STATEMENT OF REV. O. R. MILLER, D. D., PRESIDENT, NATIONAL CIVIC LEAGUE, ALBANY, N. Y.

Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, the wet American Mercury magazine in an editorial recently when defending the repeal of national prohibition ended the editorial by saying, "The battle against the rising tide of drunkenness and juvenile delinquency will be won or lost in the American home."

Bishop Arthur K. White, in a recent issue of the Dry Legion answers the American Mercury as follows:

In the minds of hundreds of thousands of people today the American home has been liquor deluged. Liquor advertisements pour into the home in radio programs, the newspapers, magazines, and journals in advertisements like the one at the back of the Mercury magazine containing your article. Children in the home see and hear these appeals to drink everywhere they go.

You are very much like a man in a scow in the rising waters of a Mississippi flood. All around you are homes that have left their foundations and are floating in the treacherous and rising tide. The children look pitifully out of the windows of the upper stories. Many of them are perched on the roofs. You cry through your megaphone, "American homes, save yourselves."

The victims of this unprecedented situation could very scientifically and logically laugh you to scorn. The way to save the homes is to do something about the flood tide with methods of prevention, such as prohibition that takes us back to the plans, the hills, and the mountain ravines, where prohibition dams must be built.

The New York Journal-American recently published an editorial syndicated in many other newspaper across the country entitled "Women at the Bar." The editor is not afraid to warn of returning "prohibition." That editorial begins thus:

"One of the saddest and assuredly social spectacles of city life nowadays is the dark and dingy cocktail bars where at almost any hour of business the clientele is largely feminine and unescorted." This remarkable article concludes as follows:

"If this promiscuous and continual drinking in saloons continues much longer, too many mothers, wives, and sisters to whom society looks for refuge and sanity and health in an age of moral laxity, will instead become derelicts, meriting at the worst disgust and at the best, pity. A cleanup is drastically needed, and those who shrink from the word 'prohibition' will do well to remove from the social scene one of the most potent arguments for that very thing.

"Sir, compromise with and toleration for the modern saloon will get us nowhere. Prohibition is the only language the liquor traffic understands. Better stop theorizing, speculating, and writing articles for wet magazines and get into the fight to dry up this flood-this beast of destruction."

Life is a great training school. We should make it as easy as possible for people to do right and as hard as possible for them to do wrong, especially for the young and inexperienced in our homes.

We should make it easy for weak men to grow strong and for strong men to stay strong. It is cruel, it is wicked, it is inhuman to place temptation in the path of the weak by which they are caused to stumble and fall. But it is still true that "Man's inhumanity to man makes countless thousands mourn."

If a person went through a crowd of weak, starving people in Europe with large trays full of delicious turkey sandwiches, bacon and eggs, mince pie, custard pie, chocolate pie, and so forth, and offered them free to the starving people-but told them that there was poison in all this food, how many of those starving multitudes could resist the temptation to take and eat?

Thousands of men and women whose wills have been weakened by drink cannot resist the temptation to drink when it is offered to them,

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even though they know there is poison therein and that its continued use will finally ruin and destroy them. We repeat it is the duty of the strong to protect the weak from themselves.

Yes, the first great fight against "the rising tide of drunkenness and juvenile delinquency will be won or lost in the American home." But how can the home win against the great and attractive temptations placed in front of the youth when everything possible is being done by the liquor men in the newspapers, magazines, and on the radio to deceive the youth and disrupt the American home?

Great and striking whole page liquor ads in many newspapers and magazines and on the radio programs which make liquor drinking attractive and beautiful are causing thousands of boys and girls to begin the liquor habit.

The great brewery organizations have spent many millions in newspaper and radio advertising trying to deceive the American people and make them believe that beer is a harmless and healthful drink, and millions of good, well-meaning people, both young and old, have been deceived thereby.

The Brewery News in 1932, after 12 years of national prohibition, said: "Not one-tenth of 1 percent of the youth of America know the taste of real beer. We must educate them." That is what national prohibition did for the youth of America, according to the testimony of the liquor men themselves.

At the wine and liquor industries convention held at the Stevens Hotel, Chicago, March 7–15, 1935, soon after the repeal of prohibition the following sentiments were openly expressed in that convention:

Make youth liquor conscious; make it smart to drink. Show young people how to enjoy the delightful wine of America. Teach American women how to drink; invite them and welcome them to your bars and tap rooms. We need to understand the habits of women and the younger generation. Train your publicity to catch the eye and develop the interest of the younger generation. Aim at bringing liquor consumption up to equal the much larger per capita in Europe.

The Brewer's Digest of May 1941, under the title "Beer in the Army Camps" said:

was

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One of the finest things that could have happened to the brewing industry to make beer available at Army camps. Here is a chance for brewers to cultivate a taste for beer in millions of young men who will eventually constitute the largest beer-consuming section of our population.

At a retail liquor dealers' association meeting in Ohio in 1912, when discussing how to increase the liquor sales, one speaker arose and said:

We must create the appetite for liquor in the growing boys. Men who drink will die, and if there is no new appetites created our counters will be empty as well as our coffers. The open field for the creation of appetite is among the boys. Nickels expended in treats to boys now will return dollars to your tills after the appetite has been formed.

What could be more devilish than that? But that is scarcely less devilish than the big vivid attractive pictures in many magazines picturing beautiful women and handsome men drinking liquor under apparently delightful circumstances. Millions of boys and girls are being deceived thereby, and by the enticing descriptions of beer and wine over the radio.

The mother, the heart of the home, has a right to be heard at such a time as this. Yesterday was Mother's Day. She appeals to the

Nation, to the Congress, to help her in the unequal struggle against the beverage-liquor traffic and youthful truancy. We appeal to this committee to hear the pathetic appeal coming from the mothers in millions of American homes.

The strength of the Nation is in the heart of the home. When the moral life of the home is broken down, the physical strength of the Nation is also broken. Look at France, once one of the really great nations of the world. But France is now a dying nation. The cancer of immorality has eaten at the heart of the nation so long and so much that proud France of yesterday is now only a shadow of her former greatness. Why? Her failure to appreciate moral values and moral standards. France has long legalized and licensed prostitution. France has licensed gambling. France has licensed the beverageliquor traffic and other great evils. Hence her former greatness has passed away. Shall America follow France in moral decay?

We appeal to the members of this committee to report out this Capper bill, Senate bill No. 265, and urge its early passage by Congress. Bishop HAMMAKER. Dr. J. Warren Hastings, of the Disciples of Christ.

STATEMENT OF DR. J. WARREN HASTINGS, PASTOR, NATIONAL CITY CHRISTIAN CHURCH, WASHINGTON, D. C.

Dr. HASTINGS. My name is J. Warren Hastings. I am pastor of the National City Christian Church in Washington, D. C. I represent my denomination, 2,000,000 strong, the Disciples of Christ, 3206 Thirtyeighth Street, Washington, D. C.

The implication of many of the liquor advertisements is untrue. Admiral William N. Thomas, chief of United States Navy chaplains, recently said:

The implication brought by the liquor ad that big business executives, widely known athletes, famous people to many fields, attained success because of the fact that they drank liquor is untrue. To imply that you have to drink in order to be a success is false. Many liquor ads are giving our children and young people a perverted view of success.

One of the most sensitive and important factors in the life of our Nation, or any nation, is the attitude of her young people. By permitting promiscuous liquor advertising we are striking at the very life line of our Nation.

Those interested in liquor and profiting from its sale have been able, by a salacious advertising campaign, to create the psychology in the minds of multitudes of our people that if you do not like liquor and use it you are peculiar. By permitting these advertisements to continue promiscuously we aline ourselves with the liquor interests. People who have sagged socially because of war pressures, world unrest, private worry, and other causes must be helped rather than hindered. We do not help them by constantly tempting them. By setting beautiful advertisements before their eyes, we are tempting them.

The people of this Nation do not want the Government alined with liquor interests. By permitting the present type of advertising you give the liquor people an advantage which they do not warrant and which is wrong for the country as a whole.

Senator REED. Thank you.

Dr. HASTINGS. It would seem to me that no liquor interest has the psychological_right to deal with the young people and exploit their weaknesses. I happen to be the father of two daughters; one is a junior in a big university. The other is a freshman in a church college. Every place these girls go-they are nice looking, like their father, of course-every place they go, they are tempted to drink. They are told that if they do not drink they are saps. That if you do not drink you are out of step.

Now, they are not morons. I hope they are not down there near the moronic level, but the effort is made to play on their pride and on their sensitivity. They get out socially, and they are told, “Well, you are a peculiar person if you do not drink."

The one in the big State university has just been honored by being elected to their highest sorority; and she says to me-and she is not a prig she says, "Every place I go they say, 'Come on, Pal, and take a drink.'"

Now, our Government has never been a part of perverting her young people. That is not in our history. That is not in democratic principles. You do not have the right. I do not have the right. They do not have the right to pervert their kids. And if their youngsters are being perverted, they resent it.

Last week we had a woman who made some sort of a reference to communism in our high school out here. We rose up in arms. We had a big investigation. We carried it on the United and AP wires across the United States. We do not want our young people to hold anything peculiar about communism. And yet we tell them all sorts of lies about liquor.

Mr. Chairman-excuse this-but my father was a drunkard. I came out of a background of helping to drag him in after 3-week drunks. I got scars all over my back and arms, and they did not all come from playing college football. A lot of them came from dragging him in drunk. I wonder-can any man who has been through that look at a liquor ad and see where it is painted up, and a young man is placed in an embarrassing position if he does not drink, like in that ad-how can he say, "I am a real American" and tolerate a thing like that?

If they do not stop these ads, I would be bold enough to prophesy this-that a group of 20 or 30 or 50 of the leading ministers of the country will take the platform and really go after this liquor bunch.

Senator REED. I said a while ago the hard-liquor people have never had any sense.

Dr. HASTINGS. They have none.

Senator REED. It was their disregard of the decency of things that brought on national prohibition, and they do not seem to have learned anything.

Dr. HASTINGS. I just left the juvenile court trying to get help for a mother whose drunken husband walked out on her with a 10-monthold baby, and in 2 more months she will have the second baby. He got wound up with liquor.

American people will not stand for this thing, and America is from coast to coast and from Canada to Mexico. It is not just in big cities. The 1 out of 2 people in America live in places of 10,000 population or

more. The American people will not stand for such a desecration of their rights and a flaunting of privileges in their faces.

I thank you very much.

Senator REED. Thank you.

Bishop HAMMAKER. Next we shall hear from Mr. Carthy R. Ryals, Jr., a prelaw student at George Washington University, who is very active in youth organizations.

Mr. Ryals!

STATEMENT OF CARTHY R. RYALS, JR., PRELAW STUDENT, GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY, WASHINGTON, D. C.

Mr. RYALS. I am Carthy R. Ryals, Jr. My legal residence is 17 Homer Street, Mobile 17, Ala. I have been working with the youth and crusading with the youth of today for tomorrow.

Mr. Chairman, the committee, interested citizens, in the light of the hearing now in progress on Senator Capper's bill, classified as S. 265, to outlaw interstate advertisement of alcoholic beverages, I have asked permission to be heard.

In the consideration and debate of the passage of this said bill, do not overlook the positive fact that tomorrow we, the youth of today, will hold the positions of responsibility. We will be, tomorrow, the Members of Congress, the members of the Cabinet, the President, diplomats, and the businessmen of this Nation and the world.

Today, these men are making the laws by which we will live tomorrow. Childhood to adulthood is only a day. The happiness and cooperation we are to have among fellowmen tomorrow is decided, to a large extent, through the laws made today.

We ask the leaders of today with a serious sincereness in our hearts to think not of their happiness when making these laws but of ours. We plead for recognition. The passage of this bill will play a decisive factor in the successful mechanical functioning of this Nation tomorrow. Looking back on history, it is very simple to see the total destruction to the immorality and ungodliness this beverageis reaping. Yes; today this very alcohol is bringing about the rapid downfall of our great country.

Yes; America-God's country-what mockery! We are a nation of drunken and immoral fools!

Realizing the future ahead of us and the disastrous and sinful crisis the world is now facing, we, as the youth of today, demand Congress to pass this bill. We ask action-now.

I have spoken in behalf of the youth of these United States of America.

Thank you.

Biship HAMMAKER. Rev. G. M. Robb, representing the Reformed Presbyterian Church.

STATEMENT OF REV. G. M. ROBB, REFORMED PRESBYTERIAN

CHURCH, YEADON, PA.

Mr. ROBB. Mr. Chairman, my name is G. M. Robb, of 942 Church Lane, Yeadon, Pa. I am a minister of the Reformed Presbyterian Church and represent their temperance committee.