The Bennington evening banner. (Bennington, Vt.) 19??-1961, 1917-06-29
PROHIBITION
FEATURESFOOD
CONTROL FIGHT
Senate Sentiment Favors
Abolition of DistiIing
DIVISION OVER BEER
Senator Lodge Says Closing Of Brew
cries Would Cause Dssatis fac
tion and Resentment.
DIVISION OVER BEER

Washington June 2S.--The fight
in congress over government control
of food and other necessaries today
virtually narrowed to the question of
prohibition.
The house control bill as amended
by the senate agriculture committee
was substituted in the senate for the
original draft and the debate con-
tinued. The bill as it now stands
would prohibit the manufacture of all
intoxicating beverages but empower
the President to exempt wines.
Senators Johnson OF California and
Kellogg OF Minnesota spoke on the
general features of the bill, promising
ii their support as a war measure.
Senate sentiment is said generally
to favor stopping manufacture of dis
titled spirits so the debate will center
upon beer and wines. Resort for the
first time to the senate's new cloture
rule in an effort TO hasten action may
be attempted, although there is such a
marked division OF opinion over the
question of permitting brewing to con
tinue that leaders say it would be i'm
possible to obtain cloture
Senator Chamberlain, in charge OF
the bill said tonight he hoped general
speech making would end tomorrow
and that the senate by Saturday would
begin considering committee amend
amendments expected 10 take several
days. The prnhibition sections under
such procedure would be reached last,
Senator Johnson. opening the debate
said the enactment OF the measure
was necessary 10 win the war.
America must make the sacrifice in
dollars and creature comforts within
the next year, or she must make there
after the sacrifice in men, and then.
ultimately, the sacrifice in material
things as well" he said,
There must be sacrifice of profits
just as there is sacrific of blood, the
senator said, and he added:
when an ordinary man sees his
loved boy snatched from his home to
be shot to pieces upon foreign soil
and reads of profits asked by corpor.
alton created by his government OF
$500. 900 900 per year during the war,
he cannot be blamed for the demand
in which our people unite and in which
the congress unites by the passage OF
just such bills as this"
Senator Johnson praised Herbert c.
Hoover and said he is particularly
fitted for the task of good administra-
tor
Senator Lodge, saying he would
vote for the bill after it had been care
fully considered, opposed some of its
provisions as amazing and said public
excitement for food control legisla
ton in pressing upon congress with
little public conception of the powers
the bill proposes to confer
Opposing the dry legislation as an
injection of a moral issue and not a
war measure, the senator directed at
tention to the fact that the effort to
impose prohibition on the country
has been mixed up with food conser
vation by congress itself and not by
the administration. He declared him
self in favor of prohibiting the manu-
facture of distilled liquors during the
war, but thought beer and wines
should be permitted.
Beer, he said, carries very little alco
hol and the closing of the breweries
not only would stop the drinking of
beer but would deprive the country OF
$4,000, 900 in revenue, throw over
100, 600 men out of employment and
lose all the taxes which come from the
approximately $1,0O0,OOO,OOO invested
in the industry
abolish all the breweries at a
stroke, throw 100000 people out OF
employment and deprive the hundreds
of thousands of laboring and other
people who take their glass of beer
and see no harm in it, and you will en-
gender dissatisfaction and resent
ment," said Senator Lodge.
He referred to the large German
American population who were accus
toned to their beer. These people, he
asserted, were loyal to America and
it would put burden on them to cut
off beer.