PROHIBITING INTOXICATING BEVERAGES.

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 25, 1919.

UNITED STATES SENATE, SUBCOMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY, Washington, D. C.

The subcommittee met at 10.30 o'clock a. m., pursuant to adjournment, Senator Thomas Sterling presiding.

Present: Senators Sterling (chairman), Norris, Walsh, King.

The CHAIRMAN. I first desire to call the attention of the subcommittee to two letters, which I have received as chairman of the committee, which letters I think ought to go into the record. The first is a letter from Mr. Nathan W. Littlefield, attorney and counselor at law, of Providence, R. I., and is as follows:

Hon. THOMAS STERLING,

PROVIDENCE, R. I., June 19, 1919.

Chairman of the Judiciary Committee, United States Senate.

DEAR SIR: In view of the conditions existing in Rhode Island I beg leave to submit for your consideration some facts relating to the liquor traffic and its attendant evils, the lax enforcement of the laws relating thereto in this State, and the need of adequate legislation by Congress to put an end to the traffic.

As you probably know, the Rhode Island Senate at its January session, 1918, indefinitely postponed a resolution ratifying the eighteenth amendment and in 1919 repeated this action by an increased majority. In both cases this action was secured by the defection of senators who represented towns which had voted no license and who professed their intention to vote for ratification. At the 1918 session three such senators deserted their principles and their constituents and the vote stood 20 to 18 for postponement. In 1919 seven such senators did likewise, although the no-license vote in the State was larger than it had been for many years. This result was not brought about by indifference on the part of the people or the advocates or prohibition. A great majority of the leading professional, manufacturing, and business men of the State favored ratification, as will appear from the inclosed partial list entitled "The Kaiser and King Alcohol" (omitted in printing).

But the liquor interests have had a strangle hold on the politics of this State for many years, and they obtained and have retained this hold by the same methods employed by them in other States as summarized in the report of the Overman committee to the United States Senate "regarding the conduct and activities of the brewing and liquor interests."

In 1886 the State by constitutional amendment adopted prohibition. This action was the unexpected result of an attempt by the dominant political party to scare the liquor dealers into making larger contributions for campaign purposes. But immediately thereafter the same party set to work to nullify the amendment. The then boss of that party gave out that he would make prohibition such a stench in the nostrils of the people of this State that they would not want prohibition again for 50 years. This very man was made State commissioner for the enforcement of the law and carried out his threat. For three years this State witnessed an orgy of drunkenness and vice probably unparalleled in this country. There was hardly a pretense of enforcing the law. After three years of this experience the amendment was repealed. One result of this fake prohibition was to dishearten many real friends of prohibition, and another and even worse result was to create a general disregard of and even contempt for the liquor laws, to embolden the liquor and vice interests in their defiance of those laws, and to paralyze the efforts of the constituted authorities to enforce the 101

laws efficiently. Consequently there has been in recent years very little honest attempt on the part of the officials charged with that duty to thoroughly enforce the laws. It is notorious that Sunday liquor selling is carried on extensively in most of the cities and large towns of the State and gambling places flourish. The only persons who appear not to know of these evils are the authorities whose duty it is to suppress them. The "raids" which are occasionally made on these places, generally at the end of the summer season and apparently after due notice to the parties concerned, are regarded as a huge joke by the public.

The difficulty which the Federal Government has had in protecting men in the naval service at Newport from the enticements of liquor saloons and resorts of gambling and other vices against the efforts of State and city officials, whose duty it was to assist the Government, to conceal the real conditions prevailing in that city, throws light on the conditions prevailing throughout the greater part of the State.

The action of the State legislature at its last session in instructing the attorney general of the State to institute proceedings to test the constitutionality of the eighteenth amendment, and later in enacting a law defining intoxicating liquor as liquor containing 4 per cent or less of alcohol, demonstrates the power of the liquor interests in the Rhode Island Legislature.

The decent, law-abiding citizens of this State know beyond the slightest doubt what will happen if Congress should fail to enact appropriate legislation for the enforcement of the eighteenth amendment.

If Rhode Island is to have real prohibition, if it is to be redeemed from the clutches of the interests which have corrupted its politics and preyed upon its resources, it is absolutely necessary that Congress shall give such a definition to the words "intoxicating liquors" as will forever put an end to the organized liquor traffic in this State. If, however, Congress leaves to the legislature of this State the unlimited power to define intoxicating liquors, the law recently enacted by the legislature will stand and breweries and saloons will flourish here as never before.

The inevitable result will be that the State will become the resort of multitudes of vicious characters who will flock hither to escape the rigors of proper law enforcement in other States, and this State will be in a far worse plight than if national prohibition had not been secured. Rhode Island will be in such a case a plague spot on the map of the United States, and a constant menace to the moral and material welfare of the other States of the Union.

The same will be true of any other State that enacts legislation which will permit the manufacture and sale of liquors containing more than one-half of 1 per cent of alcohol.

The action of the Judiciary Committee of the Senate in framing the prohibitory section of the Volstead bill fully meets the requirements of the case, and if adopted by Congress will receive the approval of a vast majority of the citizens of this country and of the men and women of Rhode Island who are possessed of sufficient intelligence to understand the true nature of the liquor traffic and who place the prosperity, happiness, and moral welfare of the people above personal gain or political advantage. Yours, very respectfully,

NATHAN W. Littlefield.

The second letter is from Charles M. Pollock, written from Fargo, N. Dak., formerly one of the judges of the Supreme Court of the State of North Dakota. That letter is as follows:

FARGO, N. DAK., June 19, 1919.

MY DEAR SENATOR STERLING: Upon the question of the percentage of alcohol required to make a beverage intoxicating I have not the slightest doubt but that Congress has the power to so determine. As a matter of policy it ought to so determine. The experience of this State dealing with the question speaks volumes. For four years, in Territorial days, I was district attorney of Cass County, and had to deal with the question under both the license and prohibitory laws. I was honored by being made chairman of the committee which framed the prohibitory law of our State in 1889, and as you know was on the bench here 20 years, during which time the law enforcement was constantly before me.

Out of this experience I have thought that the following account of the development of the definition of intoxicating liquors would be valuable in aiding your committee in determining a like question.

In November, 1889, North Dakota was admitted to the Union carrying in its constitution a prohibitory clause. At once the legislature was called upon, as Congress now is, to pass a prohibitory law looking toward the enforcement of the plain terms of the constitution, it not being self-enforcing. Our constitution, like that of the