these industries represent property. Those who are engaged in those industries are there because the laws of this country have invited and permitted them and encouraged them to continue in that business.

"In this State, and I shall confine myself to Illinois, there are, in round numbers, 100,000 persons who are employed or who are dependent for their support upon those who are employed in these industries. And in these industries I include the manufacture of beer, of malt, vinous and distilled liquors and spirits, manufacturers of bottles, barrels and other industries that are necessarily a part of and connected with that business. We have, therefore, 100,000 persons who have at least been encouraged or been invited to go into that business. They are reputable citizens. It may be that in their number there are undesirable and objectionable persons. So there are in every industry. In every avocation, in every profession, there are these. But this inherent, this fundamental right in America to have your property and business inviolate and not to be deprived of it without adequate or just compensation, is part of American, human, social and political existence. You can't divorce the thought from your brains. You can't go at this subject with a prejudice without having that prejudice immediately eradicated, if you make up your minds to consider this from the standpoint of morality, right, truth or justice.

"In the State of Illinois there are invested in taxable property alone in this industry, in round numbers, $100,000,000. Now, that investment has not been made today or yesterday. It is a growth; it is a development, it is an investment in a business that has been encouraged and protected and licensed by the laws of Illinois. Ever since 1845, and in some parts of the State long prior thereto, this line of business has been licensed, as a legitimate channel of

commerce.

TRAFFIC IN BEER LEGITIMATE, SAYS COURT

"Within eight weeks of the time I am now speaking, the Supreme Court of the United States, in a unanimous decision, has held that traffic in beer is a legitimate commerce. Two years before, in the case in which all or most of the prior decisions were reviewed, the case against the Cooke Brewing Co., 223 United States,

I think it was, the Supreme Court held and quoted the exact words from that opinion. It will take but a few moments to read it:

"By a long line of decisions, beginning even prior to Leisy vs. Hodman, 135 United States 100, decided April 28, 1890, it has been indisputably determined that beer and other intoxicating liquors are a recognized and legitimate subject of interstate commerce.'

"That decision was rendered by the Supreme Court in the case of the Louisville and Nashville Railroad Co. vs. Cooke Brewing Co., 223 United States, page 70, the decision rendered January 22, 1912.

"So that you have from the highest judicial tribunal in the United States a decision not open to criticism or question, that this industry is a legitimate branch of commerce which has been recognized as such ever since this has been a country.

"Now, you have, as I have said, this hundred million dollars worth of property in Illinois. Not constructed yesterday, but the result of growth or development! And by the way, that industry is the seventh in size in the State of Illinois in investment and in the number of its employes. But that isn't all. These properties have paid annually, in the shape of direct taxation and license fees, to the State of Illinois and its political subdivisions, approximately $15,000,000 per year, in taxes and license fees. And in addition these industries have paid to the United States Government-I mean the industries in Illinois, during the fiscal year ending June 30, 1914-during one year-over $49,000,000 in internal revenue. So that these properties have yielded to the Federal Government, to the State of Illinois and its political subdivisions, $65,000,000 per year, approximately. During the last fifty years, or practically since the adoption of the last Constitution of Illinois in 1870, there has been paid in taxes, license fees and internal revenue assessments in the State of Illinois the sum of $3,000,000,000. Now, I am not dealing in fanciful figures, I am dealing in facts, and I would be the last one to assume that in ten, or twenty, or thirty minutes I could, from this hallowed platform, give you some mythical information and have you find out from other parties and other places that Mr. Mayer had misled you. I would accomplish nothing from this, let alone the unprincipled character of such an action.

A LEGALIZED, LICENSED INDUSTRY

"You have, then, this business of legitimate commerce, a legalized, authorized, licensed enterprise, employing, directly or indirectly, including those dependent upon the wages, 100,000 persons in Illinois, paying $15,000,000 to $16,000,000 per year in annual taxes, in the State, $49,000,000 to the Federal Government annually, or $3,000,000,000 in less than the last fifty years. Are those interests, are those persons whether they be brewers, the distillers, the coopers, the bottle-makers, the wagon-makers, the harness-makers, the wholesalers or the retailers, distributing malt and vinous liquors, are those human beings to be denied human rights? Keep in mind always that I am not discussing the wisdom of legislating for or against this business. I am simply appealing to that innate sense that underlies the rugged, fundamental part of human American existence, which rebels at the proposition that properties can be confiscated without adequate compensation."

Mr. Mayer pointed out that the Bill which was before the Committee was extremely conservative. It did not include the right to recover for loss of buildings or loss of property or loss of good will. It merely allowed the recovery of compensation for the damage done to, or loss suffered by the actual depredation of the property of the owner.

Mr. Mayer continued:

"I want to be understood not as appearing here merely for vested corporate rights, but I speak from a platform where I wish to be understood as saying that I do rebel at the contemplated thought that there can be the custom of confiscation of property, whether it belongs to the saloon keeper, the brewer, or the distiller, the druggist, the razor maker, or the rifle maker, or pawnshop keeper, I care not what. His property is as a sacred right to him. It has been built up under the guidance, under the protection which he has learned to breathe as a part of American life.

NO EXCUSE FOR WITHHOLDING INDEMNITY

"Now, why should this right be denied? The law that allows the railroad to build its track in the street in front of your cottage,

or your palace, requires that railroad to pay you the damage done to your property. The man who enters your home and injures your wall clock is compelled to compensate you for the damage he has done. Are the people of the State of Illinois, in their collective capacity, to be justified or excused from doing that which the law compels a private individual to, or a railroad company to do? If so, why? Where do you find moral justification? Where do you find any excuse for permitting this destruction of property, this confiscation without adequate compensation? There has been no decision anywhere (and again I say to you that I speak with deliberation, because to mislead you would accomplish no purpose), there has never been a decision by any court anywhere that a legislature or a sovereign State cannot provide or should not provide for just compensation for property injured, damaged or destroyed as the result of anti-saloon legislation or prohibition legislation. Why should you want to put the United States on a lower level, gauged by the standpoint of justice and right, on a lower level than has been taken by any other country in the world?"

At this point Mr. Mayer gave a summary of compensation laws put in force by various European and other governments, notably in France, Switzerland, Great Britain and the Province of Quebec. Of Russia, Mr. Mayer said:

"You have read the story of the wave of prohibition in Russia, the growth of the vodka prohibition, which has been heralded a great deal in this country. Do you know that in not a single instance did the Russian government deprive anybody of property, whether in property or in vodka? Every vodka shop in Russia belonged to the government, was as much a part of Russian sovereignty as a Russian battleship in the Baltic or Black Sea. In every country where it has been attempted to restrict the sale, consumption and distribution of intoxicating liquors, the government has tendered compensation. This I say again, knowing that a misstatement would be more serious to the cause for which I am speaking than it could possibly help.'

THE ALCOHOL PROBLEM AND MODERN MEDICINE

At the recent meeting of the American Public Health Association the president of the Association, Prof. William T. Sedgwick, in his address named the alcohol problem as one in which the Public Health Association had failed to measure up to expectation. The reason for this failure is very evident to all who look at the problem scientifically and without sentiment or bias. The same test that has been applied to other problems of this kind has failed when applied to the alcohol problem, because of a preconceived opinion, personal aggrandizement, or commercial gain of those to whom the scientific findings were presented. Nothing was accepted as truth by many unless it confirmed their firmly held belief as to the action of alcohol when taken into the system. The most trustworthy and reliable scientific findings meant nothing to a large body of partisans on both sides. The result has been that the true position of alcohol as a problem in medical science has been largely lost.

To-day a greater barrier to its solution is developing, namely, the action of public health departments in making it one of their problems. These boards are frequently composed of lay persons and sanitarians not trained in medicine and knowing nothing of alcohol in its relation to personal health and human life. Their knowledge is based wholly on experiments on animals, or on statistical data of one sort or another. Medical science is now prepared to show how unreliable these two sources are in solving this problem. We shall see that modern medicine is in direct variance with both or many of the most commonly accepted essential facts. The alcohol problem can not be separated from medical science. Its importance as a social or economic or industrial or moral problem is directly in proportion to the action of alcohol for good or for bad upon the health, happiness and life of the individual. It is not simply a community health problem but primarily one of individual health wholly. Public health officials therefore can find little to