The Barre daily times. (Barre, Vt.) 1897-1959, 1917-06-28
President Condemns Action
in Putting Whole Cues
ton in His Hands
CHANGE EXCEPT
ONLY WINE
Prediction Made President
Would Not Bother to
Exempt Even That

Washington, June 2S.--President vii.
son strongly resents, his friends say, be.
ing made the goat in the prohibition
fight
He is said to have nothing but censure
for the action of the sub committee of
the Senate committee on agriculture
which rewrote the administration food
control bill Tuesday night in such a way
as to place upon the president the re-
| sponsibility OF deciding whether the
country shall be wholly dry" or only
partly so during the period of the war.
Although it is said that the president
will take no definite steps to have the
action of the subcommittee reversed, il
is known that he feels bitter over the
turn things have taken.
His closest advisers describe him as
feeling that Congress, having loaded the
prohibition question onto the food con.
troll bill, should take full responsibility
for the "rder" and all that it implies.
Personally the president is said to feel
that the food situation is not sufficiently
acute to demand prohibition as war
measure. At the same time he would
have interposed no objections had Con-
gress gone ahead and decreed prohibition.
He has no special objections to the House
bill, which does specifically enjoin the
manufacture of liquor, but he does object
to the proposal of the Senate sub-com-
mittee that he shall decide whether beers
and light wines, as well as distilled liq-
uor, shall be placed under the ban.
The presidents friends feel that back
of all the activity in Congress for prohi-
bition there is lot of political hypocrisy.
Too many members of that body, they
say, want to vote for some such provi
sion as that written into the bill by the
Senate subcommittee, so that in getting
credit among their dry" constituents for
voting "dry" they can shift to the pres
ident the onus of deciding betweenaab-
solute and partial prohibition.
The provision which the subcommittee
agreed upon and submitted to the main
committee yesterday forbids the manu-
facture during the war of all intoxieat-
ing beverages and empowers the presi
dent to commander existing supplies of
distilled spirits 1t further authorizes
the president Gin his discretion" to ex- |
empt from this prohibition matted, fer
mented and vinous beverages. The eff |
feet of this is that if the president makes
no exemptions all alcoholic beverages are
to be barred.
When the main committee met il re-
fused to accept the subcommittee re-
port Instead, the committee substituted |
the bone dry provision amendment by
the House, permitting the president to
authorize manufacture of wine only If he
desires.
1t is predicted in quarters closed to
the president that if the food bill is
passed with the prohibition rider carried
along as the Senate ub-committeemen
would have it, he will simply ignore the
power allowed him to ex-
empt beers and light wines and let the
country go "bone dry"
IL is probable the president will lean
10 a large extent on the Judgment of
Herbert Hoover, food administrator,
who recently expressed the following
opinion on the subject of prohibition as
a conservation proposition:
Entirely aside from ethical questions,
my impression is that we could save
between $4,000, 900 and 100000 bushels
IF grain on the brewing side, after allow
ng for fodder, and that grain is of the
Utmost value to the allies. On the dis
.illing side we will probably want the
whole capacity of distillers for industrial
purposes in connection with munitions
But with the establishment of food
control and the use of substitutes for
rain in distillation, we could save some
where from 25.0O0,O00 TO 500000oO bush
Is Of grain in the manufacture Of indus
rial alcohol"
The committee further increased the
cope Of the food control bill Yesterday
o include regulation Of copper and its
lead. lumber and timber