CONTENTS. Mr. James Cannon, jr.. Miss Anna A. Gordon, of Evanston, Ill.. Mrs. M. D. Ellis, of Washington, D. C.. Mr. William H. Anderson... Mrs. Frances P. Parks, of Evanston, Ill. Mrs. H. M. Hoge, of Lincoln, Va.. Prof. Charles Scanlon, of Pittsburgh, Pa.. Mrs. K. L. Stevenson, of Boston, Mass. Mr. H. T. Laughbaum. Miss Helen Hood. Mr. A. J. Davis. Mr. W. C. Shupp.. Mrs. Silena M. Holman, of Fayetteville, Tenn. Mrs. Frances E. Beauchamp, of Lexington, Ky. Mrs. Lena Messick, of Bridgeville, Del. Rev. R. L. Davis.. Rev. T. N. Hare.. Mr. H. H. Spooner.. Rev. S. E. Nicholson.. Mr. C. S. Longacre, of Washington, D. C.. Mr. S. B. Horton.. Page. 4, 19 8 III COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY, HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, The committee this day met, Hon. Henry D. Clayton (chairman) presiding. The CHAIRMAN. Gentlemen, this is the regular meeting day for the committee, and we have quite a number of matters to consider. While we are considering bills relating to trust regulation and various features of the trust problem, Capt. Hobson has asked me and several members of the committee that he be allowed to appear here to-day, with other advocates and friends of the measure which he has introduced, House joint resolution 168, and make some remarks in its behalf. The committee will hear him with great pleasure. (The resolution under consideration is as follows:) [H. J. Res. 168, Sixty-third Congress, second session.] JOINT RESOLUTION Proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States. Whereas exact scientific research has demonstrated that alcohol is a narcotic poison destructive and degenerating to the human organism, and that its distribution as a beverage or contained in foods lays a staggering economic burden upon the shoulders of the people, lowers to an appalling degree the average standard of character of our citizenship, thereby undermining the public morals and the foundation of free institutions, produces widespread crime, pauperism, and insanity, inflicts disease and untimely death upon hundreds of thousands of citizens and blights with degeneracy their children unborn, threatening the future integrity and the very life of the Nation: Therefore be it Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled (two-thirds of each House concurring therein), That the following amendment of the Constitution be, and hereby is, proposed to the States, to become valid as a part of the Constitution when ratified by the legislatures of the several States as provided by the Constitution. 3 "ARTICLE "SECTION 1. The sale, manufacture for sale, transportation for sale, importation for sale, and exportation for sale of intoxicating liquors for beverage purposes in the United States and all territory subject to the jurisdiction thereof are forever prohibited. "SEC. 2. Congress shall have power to provide for the manufacture, sale, importation, and transportation of intoxicating liquors for sacramental, medicinal, mechanical, pharmaceutical, or scientific purposes, or for use in the arts, and shall have power to enforce this article by all needful legislation." STATEMENT OF HON. RICHMOND P. HOBSON, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF ALABAMA. Mr. HOBSON. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, yesterday there was a meeting of a committee of 1,000, the members of which came from all parts of the Union. This committee of 1,000, I may mention, was authorized to be appointed by the National Antisaloon League convention which convened at Columbus, Ohio, the second week in November. A committee of the National Woman's Christian Temperance Union joined them yesterday to petition Congress. They assembled in the exercise of their constitutional right to meet and petition the Congress for redress of grievances and requested Senator Sheppard, on the part of the Senate, and myself, on the part of the House, to introduce a joint resolution, which is here now as House joint resolution 168. I have taken the liberty of requesting the indulgence of the committee to permit the official beginning of the hearings on that resolution to-day, not for the purpose of extending those hearings in any way whatsoever, but in order to have the courtesy of the full committee to permit the hearings to be opened to-day while the officers are here in Washington, preparing the way for further hearings to be held by the subcommittee to which this resolution is soon to be referred. Mr. Chairman, I shall beg indulgence for five minutes myself to make a very brief statement. I wish to say that I took great pleasure in accepting the honor of introducing this House joint resolution, not only because it was done in the order in which the Constitution provides that petitions shall be made to Congress, but also because I am in full sympathy with the purposes of the resolution. These investigations that I have had the opportunity to make have convinced me that the disease growing out of the use of alcohol by the human race is an organic disease, that it grew out of and is perpetuated out of the nature of alcohol and its relations to the human organism, and has been due partly to the fact that humanity has not understood the nature of alcohol and its effects upon the human organism, and that the full truth upon that subject will convince humanity, rational beings, that the use is not rational, and that it is in its present form really a great organic disease with which humanity has been struggling for many generations in an opportunity to throw it off, and has yet been unable to do so. Now, I will not enter into that discussion further, but, in the course of the hearings, men will appear here-authorities on that subject-who will demonstrate to the satisfaction of the committee, I am sure, and to the satisfaction of Congress, and to the satisfaction of the American people, or at least those who will take the pains to look into the hearings, first, that alcohol is a toxin, a waste prod |