The Washington times., 1924-05-01
50 BEER BILLS
ARE To DIE
IN HOUSE
Hill of Maryland Making Fu-
tile Fight to Get Measures
From Dry Committee.
BY w. H. ATKINS,
Cosmopolitan News Service.


Fifty-nine jolly Congressional
tars aboard the good ship "Booze
Law Amendment" are leaping
for the life RATS. The frail old
5 craft will sink by the, head at
this Congress. The fifty-nine
faithful legislators, champions of
, modification to legalize manu-
facture and sale of real beer,
havs fought valiantly but are
hopelessly outnumbered by the
drys, and the dry lid must stay
on, at least until the vets gain
greater strength.
Wet Bills to Die.
Congress will end it's present ses-
sion without giving the country the
merry spectacle Of one of the old
time wet and dry fights on either
floor of Congress.
All of the numerous bills calling
for amendment of the Volstead law,
most of them to permit real beer
sales, probably will die in COM
mittees.
The House Judiciary Committee
now holding hearings on these
measures Is strongly dry. 1t is
doubtful If the committee will let
any Of the bills reach the floor of
the House, although the chairman,
Congressman Graham of Pennsyl-
Vania, is sympathetic to dry-law
modification. The House is as dry
as ever. and the Senate is even
more so.
Hill Leads the Fight.
The beer bloc, led by the intrepid
John Philip Hill, Baltimore Repub-
lican, before abandoning their fight
may attempt under the HberaliZed
rules of the House to get enough
members to sign a petition to dis
charge the House Judiciary Com
mittee from consideration OF the
bills, and bring them upon the floor
Of the House.
The vets only need $50 names to
such a petition. There are more
than $50 vets on the floor Of the
House-but not all Of them vote
wet or want to- be so catalogued in
the race for reelection.
Many Of the so-called dry mem
bers'' would vote for beer if they
could do so without a record vote
that would reach the folks back
home.
But in liquor legislation the dry
stalwarts If the House and Senate
would balk action unless every
member could be definitely re-
corded as wet or dry. These
record votes are feared like plaques
by those who vote dry and drink
wet, oftimes in ways that battle
even the initiated
Vets Claim Gains.
Claims of the drys that they have
increased their strength in both
the Senate and House are stoutly
refuted by the wet leaders.
The vets claim that substantial
wet gains made in the last con-
gressional elections spelled nothing
less than growing sentiment for
relief from present stringent pro
visions of the dry law. Though
the House may have gained some
wet supporters, these accessions tn
the wet ranks do not make the
vets look formidable in a body
with 435 members.
The vets in their seasonal scrap
with the drys are particularly
handicapped by the fact that lead.
ers in the House and Senate have
put the brakes on all legislative
proposals except those regarded by
the administration as Of major Inn
portance to the country from a
financial or economic standpoint at
this time.
The administration is Jealous in
pushing to the front measures
which it considers Of paramount
Importance to the agricultural and
business interests, in the brief time
left before another Presidential
campaign.