decay proceed. A forced and abnormal activity follows, a temporary sense of warmth, vigor, comfort, congeniality, requiring larger and larger quantities to restore it. And what is at first a mere craving for this drug becomes in the end a clamor so resistless that the victim would sacrifice anything-honor, hope, self-respect, position, wife, children-for its satisfaction. ·

The most delicate tissues are those composing the brain and nerves. Here alcoholic poison works especial havoc. It impairs the highest functions of the brain, the sense of right, of moral conduct, of proper obligation to society and to God. It thus imperils virtue, integrity, respect for law and order-all that is sacred and pure in civilization. It is a chief source of immorality and crime.

Madame Tarnowsky, in her famous · study of " female offenders," says that 82 per cent of fallen women were brought to ruin by alcohol. · In a recent investigation the Massachu etts Bureau of Labor Statistics found that 84 per cent of the convicted criminals of that State were made criminals by drink. A lord chief justice of England said that if sifted, nine-tenths of the crime of England and Wales could be traced to drink. Col. L. Merwin l\Iaus, who served 41 years in the Medical Corps of the United States Army, who organized the Public Health Service .· ' in the Philippines, and who has made a profound study of the effect of alcoholic liquors on the human race, says that probably all the crime committed in the Army, directly or · indirectly, can be traced to alcohol. He says, further, that nearly all crime may be traced to alcoholic drink. · He calls alcohol " our racial poiRion " and holds it mainly responsible for our 200.000 insane, our 250,000 feeble-minded, our 100,00Q deaf and dumb, our _ 100,000 blind , our 50,000 juyenile delinquents in institutions, our 100,000 paupers, our 150,000 prisoners and criminals. Vance Thompson, who has written a stirring and impressive indictment of alcohol under the ironical title “ Drink and be sober," says: But alcohol Is a curious thing. It is often as erratic.in its manifestations as electricity. Its ordinary way of work is to degenerate its man, making for general organic degeneracy, with progressive waning of the intelle c tual fac-ulties. Now and then t has another way. Instead of slowly murdering tts man it attacks b1m furiously at intervals . Now and then, at an unforeseen moment, out of the blue a drinkstorm beats upon him and sweeps him away from his usual moorings. • • • The best man who drinks is never sure that crime may not get him; that when bu. mora• discrimination is put to sleep by the drug a strange new criminality may not start up In him. The chance is one in a hundt·ed? If it lle .mly one in a thousand it is a bad chance to take, and it i~:< on the edge of this peril that one finds the · most awful and the most sad tr : agE>dl es of life. One such adventure in life haunts me. The youth I loved mo s t was an undergraduate at one of the English universities. Destiny had given him birth in a famous English familynear the head of it. • • • Once, I remember. we had wandered far afield, debating the old Utopian idea, and a winter night shut down on us. We went into a little wayside inn for dinner and took what we could get. It was an nlebou~ and there was no wine to be had. And I remember his pathetic exclamation, "How can a gentleman dine without a half pint of claret? "

Let me interrupt here to say thn t a few days ago a Senator who has everything the world can give to make life beautiful, useful, inspiring, and worth while, who has eloquence, genius, and charm, who has in him the making of a President, said in my hearing, . " What possible harm can come from a glass of sherry in th~ home?" And that Senator is going to vote against this amendment. He is going to vote to continue a traffic which will .send millions of men and women to careers of crime and shame because personally he can see no harm in a glass of sherry in his palatial " home,

But let us return to Vance Thompson and the story of his illfated friend. He continues:

Now, in the horoscope of this grave and gentle Jad was the maddest night ever writtE-n by the stars. I did not witness it. I was not even in England, but what happened I know, and I know the end. He had been studying bard and late and m the afternoon be rode out for an hour or so-tbofe were the d a ys when youth took its pleasure on a horse--and he came back and dressed to dine in town with some friends. There you have him at a trifle before 8 o'clock. He had never been drunk in bls life; he was the half · pint-<>f~lar e t sort of a man ; the man who wets his pipe with a glass or two of whisky and soda; a clean · mannered man who had as soon think of drinking to excess as of rolling in the kennel like a dog Wh e re he went that evening I do not know. ".l'he bolt from the blue struck him. At 10 o'clock he was a drink-mad maniac. scouring the streets of the town with an American revolver-Heaven knows where hl' ;:rot it; J have forgotten-In his hand, and five minutes later be shot and killl'd a constable who expostulated with him in the kindly British way. They han;:red that boy. In spite of the mighty weight of his family name, in spite of his dazed defense, in spite of the evident madness o that drink storm they banged him on a gallows. "I don't remember anything about it" was all he could say. How could he? Science would have made clear to-day that be was to an alcoholic trance. When be went out to kin the real . man in him-the man I kn e w and loved, the dreamer of Utopia-was deaf and blind. I do not care to write any ruorl' about this boy's life and death, only this: :r\o man who plays with the lawless force of alcohol knows when o1· where the bolt from the blue will s t · lke. No man knows. For inexorably as a. trian,!!le is imbedded in a circle there is hidden in alcohol the swift potentiality of crime.

Other disasters follow the presence of alcoholic poison in the brain ti ues. Quickness and accuracy of judgment, memory, perception. coordination. ability to receive and transmit impulses, appreciation of the highest standards and motives of human conduct, faculties of initiative and · originality, thrift, energy , all are affected at the very fountains of their being. The resulting loss to the individual and to society is be-yond all estimation. In an age of machinery and of business transactions on a scale more enormous and complicated than ever before the clear eye, the quick brain, and the steady nerve are imperatively demanded. Society is more dependent to-day on the man at the machine than at any previous period. We are coming to understand that the engine of the body must have the same care as the engine of the aeroplane, the battleship, the railway train, the steamship, or the automobile; that the trade in alcohol is a form of saboc.age which the human machine can not endure; that it is no more to be tolerated than would be the business of making and selling scrap iron to be dropped into the delicate and complex machinery of modern manufacture, tr::msporta tion, and commerce. .. But alcohol does not confine its devastations to the brain. Nor are its ravages limited to the production of inefficiency, immorality, and crime. Permeating an tl;le organs of the body and. attacking their component tissues it weakens them to snrh an extent as to invite and hasten the inroads of disease. It :finds its way into the blood vessels that carry nutriment to every part of the human anatomy. It paralyzes, more or le s, both the r~ and wb . white corpuscles in the blood, · injuring the disease-resisting power of the former , the microbe-destroying function of the latter. Entering the stomach, it produces, with continued use, gastric catarrh and disturbs the entire digestive apparatus. It alters the ti sues of the liver. dilating the cells, interfering with the liver's basic functions, producing cirrhosis, with pos ible complications of dropsy, swollen veins, and jaundice in its train. ·

A prominent authority tells us that regular and moderate drinkers are ID(lre liable to cirrhosis than those who indulge in occasional sprees. It attacks the tissues of the heart, causing in time a fatty degeneration and leaving that vital organ weakened and imperiled. In the kidney it become one of the principal agencies of Bright·s disease. According to Prof. Woodhead diseases of the heart. arteries, anrl kidnevs are usually found in moderate drinker . Prof. Strumpell "an~rs that to alcohol may be traced nearly all cases of chronic infiammation of the stomach and · intestines. Passing into the lungs it again begins its war on the normal tissue. Here it becomes the principal ally of tuberculosis. which .is also engaged in tearing do\YD the tissues. By t11e same process everywhere it leaves the entire body not only without the natural weapons against disease, but especially susceptible to contagious maladies of every sort. Perhaps it is mo t effective in the encouragement and transmission ot venereal trouble. It de troys self-control, unleashes the savage pa ~ ion . goad!'; them to satiety which, in a climax of deviltry, it crowns with foul contagion. It makes the moderate drinker and the saloon as well a breeder and a carrier of communicable disease. It is a menace to the health as well as the morals of the Nation. and should be abated like any other nuisance or any other malignant plague.

The indictment is not yet complete. This alcoholic drug adds poverty of the blackest, dreariest, and most hopeless sort to the list of its offenses. Such is its power that men will take bread money from their families and make it blood money for drink. Such is its power that the American people are expend· ing two and a half billion dollars for it every year, nn average consumption of about 22 gallons {or . every man, woman. and child in the Republic. Nearly all of the American people must e a rn a living with the labor of their hands. Keep in mind the fact that those who bear most of the Nation's burdens, produce most of the Nation's wealth. and constitute the chief source of the Nation’s vitality are the individuals, male and female, who earn a living by manual labor.

It is not generally realized how large an element of our population they represent. With their families they compose about five-sixths of the American people, and many of them begin work at as early an age as 10 years. Of these manual laborers over eleven and a half millions are engaged in agricultur,e. 1 do not refer to the million large farmers who either do not or need not perform the actual labor of the farm. Over 10.000,000 are at work . in manufactUring and mechanical industries. Over 900,000 are laboring in the mines and in the oil. gas, and suit wells. Over two and a half millions are engaged in the different forms of transportation and communication. such as water. road, street. railway, express. mail. telegraph, and telephone. Over 3.250 . 000 are workers in the wholesale and re t ail trat.ies, including the small merchants. Over 330.000 . are in the official service of county, State, and Nation. Over three and a half millions are doing domestic and personal service. Nearly a million and three-quarters are in t11e clerical occupations~ There should be included the millions of women and children who comprise the households and toil in the homes of these workers.

These figures are taken from the last census and refer to per ons over 10 years of age in occupations requiring manual labor. They account for practically 34,000.000 people, about 7,000.000 of whom are women and girls, and these 34,000 . 000, with their families. make five-sixths of the Nation. They produce, prepare, and deliver for consumption the commodities that sustain the lives, clothe the bodies, . and make po ·ibie the occupations of the entire American population. An analysis of the country's wealth will show that it i mainly the · concrete expression of the muscle and sweat of these manual laborers. Indeed, they are the bulk of society itself and form the buttress · s of those social conditions. such ag observance of law. preserva· tion of order, recognition of property, respect for imliviaucl rights and contract obligation , which are essential to the peace· ful accumulation and undisturbed posses s ion ot wealth. And yet the e workers, the principal pillars of this Republic, the main factors irfthe creation of its wealth, whose bodies must be its chief defense in time- of war, get an average gross return of le s than $700 a year.

Mr. President, with returns so small that they can barely provide their families with life's neces itie , the laboring mil .. lions can not afford to waste over two billions a year on a beverage that impairs strength, undermines health, corrupts morals, and sends an ever-widening stream of defectives and incompetents fo the asylum, the penitentiary, the hospital, and the grave. A.dd to this the fact that even the moderate drinker it is said: transmits the alcoholic taint to the unborn child, predisposing the helpless little being to disease, to shame, and to sin, and the horror of it all will begin to appear.

In vie-v of the fact, 1\fr. President, that the toiling millions are to be the principal beneficiaries of the abolition .. of the liquor traffic, is it not astounding that there should have been a definite effort to enlist organized labor in behalf " of this traffic? The laboring hosts of America, with their families, seventy-five or eighty millions strong, are asked to oppose prohibition, presumably because 100,000 bartenders have a union, as well as probably most of the 62,000 brewery, distillery, and other , beverage-factory operatives. Labor is asked to imperil its very existence, to take food from the mouths and clothes from the backs of men, women, and children, to sustain a traffic meaning hunger, disease, insanity, and death for the masses, while liquor barons thrive in luxury, on account of these few men who would be infinitely better off in some other I in e. Also workers in certain occupations, such as paper hangers, plumbers, carp"enters, teamsters, gas fitters, blacksmiths, - boiler makers, iron-ship builders, joiners, carriage and wagon workers, coopers, electrical workers, steam engineers, stationary firemen, journeymen horseshoers, leath e r workers on horse goods, machinists, and so forth, are urged to take an active inter-est for the liquor traffic because some of them are employed to a greater or less degree in connection with the 68,000 saloons and the less than 2,500 breweries, distilleries, and vinous liquor plants in the United States.

Let me again quote from Vance Thompson:

Taking five leading industries in this country, namely, textiles and the finished products, iH'n and steel and their products, lumber and its manufacture s , leather and its finished products, and paper and printing, and comparing them with the liquor business (including the malting industry) with regard to the number of wage earners employed, capital invested, and wages paid, we arrive at some interesting conclusions. Ba s ed upon the figures found in the Abstract of Statistics of Manufacture we discov e r that the number of wage earners for each $1,000,000 invested in each of these industries was as follows: Liquor, 77; textiles, 578; iron, 284; lumber, 579; leather, 4G9; and paper, 367. In plainer words, every million dollars invested in the drink industry gives employm e nt to only 77 men, while a similar sum invested in lumber, for example, gives a living to 579 men.

What is all this boast about what the liquor industry Js doing for labor? The ratio of wages paid to the workers in: proportion to the capital invested is so criminally small that It should · not stand for · an hour !n the face of this sociological investigation which Mr. Stelzle and his associates have made. In the textile industries-and .that fairly represents all the other industries-the ratio of wages paid to capital invested is 23.9 per cent, a fair ratio ; in the liquor business the ratio is 5.6 per cent.

It i~ not much that the laboring man gets out of the millions invested in alcohol. Small, indeed, is the financial harm he would suffer were U taken away. .

What of the two billions the country spends a year in drink?

Simply this: Were it spent for food and clothing it would give employment to nearly eight times as many workers, who would receive coll e ctively five and a half times as much in wages.

Another charge against beverage alcohol must now be added-that of economic waste. Over a hundred million bushels of grain and vast quantities of other foodstuffs intended by nature to be used in supporting life are converted into a beverage that corrupts and destroys it. Millions of tons of coal are employed in the proce s ses of distillation and fermentation while human being are suffering for lack of warmth. Thousands of freight cars are required to haul the brew of death while legitimate industries suffer from lack of transportation. Hundreds of thousands of laborers are engaged in the liquor business when they could be contributing to the supply of genuine economic needs. Lumber, glass, all other forms of building material, warehouse s , stores, autos, teams, wagons, could all be enlisted in the promotion of · some necessary industry instead of an ent e rprise that answers no proper requirement.

Finally, the con s tant activity of the liquor interests in the politics of the country is another peril to free institutions. They understand that their business has no inherent constitutional _.ri g ht of existence, that it continues purely by tolerance, and th a t it _ may b e de s troyed by an aroused electorate at any time. They know that the agitation against it will persist as long as humanity is able to protest against the traffic in broken hearts and ruined homes. Therefore self-preservation keeps them always on the alert. They are thoroughly organized for the making and unmaking of men and Congresses and legislatures. There can be no satisfactory solution of legitimate public ques· tions so long as this formidable force measures men by their attitude on liquor and endeavors by the lavish use of money to bring about their success or defeat.

As an illustration of this pernicious activity let me quote various paragraphs from a mem _ memorandum furnished a few months ago by the Hon. E. Low1·y Humes, United States district attor· ney, to the court at Pittsburgh, in the case of the United States against the United States Brewers' Association et al. :

In a report to the trustees of the United States Brewers' Association "The organization bureau: This department, which is our fighting field force, is financed by a voluntary fund. It has taken an active part during the past two years · in State and local campaigns throughout the country. No less than 46 States and Territories have had the personal service of the bureau. The statement with regard to the elections of November 8, 1910, which has gone -Out to our members, indicates the extent of the recent work. There were 27 State cam paigns in which we were interested, and we won substantial victories in all except one of them. Surely this speaks for Itself."

And again, under the heading "Federal relations," the report says: "Our counsel has guarded our interests in the matter of Federal legislation with most remarkable success. During the last two sessions in Congress over 200 bills adverse to our interest have been introduced, many of which have bad the backing of the entire prohibition and temperance organizations in this country. Only · one measure affecting our interest has passed Congress in this period, and that went through with our assent. You can readily imagine what this has meant in winning and keeping friends in congressional di s tr·icts. It is also literally true that Congress has been kept from doubling the tax on beer by our unaided e . efforts.’ • • •

In addition to this the labor bureau might be of very great value in our political organization by establishing a permanent working connection with the other Iab 'l r bodi e s who make up the Am e rican Federation of Labor." * * * .

At about this time Mr. Percy Andraea became president of the Inter- state Executive Association. One of the representatives of the organi- zation bureau of the United Stat e s Brewers' Association said in his report to the head of that bureau in referring to a particular State: " I went over the State more with a view of me e ting with the most influential labor ~n and in securing their support now and in the fight that may come, and I am sure that, if it is necessary, we can muster to our support all the labor men in the State, with on e or two exceptions, and they believe they can deliver the union-labor vote.” ."

The financial activities of the National Association of Commerce and Labor, in carrying out this comprehensive plan of Mr. Andreae, are most interesting. During the year 1914 the United States Brewers' Asso- elation turned over to Mr. Andreae the sum of $330,138. 'rh - e Wholesale Liquor Dealers' Association paid him $90,000. These items and miscellaneous contributions which he received aggregated in that year $525,116.28. The only activities of Mr. Andreae and his associates were political in nature. They participated extensively in numerous State campaigns concerning themselves and using their funds to influence the election of governors, lieutenant governors, United States S e nators , Memb e rs of Congress, , and m e mbers of State legislative bodies. • • •

The extent of the operations of the United States Brewers' Assocla.· tion in 1914 reached startling proportions. Because of the alleged destruction of records, the Government has no assurance that it has a complete record of the funds raised and distributed by that assocla· tion. We do, however, have an absolute record of the collection by the United States Brewers' Association in 1913 of $755,385.18, a considerable portion of which remained in the treasury of the association at the close of its fiscal year. In ' 1914 w e bav e an absolute record of collections aggregating at least $999 , 300.88. How much more was col· lected during that year, of which we have no knowledge , because of the destruction of the association records, we can make no estimate. We do know, however, that the bank accounts which we have thus far succeeded in discovering show an aggregate in the neighborhood of a million and a half of dollars. The Pennsylvania. State Brewers ' Asso· elation was one of the associated organizations which constituted the general scheme of the defendant brewing companies and their association to control the politi c al affairs of the Commonw e alth of Pennsylvania. • • • • • • • • •

The defendant companies, th;ough the association, undertook to control the nominations !Oid election of practically every public officer elected within the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania from governor down, including Members of Congress .and United States Senators. At a conference called by its representatives in 1914, candidates for legislature and State senate, for Members of Congress, for United States Senator, and for govE--rnor w e re s e lect e d, antl n o t only th e individual effort but the moneys contributed to this association by the brewing companies who have entered pleas in this case were used to put through the slate thus selected.

As a result of the cases in connection with which the . above memorandum was filed the brewer defendants practically pleaded guilty to violations of the Federal corrupt-practices act and paid enormous fines. .

That the United States Go-vernment helps pay the freight in the political campaigns of the brewers comes out in n statement of United States District Attorney Humes in n brief to the United States Circuit Court of Appeals in re application of Hugh F. Fox, secretary of the United States Brewers' Association, for writ of habeas corpus, 1916. Mr. Humes says:

The Government had information that brewery corporations for many years past had been making illegal money contributions in con· nection with national elections, and also, in order to cover up their crimes, had been deducting from their tax returns sums equivalent to the amounts thus criminally exp e nded in connection with elections, thereby adding crime to crime and cheating the Government out of a large a.mount of revenue.

The Supreme Court of the United States in the case of Crowley v. Christenson (137 U. S., 86) has the following to say regarding the liquor · traffic:

. By the general concurrence of opinion · of - every civilized and Christian community there are few sources of crime and misery to society equal to the dramshop, where intoxicating liquors in small quantities, to be drunk · at · the time, are sold indiscriminately to all parties applying. The statisti c s of every State show a greater amount of crime and misery attributable to the use of ardent , spirits obtained at these retail liquor . saloons than to any other source. • • . • There is no inherent right in a citizen to sell intoxicating liquors by retail. It is bot a privilege ot a citizen oi the State or of a eitzen of the United Stat~. .

That the trade fn a poison like alcohol should have reached the proportions it has assumed in the United States, and that its promoters should have acquired the influence they- possess is a matter no less of amazement than of humiliation. It is a menace to the Nation's health, the Nation's morals, the Nation's efficiency, and it is a stain on the Nation's name.

Is it not time that the Federal Government, the largest social unit we have, should take a band when the traffic in a poisonous drug is taking from the earnings of the American people six times as much as they expend for bread, ten times as much as they expend for furniture, twice as much as they expend for clothing? The Federal Government has already established nation-wide prohibition as to other narcotic drugs through the Harrison law, prescribing the minutest regulations as to its sale for medicinal purposes, punishing violations with rigorous and effective penalties.

Prohibition by State or local option now prevails in an area equal to two-thirds of the United States, and that area contains more than half of the American people. Millions of American people have petitioned Congress to submit an amendment to the Federal Constitution destroying the liquor traffic in - every part of the Nation. It has obtained such a hold on some of the larger States that it can never be ousted from this Republic by State action alone. No State has the right to harbor a traffic which is a menace and a disgrace to the Republic. For that matter, neither the Federal Government nor any State may claim the right to license a wrong. In Stone v. Mississippi (101 U. S., 816), the United Stutes Supreme Court uses this language:

No legislature can bargain ' away the public health or the public morals. The people themselves can not do it, mu c h less th e ir servants. • • • Government is organized with a view to their preservation and can not divest itself of the power to provide for them.

The pending amendment, therefore, violates the rightS of neither State nor Federal Government. It deprives both of the power to auth o rize an immoral, unhealthful, corrupting, and dangerous traffic, and leaves both with an equal power to destroy it. It is a declaration of truth and right and duty for Nation and for State. Such are the facts which call for joint national and State action against the liquor traffic and justify at least the consideration of the nece sary means to such an end in the manner provided by the Federal Constitution for its amendment.

If the liquor traffic is to be eradicated. the aid of the Federal Government -must be invoked. I believe in fighting it in every political division from . precinct to Nation, but I realize that its roots are in the Capitol at Washington. The partnership between the liquor traffic and the Federal Government is one of the most frightful heritages of the Civil War . . In order to obtain revenue ill.. that national crisis the Federal G o vernment assumed juri s diction over the liquor traffic for purposes of taxation, and has shared in its proceeds ever since. It now receives about two hundred and thirty million tear-stained dollars a year in revenue from this traffic, and thus reaps a sinister harvest from the chief agency of · despair and ruin within its borders. In order to make sure of its shameful toll it keeps its hand on the deadly stuff from the •still to the bar and no State can take it off. No citizen can make an ounce of liquor without the permission and supervision of the Federal Govern .: ment, although his pockets may be bulging with licenses from his State authorizing him to do so. A citizen with a State license alone attempting to manufacture liquor within the State granting the license would be put in a Federal jail, and . if a State officer should interfere to protect that citizen ln the exercise of the authority conferred by the State, he would be jailed also. The Federal Government already prohibits the · manufacture and sale of intoxicating liquors anywhere in the country except on its own terms, and has thus instituted nation-wide prohibition to that extent. The Federal Government taxes the manufacture of stills, and no still can be set up for the purpose of distilling without its consent. Every still must be registered with the Federal Government, whether intended to be used or not, and no matter for what purpose it is to be used. Every person desiring to become a distiller. or to continue as a distiller after the Ist of l\Iay of each year, must give a notice to the Federal Government containing a minute ! description of his business, machinery, and · premises. The · Federal Government may confiscate the land . d on which a distillery is situated for unpaid liquor taxes, regardless of what taxes that land may owe the State. The Federal Government requires the furnace of every still to be so constructed that a Government lock may · be successfully attached; that there shall be painted on the fermenting , tubs their numbers and cubic contents in gallons in oil colors and in figures not less than 3 inches in length and 2! inches in breadth; that cL.;;terns of a certain capacity shall be constructed in a room so bui l t that no person can enter it in the absence of the Government gauger· that office accommodations shall be provided for Government officials . who weigh out the mash and supervise every stage of distillation.

The Federal Government requires every distillery and whole. sale liquor dealer to keep a conspicuous sign on the outside of the establishment with letters not less than 3 inches in length, painted in oil or gilded, containing name and business, under penalty · of $500 for not doing so. The Federal Government limits the height of the fences that may be placed around distilleries and requires distillers to furnish revenue collectors with as many keys to gates and doors of distilleries as they may demand, and to keep the distilleries always accessible to officers with such keys. The Federal Government requires every distiller at his own expense to provide a warehouse for the storage of distilled spirits, which is to be under the direction and con· trol of the Government revenue collector and in charge of a Government storekeeper. with no locks on its doors but Government locks, which are at all times in the possession of the store­ keeper. Neither the distiller nor anyone else may enter except m the presence of the storekeeper. No liquor may be taken from the warehouse except by permission of the Federal Gov· ernment. Distiller must keep books in the form and manner prescribed by the Federal Government. The Federal Government prescribes the hours of fermentation and requires all locks and seals in a distillery to be procured by Government officials ' and placed wherever they may deem necessary. The Federal Government prohibits rectifiers, wholesale or retail liquor dealers to purchase or receive distilled . spirits in quantities exceed· ing 20 gallons from any person not authorized by it to distill, rectify, or sell at wholesale, except at judicial sales or sales by an authorized auctioneer; it prescribes the books to be kept by rectifiers and wholesalers .and permits no retail dealer to sell in quantities of more than 5 gallons. The Federal Government forbids the distillation of alcoholic spirits except in a distillery it has authorized or the use of the said spirits unless produced in such distillery on penalty of fine or imprisonment. Similar Federal regulations exist as to the brewing of malt liquors, although they are not quite so elaborate. -

And yet ·with the Federal Government exercising this minute and rigid control of the liquor traffic at every step, we are gravely told that the States through their police powers have exclusive control of the production and sale of liquor and that nation-wide prohibition deprives the States of such function. Where are those police powers to-day, in so far as the liquor trade is affected, when a State can not enable its citizens to make or sell liquor unless he first secures permission from · the Federal Government and can not interfere with the extensive jurisdiction now held by the Federal Government over the traffic? If a State should attempt to go into the liquor business itself, it would have to pay a tax: to the Federal Government. This was settled in a case before the Federal Supreme Court involving the status of the South Carolina dispensary system. What nation widers want is to stop this superior control by the Federal Government and compel it to join with the States in eradication of the liquor traffic on equal terms. The elaborate supervision of the liquor traffic by the Federal Government, of which I have given only a few illustrations, requires a larger and more complex Federal machinery than absolute prohibition could possibly require.

The nation-wide amendment puts the States in a far more dignified position in regard to the liquor traffic than that they now occupy. At present the power of the States to authorize, control, and regulate is secondary to that of the Federal Government. The nation-wide amendment clothes the Federal Government with a jurisdiction and power to prohibit and does not in any way deprive the State of an equal power of prohibition which they · already exercise within their respe.ctive borders. It deprives both the Federal Government and the States of the power to authorize the liquor traffic, treating the Nation nnu .the States absolutely alike. The amendment reads as follows: Resolved by the Senate a11cl House of Rep1·es e ntativcs of the United States of A tneriea in Oongress as etnbled (two--thirds of eacl' House concurring therein), Thnt the following amendment to the Constitution be, and hereby is, proposed to the States, to become valid as a part of the Constitution when ratified by the legislatures of the .several States as provided by the Constitution :

"ARTrCL:m -. _ , ._ . .

"Sl'X'TWN l. The manufacture, sale, 10r transportation -of intoxicating ' liquors within, the importation thereof into, or the . exportation thereof ' from the United States and all territory subject -to the jurisdiction thereof for beverage purposes is hereby .prohibited. *

" SEC. 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce :this article by . appropriate legislation • • - •~"

But they say th.at under om· Constitution no State _ should be deprived against Its consent of power to authorize the liquor _ truffle. I say that such a statement. is contrary to the language and ~ spirit of. the Constitution. . When the . States . met .in convention at Philadelphia m 1787 to frame the present Constitution the question arose as to how it should be amended if nt any subsequent time ru:Y change should be demanded by the _ public welfare. A. proviSion was submitted to the effect that the ConstitutiOn might be amended by a vote of three-fourths .of the States. A motion was made to strike out the words - ~· of r three-fourths,” so that the consent of all th~, States. would. be 1 required. Every Southern State voted No on this motion, namely, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North . Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia, the only northern State voting with them .being Pennsylvania. The three States voting for the motion f were Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New . J'ersey. To make the issue clearer a motion was then made that no State should, 1 without its consent, be affected in its internal police or deprived of Its equal representation m the Senate, and every Southern State, except Delaware, voted "No." Later a provision that no State -should, without i - its consent, be deprived of equal suffrage in the Senate was added to the amending clause. Thus by th~ votes of , Southern States the power to .amend the Federal Con tltutio~ was. vested m three-fourths .of the S~at~, the only exception being the matter of equal representation m the United States Senate. . . . In his famous reply to Webster m the United State Senate on February 26, 1833, John c .. Calhoun, the .greatest exponent and defender of State rights m. American history, s~ud . m re- ,gard to the , action of the States m framing the Con~btutivn-:

ln this compact they have stipul-ated, among - other things, that :it may be .amended by three-fourths o.t the States; that is, they have conceded to ~cll other by compact tbt right to add new powers or to subtract old by the consent {If th-at pr.oportion o.f the States wltlumt requiring, as -woul.d have been otherwise the case, the consent of alla modification no more inconsistent with their sovereignty than any other contained in the compact.

In his notable work on Government, written shortly before his death, he explained at length and with characteristic clearness why three-fourths of the States had the · right under the Constitution to bind all the States. He said that it was as neces ary to guard against too much facility as too much difficulty in amending it, that" if to require the consent of aU the States for that purpose would be in effect to prevent amend- . ments which time should disclose to be, or change of circumstances make necessary, so, on the other hand, to require a bare majority only, or but a small number in proportion to the whole, would expose the Constitution to hasty, inconsiderate; and even .sinister amendments on the part of the party dominant for the time’’; ; that the proportion - of three-fourths was sufficiently large to prevent the dominant portion of the Union · or combination of the States from opposing the weaker portion of the Union or a majority of the States. Nothing can be clearer, therefore, than that the expressions '-' State rights u and " State sovereignty" mean under our Constitution no such thing as the right of one State or any number of States not exceeding threefourths to oppose the will of the remainder of the States in the matter of amending the Constitution except only as to equal representation in the Senate. If it is wrong for one State to say what another Stat-e shall do, then it was wrong to have adopted the amendment to the Federal Constitution providing a Federal . income tax. Two States rejected it, namely, Connecticut and Rhode Island. It was imposed on them without their consent. One of the highest forms of State rights under the Constitution is the right of the States, acting through threefourths of their number, to change, add to, or take from the powers and functions of the Federal Government, or to pass upon the advisability of 'SO doing. If, when the States pass upon the prohibition amendment, three-fOUl. ' ths can not be found to favor tt, their constitutional function will have been exerC ised, and their action will be final until proper time arriirP" for . another triaL Until, however, they are permitted to judg-e its merits, they will have been deprived of one of their most fundamental capacities.

Permit me now to say that not only did the Southern States in the convention that created ouT present system -vote solidly · for the right .of · three-fourths of the States to amend · the Constitution, but also that all the 11 Southern States that seceded • from the Union and for four year-s yielded up their blood and treas-ure in defense of their conception o... State rights, gave · majorities in the NatlonaLHouse of Representatives for the submission of the nation-wide prohibition amendment with only the two exceptions of .Louisiana and ' Texas. ' South Carolina, the first State t:O :Secede, the very - e~aclle of State rights, ;voted solidly to -submit the amendment. Arkansas and Tennessee, wher.e southern ideals are worshipped with -a devotion .unsurpassed, did likewise . VIrginia, State of Washington . and Jefferson, Madison and M-onroe, Jackson and Lee, stood 8 for to only 2 · against. North Carolina, tl1e State claiming to ha'Ve been fil'st at Bethel, farthest at Getty-sburg. .and last at Appomattox, · stood 7 :for to 2 against, with ~ not voting and unpaired. Mississippi, the State of Jefferson Davis stood "1 for to but 1 against. Georgia, State Alexander H. -s'tephens and .John B. Gordon, -s-tood 8 fm· to 2 against, with 1 not voting and unpaired. Alabama, State 6f Pelham and Semmes 1 was equally tdivided. Florida, as deeply attached · to southern traditions .as any other State - stood 3 for, with '1 not -voting and unpaired. ' Texas, with seven-eighths of i-ts territory under · prohibition, . stood - only 4: for to 1.3 against, with 1 not voting and · unpaired. A different sto:ry will be told as to Texas, howe:ver when the vote is taken in the House again: It is true that the Texas State Democratic convention in 1916 declared against nation-wide prohibition, but the question had not figured in the primaries .and the people had gi'Ven .no instructions. W-e hav:e in Texas an election law providing for instructions on public questions by the voter.s at primaries to convention delegates. 1n Texas 180 . counties are totally dry, . 22 -counties wholly wet, 49 counties partially dry. In the 251 Texas -counties th-ere . are 2,002 ;post offices in dry territory and 528 in w.et territO-ry .

Having vested the :POW-er of amending r the 'Constitution in three-fourths of their number, th-e States provided that Collt:,<YI"ess, whenever two-thirds of both Houses should deem it , necessary, should propose amendment~ meaning, 1 0f course, whenever - tw.o­ thirds of Congress shoul-d deem proposal necessary. The States would hav-e no more delegated the , amending power, or any sub­ -stanUal part thereof, to the _ Federal Gover-nment-that is, , to Coc.gress-than they would have-delegated to .it the ri,ght · .to make the Co,nstitution in the 'first instance By reser-ving to themselves the unqualified and exclusive · right of amendment they kept intact their sovereign capacity in · so far as the organic law of the Nation was concerned. The Member of Co-ngress who will not vote for the submiSSIOn of n constitutional amendment to the decision o~ the States, where it belongs, unless ~e personally believes .1t .should become a part .of th~ Constitution usurps the function of the States, arrogates to himself and the Federal Government a prerogative . Qtat.belongs • to the States and violates the very essence of their sovereignty .. Furthermore, over 12,~,000 of th~ American people have petitioned Congress. to submit th-e prohibition amendment to the States. In refusing th-ese people tile right to appeal tQ the only tnbunai illrvmg the power Qf amendment, the tribunal of the s.tates, ~or the redress of what they -conS:Ider one .of th-e most terrible grievances m the Republic, Congress would deny to the:n. one of the most sacred of all. popular rig~ts-t:he right - ?~ petition. Were J opposed on principle to natio-n-Wide prohibition, I would vote to submit the amendment to the States m order. that .they might exercise one of t;fleu· ~undamental rights: An. tiSsue IS thus J>rese~~~ by the nation-wide amendment entirely independent of prohibition, -and that ii.Ssue Is expressed m two questions: . .

(1) Shall Senators a?d Representativ-es m Congress, either wholly. or partly, substitute ~~sel~s for the States as the amending power ?f the ConstitutiOn, thereby. eentr . alizu~g s?v­ erergnty at Washington to a degree threatening the extinction of ~~e State? . . . . ?

( ... ) Shall they .refu~ ~e people the 1 right of petition· . Senater George, of Mississippi, a VIgoro-us and outspoken ~nbpro~ubitiomst, was a member of the Senate Committee o~ ~?u­ cation and Labor, to which was referred a. national prohibition amendment ~I?e 40 years age. He JOined m a fav~rab le report for Its submission on the ground that to do otherwise would be to deny to millions of.people th~ right of pebtwn .. Let. ~e. quote from that report, which was signed by both antiprohibitlomsts and prohibitionists

It is proper to s-ay that there are members ' of the committee who ' concur in the report recommending the submission. of the proposed amendment to the .States who do not, by such action , indicate their approval of the -adoption of the amendment as a part of the Constitution, nOT that they would themselves advocate its ratification by the legislatures · of the States; but in deference to the immense mass of . petitions for this amendment of the organi.c law, coming from the people in all parts of the country, and believing that -an opportunity should be given to them to be heard upon the merits of their cause in the forum of the States. where alone it «na - be heard and -decided, the majority of the committee would d-e-em a refusal to submit the proposed amendment -to the . State for . consi-deration analogous to the denial of the right of a party to be beartl m court upon -a question of private right. The method provided in the Constitution for its own peaceful amendment would be destroyed by failure to - submit the propo sition tcrr amendmen-t in -cases of grave moment involvin-g the approval and prayers or multitudes .of the people, for whe-re too reme;dy sought is admitted to be without the jurisdiction of the fundamental law, the petition is really addressed to the only tribunal which can enlarge that jurisdiction-that is to say, to the States themselves. Should, then, Congress in such case refuse to submit the proposal to the State 3, such refusal would constitute a substantial denial of the right of petition itself · · .

The changes in the National Constitution, made indispensable by the development of the Nation, can only be peacefully accomplished by a judicious and liberal exercise of the power of Congress · to propose amendments to the States upon the petition of those who desire to be heard in the great court of the people exercising their sovereignty through the States, as in the formation of the Constitution.

It is well known that but for the belief in the conventions of the States that the opportunity to amend the Constitution would be most liberally afforded by Congress in accordance with the forms provided in that instrument, the original ratification never would have been obtained.

While the committee would by no means justify the submission of trifling or uncalled-for · propositions for the consideration ot the States, yet they firmly believe that the perpetuity and peace of tlie country under the forms of constitutional government demand that there be no captious or arbitrary denial of the right of petition for the amendment of the fundamental law through the forms of Congressional submission to the tribunal of the people in the States.

The · issues involved in the submission of the amendment are by no means similar to the constitutional issues of the American Civil War. At no time during the controversies leading to that conflict was the right or power to abolish slavery through an amendment to the Constitution, submitted and considered ln the manner provided therein, questioned either at the South or at the North. The Southern States seceded because they believed that guaranties already embodied in the Constitution were being nullified and could no longer be preserved within the Union. The Northern States believed that the South should have fought out its problems inside the Union, and that secession at any time should be forcibly prevented. It is entirely probable that if there had been an easier way of amending the Consti.­ tution, the slavery question might have been submitted and settled long before the terrible tragedy of the Civil War. ·

At the close of this debate we will have an opportunity to enable the States to exercise their highest function-the right to shape, alter, and develop the Federal Constitution. They are the proper tribunal to decide the fate of this amendment. They compose the mightiest array of free Commonwealths united in a federated whole the world has ever seen. There are chapters in the history of each that add honor to American citizenship. If there is anything in the amendment subversive of their liberties and their welfare, they can be trusted to condemn - it. Let not Congress assume to judge for them. Let Congress discharge its preliminary task of submission and stand aside. Let it put in motion the referendum provided by the Nation's organic lawthe method of amendment the States themselves established when they created the Constitution. Let the States perform the duty which remains the sole instance of their sovereignty over the Federal Government itself. · If the State and Nation may each retain the attributes contemplated in the Constitution, if each shall be kept within its sphere and permitted to perform its appointed agency-the most beneficent system of government yet devised will be strengthened and glorified for all time. As I view the matter, the member of either branch of the American Congress who denies the power of amendment to the States, especially an amendment which vast numbers of the people desire the States to consider, violates the basic principles both of the Constitution and of popular government, repudiates the fundamental rights of the States and overturns the two most sacred privileges the people possess, the privileges of referendum and of petition.

l\ir. SHAFROTH. Mr. President, . before the Senator from Texas takes his seat I should like to ask him a question.

The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. PoiNDEXTER in the chair). Does the Senator from Texas yield to the Senator · from Colorado?

Mr. SHEPPARD. I do.

Mr. SHAFROTH. Before I ask the question, I want to congratulate t11e Senator upon the powerful speech which he has just delivered. .

1\Ir. SHEPPARD. I thank the Senator. , 1\Ir. SHAFROTH. What I desire , to say, however, is that I notice the Senator has collated a great many statistics relative to the pernicious _ effect of alcohol upon the human system. I some time ago heard, but I can not recall exactly where, that tbc War College of the United States had estimated the number of persons who had been killed in battle from the birth of Christ until about 1910, and I saw the further statement somewhere to the effect that the use of alcohol had killed five times as many men in one year as had been killed in battle in that long period of time. I should like to ask the Senator whether he has inv-estigated that subject, and whether he can give to the Senate light upon the verlty of those figures?.

Mr. SHEPPARD. I have heard of the statem,ent to which the Senator refers, but I have never seen the original,

MI·: SHAFROTH. Has the Senator any statement in regard to the number of people who are killed each year in the United States by the use of alcohol?

Mr. SHEPPARD. I have not; but that phase of the subject has been thoroughly discussed in speeches of 1\Ir. Hobson in the House of Representatives and on tha lecture platform. I think he gave the figures to which the Senator from Colorado refers, as well as the authority for them. ·

Mr. UNDERWOOD. 1\ . b. President, the questions involved in the consideration of the pending resolution, to establish the prohibition of the manufacture and sale of alcoholic beverages il). the United States, involves the fundamental principles of our Government and reaches far beyond the question as to whether the ideals of the temperance advocate can be obtained by statutory enactment or constitutional restrictions.

It is difficult to approach the consideration of the question in a judicial way, because ' the prejudice that surrounds. the subject makes it almost impossible to fully and fairly discuss it without having your motives misconstrued by those who have already attained a .finality of judgment. . ·

In the discussion of the question many unfair and unjust statements have been made · without warrant of fact to sustain · them, and fundamental principles that involve the life of the Nation are swept aside "as mere scraps of paper" in tlie mad rush to establish high moral life for men and women by the law's enactment.

If the lives of men could be saved and the souls of men could be redeemed by governmental action the world would not have waited 2,000 years to find it out, but there are undoubtedly governmental restrictions that lessen immorality. •

The extreme advocate, from the beginning of time, has always been prepared to use the sword to force other men to accept his views of moral questions, regardless of the momentous consequences that may follow his action to the people he desires to serve. .

The statesman can · only attain the ends of good government by laying aside passion and prejudice, with the realization that the accomplishment of high ideals must come through an enlightened public sentiment, carrying with it the acquiescence of the people in the laws that are written for their government.

If there is general assent among all good people to the ultimate object that the prohibition advocate desires to accomplish there i.J3 pronounced dissent from the people of many States in the Union as to the ways and means of achieving it, but it would be unjust to hold the mass of prohibitionists accountable for the extreme position of their leaders.

. The criticism of personal motives will accomplish nothing for good. We can try this case only on what will probably be the inexorable consequences that will result from the passage of the pending resolution. ·

It has been said by another that-

In the comfortable glow of reform people are apt to forget that in combating oppression by an overreaching traffic it is possible to invite another species of tyranny more inimical to government because it is subtler, less tangible, and more enduring in its effect-the tyranny of political and social coercion exercised in the name of public morals. The use of force to obtain a " sanctified " end is as ancient as history soiling the pages of Christianity itself. The prohibition propa-ga.nda merely illustrates a phase of such coercion, and the application of methods that are more dangerous because of their apparent innocence. A slight reflection on our theory of government should make this clear. The sound and underlying theory of democracy “that a- just form of government requires the consent of the governed" is often subject to perversion. President Hadley, of Yale University, in his Standards of Public Morality, says:

Not content with saying that all just government is based on the consent of the governed, the enthusiastic advocates of democracy hold that if you could only find what a majority of the governed wanted you could easily incorporate 1t into law. Never was there · a greater practical error. Public law, to be effective, requires much more than the majority to support it. It requires general acquiescence. To leave the minority at the mercy of the whims of the majority does not conduce to law or good government or justice between man and man. Even Rousseau, the leading apostle of modern democracy, saw this most clearly. He said in substance: "A majority of the people is not the people and never can be. We take a majority vote simply as the best available means of ascertaining the real wishes of the people in cases when it becomes necessary to do so."

Mr. President, political principles such as I ha-ve just read, although elementary in their nature, are often brushed aside by those who advocate sumptuary legislation. It does not forgive the error ' of government to be able to command majorities in legislative bodies when a vast number of people stand in opposition to statutes which they feel and believe trench on their personal rights and endanger their personal liberty.

The great difficulty in the past in enforcing prohibition laws in many communities has been due to the fact. that the laws were not in accord with the sentiments of the people who were compelled to live under them. Enact a law by insecure majorities in any State in the Union and its fate is foredoomed in rad%11Ce. Let the law represent the enlightened :and universa.l sentiments of th~ community and its enforcement 4-~ · '""" care of itself. How · .· o · often has an obnoxious law, illwill uu.."' a. ~ advisedly written by legislatures, become a dead letter, and its nonenfot'Cement publicly advocated, bringing . the entire body of law into disrespect and 'disr-epute.

Real temperance has made great advances in the Unit-ed .States through laws allowing local communities the privilege of determining f or themselves whether sumptuary rules should be :adopted f-or the go-vernment of the liquor trade, where the sentim-ent of the community has been behind the law. In Stich

1 !L- be - ct• · d li behind :tt d cases th e . law has been e.u.e xve an nccomp s . hoo res s, tnt almost runiver ally where laws • of this kind have !been forced 'Upon aiD. unwilling people the result has been disastrous, and no real good has been born of the legislation.

Let us : analy:ze the purpose of the pending resolution. It proposes to submit 'Do~ to the people but to tbe leg~atures ()f ~8 . S~ates the r.atmcation of a constitutional amendment · that will g1v~ the Federal . Government, and :not ~e State governments, control -over police regulations relating tt? the m-anufacture and sale ~f alcoholic liquors used for bev-erage ~ses. , ~he adoption of this amendment ~ill · undoubtedly be favorable to th~ sentiment. of ~he people m some 'Of t.J~ States. It is . equally sure that it Will be contrary to the · sentiment of tthe !people !n a number of other States. .

In the latter <ease it will be necessary to enforce lObnoxious police . regulations upon an · unwilling people. The amendment may be _ adopted without the consent of the States !representing a majority of the population in the Union. It will require three-fourths of the 48 States to secure : re its ratification. There are 12 :States that could not prevent the ratification of this amendment jf it were .agreed to by the other 36 Massachu-setts, New Y.ork, Ne-w J'ersey, Pennsylvania, Ohl6., Indiana, Michigan, Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, .nntl California, that under the ' census of 1910 had a population of 50,556,065 out of a total, as given by that census, , 9-f - 91j'972,266. These 12 States . hav:e 288 Congressmen · tn the House -of !Representatives · and the other · :i8 States lla : have · only 197. If this amendment , jg . adopted, it Il:Ulf be ratified Without r the ' C'Onsent ~f. the · states I ru.:ve just named The result . of its .adoption would · be to in ;part · destroy the principle of local self-government that our people have · cherished · and ;protected 'Since the begin· ning of the Government. lt would take away m part the State sovereignty 'from the states. It would 1 ha:ve .a tendency to centralize om Government unde-r a !PQUCe .autocracy . such . as exists in Germany and .Austria-Hungary [t would ~ntrencll national authority and weaken the . sovereignty of . the people in the several States. It would disregard entirely the habits of life, circumstances, and conditions that surround the inhabitants • of the different States.