The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1932-11-19
BY WILLIS THORNTON
NEA Service Writer


Copyright. 1882 NEA seryics. Crnc)
A MERICA'S brewers are all set
IA to come back with rush
that will make the California gold
stampede look like Sunday
school picnic.
Many Of the plants which have
been kept in condition by man
ufacture of near-beer, are ready
to start producing at months
notice.
Owners Of other are getting
cash ready to plunge into refit-
ting their plants as soon as they
see daylight ahead.
The stocks of breweries and
allied industries, such as cork and
seal companies and bottle makers,
have been soaring on wings Of
hope.
There have been many financial
congratulations, like that by which
Pabst of Milwaukee recently was.
absorbed by the Premier Malt
Products Company of Chicago.
Pabst is an old brewery tracing
back to 1874, while the Premier
Company is Of post-prohibition
date.
There have been many such re-
interpretations, consultations, re-
capitalizations. and other ready
ings for beer throughout the
country. In Pittsburgh $4,000
shares of the reorganized Ft. Pitt
brewery were sold in two hours.
No fewer than 211 breweries
throughout the country are ready
to start shipping beer the minute
the law permits. They have stocks
on hand which insures no delay.
1t would take a week perhaps to-.
issue the necessary permits.
Among the famous breweries
thus ready for action are Anheu-
Ser-Busch in st. Louis, Schlitz,
Pabst-Premier and. Miller in Mil
waukee, Rupert in New York,
Rayner in San Francisco, Alamo
in San Antonio, Abner-D rury in
Washington and Schmidt in
Philadelphia.
All these and many more have
cereal beverage permits, and they
have in their storage watts any
where from a month to three
months supply of real beer from
which the alcohol has not been
removed
THESE breweries are widely
L. scattered throughout the.
country. Of the I'll permit brew
cries nova operating, A are in
Pennsylvania, 80 in New York,
IL in New Jersey, eight each in
Illinois and California. nine in
Minnesota, five in Maryland, q in
Wisconsin, 10 in Ohio, four in
Missouri, three in Colorado, and
three in Indiana. The others are
scattered throughout the nation.
An idea of the reduction in
even these apparently large num-
bers is had in the fact that be-
fore prohibition Pennsylvania had
166, New York 101, Ohio 49,, and
Wisconsin 70.
All of which means that the
organized brewing interests have
been not dead, but sleeping. And
not exactly sleeping either, for in
1925 the United States Brewers q
Association began its campaign
for repeal ga 5,.- -
THIS association includes most
Il of the big brewers in the
country. 1t was organized in 1862
by Frederick Lauer of Reading,
Pa, and grew to have great polit-
ical power in the country until the
Anti-Saloon League came along
and went it one better.
There is now no doubt what
ever that the arrogance Of this
organized brewing power was one
of the greatest factors in its
abolition.
The brewers admitted as much
in 1916 when, in a series of curious
advertisements, they regretted
"the false mental association"
which linked them to the worst
saloons, confessed that they were
largely responsible for this, and
offered to show if given a chance
that they were ready to reform
the saloon and to promote tenn
perance.
TINE rise and fall of lager beer
4 and that is what modern
Americans have always meant by
beer) dates from 1912. The flood
of German immigration which
came in the latter half of the last
century led to. the building of the
great midwestern breweries, and
gradually was converting the
United States from whisky
drinking to beer drinking coun-
try.
BY 1913 the brewing industry
had stake of a billion dollars,
and. it played the game to win,
often with little scruple as to
method. The organized breweries
controlled the saloon through
mortgage bonds and the ability to
control their supplies of beer.
Thousands Of saloons were
financed with brewers money,
much as the big oil companies now
finance gas stations. Money was
dumped into doubtful states to
control elections.
Members of the United States
Brewers Association paid dues of
from a haIf-cent IN more than O