STATEMENT OF PHILIP RAPPAPORT, ESQ., OF INDIANAPOLIS, IND. Mr. RAPPAPORT. Mr. Chairman, I doubt very much whether I will have anything to say that will call forth any question on your part, but as a precautionary measure I will ask you to desist from asking any questions, because it will greatly embarrass me, I being quite deaf.

I represent the North American Gymnasium Union, a national organization entirely apart and distinct from the National GermanAmerican Alliance. We have about 300 local societies distributed all over the country, with a membership, in round figures, of about 80.000, among whom I am perfectly sure you will not find a single one who sympathizes with the measure that is before the committee to-day.

I have here in this little book the principles which this organization holds to and their laws, and I leave it on your table. I will only read the first paragraph, which says:

The North American Gymnasium Union is a league of gymnasium societies of the United States of America, organized for the purpose of bringing up men and women strong in body and mind and morals and of promoting the dissemination of liberal and progressive ideas.

We have not only about 80,000 members, but about 80,000 voters. Paragraph 67 of the laws of the organization says:

Candidates for admission to the society must be of irreproachable character, and must either be citizens of the United States or have taken the necessary steps for becoming citizens.

Now, gentlemen, while I am talking to you I might perhaps say something which might not be altogether in accord with the views of these gentlemen and which I probably might not say if I were representing the other organizations. But I want you to keep in mind I am representing quite a different organization. It is not my intention to make any sort of a legal argument, because I don't believe that I could enlighten you upon that side of the question at all. I suppose you all know about the legal side of it. The general object of the bill is to aid in the enforcement of prohibition, and as I and all those whom I represent are strongly opposed to prohibition, we are certainly opposed to the passage of this bill. I am against prohibition because it does not prohibit, and if it would prohibit I would be against it because it did prohibit. In other words, I am against prohibition on account of its vicious, pernicious, demoralizing effect, and I am against prohibition quite irrespective of its effect.

I am not going to speak to you about the effect of prohibition, because men of your experience and caliber know enough about that, and it is not necessary for me to tell you about it. Yet I call your attention to just a little matter, and that is this: I have here the last annual report of the Surgeon-General of the Army. This report is accessible to you and you will find on page 18 of this report a table which is a comparison of the admission and death rate of the United States Army for certain special diseases with those of foreign armies, and if you will study this table you will find that with prohibition in the American Army (and I apprehend there is not a particle of difference in which way prohibition appears, it is always the same

kind of prohibition), delirium tremens, alcoholism, prevails from 200 to 600 times as much as in the beer-drinking German Army. And so it is everywhere. It is the old, old story of Adam and Eve and that celebrated apple. Prohibition has been a failure and always will be, whether it has reference to an apple or a piece of ham or a glass of whisky.

I have here another document which I suppose you are all familiar with, and that is the Declaration of Independence. This holds that our Creator endowed us with certain inalienable rights and among these rights are mentioned the right of life and of liberty and of the pursuit of happiness. Now, what does that mean, the pursuit of happiness? It gives me the right to the pursuit of happiness, does it mean that I have a right to pursue your happiness or does it mean that you have the right to pursue my happiness? If it means anything I suppose it means that everybody has the right to pursue his own happiness. And if a glass of beer or even a glass of whisky is, in my opinion, necessary for my happiness, I want to have it, and I can not concede to anyone the right to forbid it to me or prevent me from taking it.

Now you may say, "Is that so; is a glass of whisky or beer really necessary to any man's happiness?" Perhaps not. But I tell you this, that the humiliating thought that it is possible for anyone to prevent me from getting it, if I want it, makes me unhappy, and I believe I have the right to the pursuit of happiness, if not under the Constitution of the United States, at least under the constitution of the State of Indiana, from where I come. I will not concede the right to anyone, either to the members of the Women's Christian Temperance Union, or to any clergyman, or to the State, to prescribe to me a certain mode of happiness. If I want to become happy, if I want to pursue my happiness, I want to do it after my own fashion.

I appreciate the good motives of the Women's Christian Temperance Union. I will even go further and concede that the clergymen are honest in their belief and think they are right; but I do say this: Whenever the clergymen commence to meddle with legislation and politics, beware! I am somewhat of a student of history, and you can not show me in all the history of mankind, from the remotest times of antiquity up to the present day, a single page where an action of the clergy is recorded that tended to bring about civil or political liberty or liberty of any kind; but you can turn to a thousand pages that record the fact that the clergy has always been in favor of oppression, suppression, repression, and every other kind of pression. Now, then, I have no doubt that they have done what they believe to be right; that their acts were according to their beliefs. I have no doubt that the leaders in the Spanish inquisition thought they were doing right when they burned and racked their victims; but because they believed it right their victims received no benefit or alleviation of their sufferings. Now, gentlemen, we are serious in this matter. We do not want any kind of a prohibitory law, and we shall use our rights as citizens whenever we have an opportunity to prevent such laws. I have a little book here that is a reprint of an article from the North American Review, which was written by a surgeon of the Army, and here I find the following passage which may, perhaps, be interesting to you. It says:

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A prominent army officer at Peking, under date of July 9, 1901, writes me: The Women's Christian Temperance Union would have no fault to find with the post here. The men go outside and get drunk on samsoy in town and go to sleep in back yards and other places which are worse, but the sanctity of the government reservation is maintained. The Germans have their beer garden, the Japanese have their place where they drink their tea, and the British have a place where they meet to take their drinks and they bring their been to the table, and the French soldier has his little bottle of wine at dinner. We alone are virtuous; we are the advocates of health; we are the great hypocritical hippodrome; none like us."

The gentleman who spoke a short time ago asked you to keep your hands off. No law forbids the drinking. No law forbids the buying of intoxicating liquors. It is the State's business when it goes over its borders and prevents its sale, and you don't need to meddle with it at all.

Just one word more as to my personal experience. I am living in Indianapolis, which is the headquarters of the organization I represent, and I have the honor of being a member of the executive board. I came to Indianapolis in 1874 from Cincinnati, and when I arrived in Indianapolis, in the evening, the town was almost ablaze with bonfires, and the Democrats had an immense jubilation. Why? Simply because two years previous to that the Republicans had passed an obnoxious liquor law, which was called the Baxter law, and my German friends-I had no opportunity at that time to be one of them-united with the Democrats and all the Republicans, and the next legislature abolished the Baxter law. After that, in 1876, was the Presidential election. The issue was between Tilden and Hayes, and that was the memorable time when there was great exodus from the Republican party; such men as Carl Schurz

Mr. CLAYTON. Carl Schurz was with the Republicans in that campaign. Don't you think you are straying a little away from the subject?

Mr. RAPPAPORT. I am through in a few moments. It seems to me that this might bear indirectly on it, because you ought to know how a certain class of citizens is affected or would be affected by a law of this kind, and I believe that a large number of citizens have a right of being considered in the legislation.

Mr. CLAYTON. No doubt of that; and we have sat here day after day and given them hearings hour after hour, until I for one, without speaking for this committee, have gotten to the point where I think this hearing ought to close.

Mr. RAPPAPORT. It is for you to do with this law as you please, and I think it is for me, for us, to give expression to our opinion. Mr. CLAYTON. Exactly; and we have heard them.

Mr. RAPPAPORT. As citizens of this country we think the only way and the absolutely proper way is to regulate this by our ballots.

Then it was in 1881, I believe, the legislature of the State of Indiana passed a prohibition amendment for the first time, and then again we Germans organized, and I had the honor then to be the secretary of that organization, and the effect was exactly the same as it was before. It was the same way two years after. I guess it was in that election that President Harrison did not get even a majority in his own county. Now, we can not do anything else but use our political rights, and the manner in which we use them I

think is a matter you ought to know about, because after all, as far as the legal effect and practical effects are concerned, you know as much about it as any of us; but the reason we are for a political demonstration, either on this side of the House or the other side of the House.

STATEMENT OF MR. AUGUST H. BODE.

Mr. BODE. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, before I start it is generally customary to make a few remarks about the personality of the speaker, and for that reason I will say that I come from the city of Cincinnati and represent the German-American Association, an association comprising about 80 different associations and about 20,000 men. I am also vice-president of the State association of which Doctor Hexamer is president.

From my personal knowledge I am sure that every one of those will disagree with the ideas expressed by this bill. Like my friend, the reverend gentleman this morning, there is no personal feeling in this matter. I am not a brewer or brewer's son and have not been a brewer's attorney, and so far as I am concerned I don't smoke or chew and only once in a while take a glass of beer, so I have no personal feeling. But I think it would be an unjust thing to other people to compel them to forego the pleasure of drinking a glass of beer, if it is a pleasure to them. I haven't the slightest idea but that it is going to be and intended to be a prohibitory law in those States where they have prohibition. This law as it stands there will certainly be a prohibitory law in those States; and I think the gentlemen are wrong when they say it is not calling upon Congress to come to their help.

I agree with Mr. Smith that his community and the States have a perfect right to enact such laws, and, I think, under the decision of the interstate-commerce cases, we can not prohibit the shipment into the State of original packages of liquor. If they find anything deleterious to health or morals they can prohibit, but that is as far as they ought to go. But what do they do here? They come and ask the power of the United States to help them along. They really confess that they have not been able in their own States to carry out their laws as they thought they could, and now they want the United States to say that it is not enough that under the police power of our States we prohibit the sale of liquor within the State as soon as anything comes into our State, but they want to stop it as soon as it gets to the boundary line. That is asking something like this: That if in this State there is a law prohibiting the bringing in of liquor of any kind then you stop on the other side one step.

What is a crime here is perhaps in favor on that side. Now, is that a proper thing for the Congress of the United States to do? The gentleman from New York says it is a matter of great financial importance in New York State-so many millions of dollars revenue for the State. In one State that is the question. In one State it can not be done, in the other State across the line it could be done, and the way I read this law now it would be a crime for a brewer or a distiller to ship across the line, because the place where it would be sent out would be the place where the crime would be committed. That would be a serious thing-that you could make a crime in Illi

nois for the purpose of Iowa. That would hardly be a proper thing to do.

They have stated that they can not, under their State laws, carry out what they intended to do, and they want the help of the United States to do it. Now, it seems to me it would be very much nicer for them to say: 66 This is a matter we can not carry out in spite of all the laws that can be enacted." I have no doubt this law is constitutional. It might not be if that amendment were cut out, but this way it is a constitutional law, that the State does exactly as it pleases, but if they confess now we have been trying in Vermont and Maine and Iowa and other places to enact such a law, and we have miserably failed, so far failed that we have to call on Congress to help us along, that is something that I think ought to be beyond the power of Congress, or beyond the good will. We ought to consider the justice, the equity of the matter, and say we can not sit here and compel people in other States to live according to the notions of somebody else there.

If we would come to the idea that this thing could not be carried out, that you can not make any person virtuous and moral by law, and that it is entirely a matter of education and experience, I have no doubt that when the W. C. T. U., the good women here who lead the best of lives (and God bless them, males and females), if they would attend to their home life, it can not be done by law. On account of my home influence I don't drink to excess. Instead of spending their time about other things they ought to spend it at home and instill the instincts of virtue into those in the homes. That is the only place they can get it; they can never get it by law. And so I say while it is immaterial whether it passes this way or that way, it is quite certain in my opinion that it will never accomplish the purpose they seek to accomplish.

It is not the way to make the home pure and immaculate; the way to do that is to do that at home. In England, France, and Germany, and even in Russia, the boys can smoke or drink. In Russia the boys smoke cigarettes just as they want to. Here we say that the American boys and girls are weaklings, miserable things; that it is necessary not to let any temptation come before them. I don't think so. Throw them in the water before they learn to swim, but before you throw them in give them the lessons, instill those lessons into them, and if you do that there is no need of temperance legislation here any more than there is in England, France, or Germany.

I thank you.

Mr. NICHOLSON. I would like to say that I think we have only one other speaker, Mr. Andrew Wilson, and that Mr. Sweet will make a brief statement after that.

The CHAIRMAN. The committee insists that the arguments be confined to legal arguments from now on. Miss Cousins desires to speak, but in view of this insistence on the part of the committee I would suggest that Miss Cousins may file her remarks. However, the matter is entirely within the discretion of the committee. There are three or four gentlemen here from a distance, and two of them have gone out because they think they have been slighted.

Mr. SMITH, of Kentucky. I suggest that Miss Cousins should be heard.

The CHAIRMAN. It is entirely at the pleasure of the committee.