The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1912-09-20
BREWERS IN CONVENTION
Review of the Brewing Industry
 How Prohibition Now Stands

ton of the association in Boston, Pres
 ident Ruppert said that since 1874 Massachusetts has buried prohibition; Vermont. New Hampshire and Rhode Island have repudiated it; and Maine has been all but successful in throw beer has increased from e,6O0, 897 bar rels to over 63,ooo. 900 barrels. Between 300 per cent, but the consumption of beer increased TOO per cent. Because of high prices of material and 1ncreas- ing cost of labor, the cost of produc- ing a barrel of beer has risen $1 bar rel. or more than the average net profit in normal times. The brewers are making. constructive efforts to fos- ter increased quality and quantity in production of barley and hops, their chief raw materials, in consequence.
 President rRuppert noted a steady i'm :. provement in the public attitude to- ward the brewing industry over condi- tions two or three years ago, and at thought of the nation is turning, from the extreme of prohibition to the san CT method of license and regulation. He predicted the failure of State wide prohibition in the pending elections in West Virginia, Colorado and Arkansas; and supported his forecast by refer in Alabama, the failure of prohibition movements in Texas and Missouri, and the moral victory of the license forces in Maine.
  ken by the brewers against hostile leg is1ation are parallelied by the activi- ties of all other industrial organiza- tions. The brewer, he said, looks for ward to the da when he ma keep out of politics; but with business waiting on politics, and the country gone leg ment in that direction. What did give him hope, he said, is the fact that the brewer has won his way to a pub lie hearing, that 4he American people rRa1jZirp there two sides to the prohibition question, and that it is being established that the whole issue is one of efficient government not of morality or religion.
 { After the appointment of the usual Committees, the Annual Report of the Trustees. reviewing the fortunes of the and commercial outlook, was laid be- fore the convention. The Trustees noted that the general trend of the elections indicates a growing 1ntoler- ance with prohibitive methods, but an increasingly organized determination to suppress disreputable resorts and to restrict the retail sale of liquor to responsible men of good character.
 The Trustees suggest the need of national brewery trade agreement with the labor unions of the workmen, and national brewery arbitration board which would jointly represent both employers and employees.
 Discussing the Liquor Problem, the report argues for regulation of the saloon as a social necessity in popu- lous communities. In the main, It. says, the business of the saloon is to supply a demand, not to create it. The authorities do not need search war rant to enter a licensed saloon Most saloons are decent and orderly. be- cause the people who, frequent them are decent and orderly and the saloon must mater to stheEn- Misconduct, whether ,,. in saloon or an ice.eseam nbsas it is misconduct, not because of the place in which 1t occurs.
 The report of the Publication Com mittee noted that the output of litera- sture on the drink question still bulks large. Its most significant note, in the committees view. is the abandonment creasing affirmation of the license or regulatory theory by disinterested writers. The interference of prohlbi- ton with the Roman Catholic institu- ton Of the Mass is fnstanced as sone of the causes of prohibition's defeat In New Zealand; and the same issue had War Department at Washington re- garding the right of Roman Catholic churches in Oklahoma to have wine l shipped into Indian Territory for sac ramental purposes under the Supreme l Court decision in the Webb case. The committee also directs attention to the formal decision of the German Luth- eran Church at it's Sioux Falls con ference recently that the liquor ques- ton; and that no mans Cnrlstlan>i character may be questioned because
 
 A remarkable contribution to the moot question of the eugenics or aico- holfsn is noted as result of the m vestigation recently made by the Francis GaIton Laboratory of Eugen- 1 ics, London. More than 5000 ch1l- dren were examined, half Of them the offspring of drunken parents. The ln-f vestigators failed to establish any re- .Iation whatever between the drinking habits of the parents and the lnteln- gence, physique and health of the chill dren This is supportef upon the au- tfority of pr. T. B. Hyslop, F. R. s E., and pr. T. CIaye Shaw, F. R. 2.
 The final report of the day, that of the Labor Committee, was regarded by the members of the convention as of the utmost importance It analyzeo the recent rejection by the rank ana file of the brewery workmen's unions of the Industrial Accident Compensa- tion and Old Age Pension plan. which ! employers and the labor leaders, from !, which much had been hoped.
 It will be recalled that a plan had 1 been formulated whereby the employ l ing brewers offered to put into yolun- tary operation both Industrial Accl-
 dent Compensation and Old Age Fen
 had been declared sound by competent actuaries, and was endorsed by the union leaders who had a hand m
 working it out. The funds were to come very largely from the employers,
 and in much less amount from the
 men; and they were to be admln1stereo | Dy a JOfflL DOdTO OL ttoStSSS' - erendum vote, the workmen turned down the whole plan by a decisive ma 1 iority.
 The report says the causes for this rejection, so far as they can be gath cred from the men themselves, were firstly distrust of the employers mo lives, secondly, apprehension that the plans successful operation might weaken the militant spirit of the Work- CTS, and third the dehnite conmlt- ment of the brewery workmens un- ions to socialism.
 The committee counsels modefat1on' friendliness and goodwill on the part ofthe employing brewers, coupled with every consideration for the welfare of the employees. It recognizes that for the present the well-laid plan to