The Washington times., 1932-12-10
SAVING CLAUSE
: OFFERED FOR
BEER BILL
Would Separate Products to
Be Given Legislation;
Mills Up Wednesday
(continued from Page ~

(Continued from Page ~
holic content of wine. Pre.prohi-
bition California wine averaged
about 9 per cent alcohol.
Would Be Constitutional
De Vries said:
"Wines used at meals would
be q nOn-beverage use and
would be sustained under the
Constitution, but we do not
rest our case on that alone.
: Section 20 Of the VOlstead act
excepted naturally fermented
wines, nOn-intOxicating in fact,
from the enforcement.
"The legislative intent must
have been to permit Tnanufac-
ture of wines to the full extent
of natural fermentation"
Section 20, which has been at
tackled for years by vets on the
ground that it allowed farmers to
make intoxicating cider and other
fruit juices to quell their resent
1nent against prohibition, was en-
phaSized by De Vries.
He quoted from debates in Con
greSS to show the provision was
designed to permit housewives and
the foreign-born population to con-
tinue use of wine in the home.
Cites Hill Case
He also cited the famous case
of former Congressman John
Philip Hill, Of Baltimore, who
made fruit juices containing 3.4
to IL per cent alcohol. A jury
held that the wine was not in
toxicating in fact and acquitted
him after Hill invited, arrest.
De Vries added:
''Few wine drinkers will con-
sumo as much alcohol at a meal
as q hard liquor drinker will
consume in one drink. Drunk
enneSS is practically unknown
In France and Italy,"
He cited court decisions to
show that wine actually is a food
and should be classed as such
not as q drink.
He said a declaration of Con-
gress that wine is not Intoxicating
would be far more truthful
than the provision of the Vol
stead law prohibiting the making
of liquors containing over one
half Of one per cent alcohol" n
Representative Dickinson CD,
Missouri, asked:
"What do you think Of put
ting wines in q separate bill?"
"Wines and beer have been
ClaSsed together in legislative
acts, the public considers them
together and they should stay
in the same bill"
Representative Vinson D),
Kentucky, asked:
'DO you contend that wine
Is. q food and not beverage?"
Under decisions constituting
the pure food laws It can be
food or q beverage as Congress
says"
Calls Problem Practical
Representative Clarence Lea
tD0, of California, said Congress
is dealing with a practical and
humane problem"
He explained that after pro-
l1ibition, when people began to
make wines in the home the price
of grapes increased and produc-
ton with it. Production rose
from 30,000,000 gallons before
prohibition to over 100000, 900
gallons. He declared:
"This OverprOd d u CtiOn of
grapes finally destroyed the
prices Of grapes"
Now, he said, the California
farmers growing grapes are at
the mercy of bootleggers, adding:
cit is impossible to control
the bootleg wine business be-
cause a little crap and much
sugar will make wine. You
have three or four times as
much wine being made now as
before prohibition and q very
inferior, product. And no one
+ will suggest that you send Of
ficers into the homes to en-.
force the law"
STRIKES OUT AT DRYS
Striking out at the dry who say
that a minority of the States will
prevent repeal Of the eighteenth
amendment, Lea said:
"Are 25 per cent Of the peO-
pie going to defy the will Of IS
per cent of the people? If that
be true we are building up such
a storm Of resentment that the
, winds of November 8 will seem
only a zephyr" ,
Lea declared that the Demo-
cratic national platform includes
wine because it urged modifica-
tion to permit beer land other
beverages" He said:
I'VE ask the Democrats to
keep their promise"