on the Mayflower was getting very low, and there was a very natural desire among them to replenish their stock of this very healthful beverage.

The records show that the first public brewery was established in Massachusetts in 1637, and the importance of the industry had become sufficiently recognized by 1739, so that the Legislature of that year enacted a law to encourage the manufacture of strong beer, ale, and other malt liquors. I wish I might say all succeeding Legislatures had entertained as strong a feeling of fairness and had appreciated as fully the importance of this industry as did that particular Legislature, but unfortunately such is not the fact. Nevertheless, in spite of the handicaps that have been placed upon the industry, it has prospered in this State, until now it is represented by forty well-equipped breweries, with an output of about two and one-half million barrels annually.

It is on behalf of the owners and managers of those breweries, gentlemen, I welcome you here today. I hope your stay among us will be a pleasant one, and I pledge you our best efforts to that end. We hope this, the Fifty-second Annual Convention of our organization, will be a complete success. We are glad you have come to us this year, that you have come to us during the administration of that able and honorable gentleman who is now serving you as President and who has been so true to the highest standards and finest ideals and best traditions of our industry. And the members of our organization, Colonel Ruppert, desire me to extend a personal welcome to you and to say to you that they hope your stay among us will be very pleasant and that this Convention which you are about to open and over which you are to preside will be a red-letter one in the history of our association.

Gentlemen, it gives me pleasure to introduce Colonel Ruppert. (Applause.)

PRESIDENT RUPPERT'S ADDRESS.

THE PRESIDENT:-Gentlemen, you heard the Mayor a few minutes ago when he was kind enough to hand me the keys of the city, and I now take pleasure in turning them over to the members of the United States Brewers' Association. In giving you these keys I hope they will open many avenues of enjoyment to you while here in the city, but that you will take the advice of the Mayor and be in bed by eleven o'clock. (Laughter and applause.)

This is the third time in the fifty-two years' history of the United States Brewers' Association, that its annual convention has been held in Boston. Our previous Boston conventions were held in Horticultural Hall. The first meeting in 1874 was made notable by the address of Mr. H. Clausen, who served this association as its President from 1866 to 1874, inclusive. At the Boston meeting of 1874, Mr. Henry H. Rueter was elected President and served until 1880. We, of a younger generation of brewers, are deeply sensible of the debt that we owe to men like Clausen and Rueter for the standards they set and the service they rendered to our industry, and I for one am proud to be enrolled among their successors. As Mr. Rueter said in 1874: "Gentlemen, I trust you all, as brewers, feel within you the same grateful conviction which I feel, that we are the mainstay of rational and practical temperance wherever we provide for the people the mild and wholesome beverage on which alone such rational and practical temperance can be maintained. The small voice within has never yet reproached me as to my calling." (Applause.)

Since our first visit here in 1874, Massachusetts has buried Prohibition under an avalanche of votes, and Vermont, New Hampshire and Rhode Island have each repudiated it, while in Maine the people have reversed their verdict, as was clearly shown at the election last year, when a previous Prohibition majority of 44,000 was reduced to a bare majority of a few hundred, which was only obtained by a questionable alliance between the Prohibitionists and the men engaged in the illicit sale of liquor.

In 1874, the total beer output of the United States was only 9,600,897 barrels. During the eighteen years that elapsed before our next visit in 1892, the output had grown to 31,817,836 barrels, while in the twenty years that have gone by since 1892, the annual output has increased to over 63,000,000 barrels. Between 1870 and 1910, the population of the United States increased 300 per cent., while during the same period the consumption of beer by the people of the United States increased 700 per cent.

ADVERSE TRADE CONDITIONS.

The brewing industry has passed through many trials and tribulations of various sorts in this country, but I believe that never before have the elements conspired against us so completely as they have during the past fiscal year. Barley, hops, rice and

corn have all commanded famine prices, while the cost of labor has also risen about 10%. It may be estimated that the producing cost of beer has increased fully $1.00 per barrel, which is a good deal more than the average net profit per barrel in the brewing industry, under normal conditions.

There are a number of causes that have contributed to the high price of raw materials. First of all, the increased consumption due to the natural development of commercial prosperity and the growth of population. Second, the fact that the production per acre has decreased, owing to the exhaustion of the soil, lack of scientific crop rotation, and the exploitation of the land by farmers. The latest census data indicate that something like one-third of the farms in the principal agricultural States are now occupied by renters. Fourth, the organization of farmers themselves for the restriction of output, improvement of marketing facilities, and of means for gathering statistical information.

With regard to the brewing industry in particular, it is possible that the prohibition agitation has had some influence in discouraging the producers of hops and barley, but still more important perhaps is the displacement caused by the growth of the dairy business in the East, and of fruit growing in the West.

In view of the steady increase in the beer business and the fact that the consumption of hops and barley has so nearly overtaken the production, the United States Brewers' Association has taken up the question of crop improvement with the aim of improving the quality, increasing the territory under cultivation and gathering reliable information as to the relation of supply and demand for the benefit of both producers and consumers. The report of our Crop Improvement Committee in this connection will be found most interesting.

THE NATIONAL BEVERAGE.

The matter is one which concerns not only the brewing trade, but the general public. It has been clearly shown that beer is the National beverage, and its use is increasing far faster than the population. The light beer made by American brewers appeals to the popular taste and is peculiarly adapted to a nation of moderate drinkers. We must, however, reiterate its good points again and again, after the manner of a successful advertiser, so that everyone may at last understand that beer is from the very

nature of its composition and manufacture, hygienically clean and pure, besides possessing undoubted food value; a light, bright, sparkling, germ-proof and health-giving beverage, which contains only about 3 to 4% of alcohol, is deliciously palatable and without a rival in popular favor. "The introduction of beer in America," says Mr. Henry Watterson, "has done more for temperance than all the temperance societies and all the prohibition laws combined." We are proud to agree with the eloquent and sagacious editor. And if it is true that beer has done so much for true temperance in this country, I ask, why shall we not reckon it as a genuine civilizing force? (Great applause.)

TURNING FROM PROHIBITION.

The reports to be presented by the chairmen of our standing committees will inform you fully as to legislative conditions affecting our industry in the several States. Upon the whole these mark a steady improvement in the public attitude over conditions that prevailed two or three years ago. It is more and more evident that the people are rejecting the extreme nostrum of prohibition and turning to the safe and sane method of license or regulation. In West Virginia and in Colorado an attempt will be made this fall to carry State-wide prohibition, and in each of these States the enemy professes himself confident of victory. But Arkansas has just spoken (applause) in no uncertain tones, and when we consider the recent repeal of prohibition in Alabama after a short and disastrous trial, and the emphatic rejection of prohibition in Texas, Missouri, and other States, we need not be seriously disturbed. No progressive American commonwealth, we may assure ourselves, will take such a step backward or handicap itself with such a body-of-death as prohibition has always proven itself to be. Moreover, with the flagrant example of Maine before them-corrupt, unprogressive, decadent after sixty odd years of prohibition and desperately struggling to shake off the yoke,-West Virginia and Colorado may be relied upon to do their duty. (Applause.)

The activity of our lawmakers is so incessant that all organized bodies have to maintain their watchmen to keep them informed of new measures from day to day, so that, if necessary, steps may be taken to safeguard their interests. Almost every trade, profession or occupation has its particular protective bureau or legisla

tive committee now. The men at the head of all the great railroad and industrial corporations have long ago recognized that their duty both to their stockholders and to the public requires that they should keep in constant touch with legislative affairs. In every State in the Union, as well as in Congress, the labor organizations follow the same custom, and in recent years, doctors, teachers, philanthropists, sportsmen, automobilists and scores of other special classes of men and women have banded themselves together and employed a legislative look-out. The necessity for it is apparent when it is recalled that over 33,300 bills were introduced in Congress alone during the last session. We seem, indeed, to be legislation-mad in this country. Not only are the Federal and State legislative bodies grinding out new laws by the thousands every year, but the local Aldermen and Common Councillors and Municipal Boards of Health are everlastingly at it too. And as

if this were not enough, the people themselves are now being given the power of "direct legislation," under the Initiative and Referendum.

In common with all other great industries, we brewers look forward to that blessed day when we may be able to "keep out of politics." But business to-day is actually waiting on politics, and it is the common talk that there is no hope of a commercial revival until after the November election. For us, however, there is at least this encouragement, that we have fairly won our way to a public hearing upon the merits of our case, and the American people are beginning to realize that there are two sides to the question of Prohibition and County Option, and that the whole license question is more a matter of administration—that is to say, of governmental efficiency, than of morality or religion! It is a healthy sign, and should give us confidence in the fairness of the men and women who constitute the American public, which after all is our "court of last resort." (Applause.)

WORKMEN'S COMPENSATION.

I especially invite your attention, as well as that of the public, to the Report of the Labor Committee on the workmen's compensation matter. The failure of this wise and benevolent plan in the interest of our employees can not be charged to the brewers, who put themselves to considerable pains and expense in order to demonstrate the utility of the plan and bring it before the labor