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Show WHISKEY BASIS BEINHJPPOSED President States His Attitude of the Strong Drink Manufacture Manu-facture Throughout Nation. WASHINGTON, June 5. Administration Adminis-tration opposition to any attempt to stop the manufacture of beer and wine so long as the sale of whiskey is permitted, per-mitted, was made certain today with the announcement that Food Administrator Admin-istrator Hoover opposed such a step,, because he believed the evils attend ant upon putting the nation on a i "whiskey, brandy and gin" basis would far outweight the small food saving? I that would result. President Wilson already had stated in a letter to Senator Sheppard of Texas, Tex-as, prohibition champion and Democratic Demo-cratic membe r of the agriculture com mittee. that he would not use his power pow-er to prohibit the use of foodstuffs in 1 beer and wine unless Mr. Hoover re- carded such a step necessary to the feeding of this country and the allies After the position of the president and the food administration had been i made known, Senator Sheppard and others said the senate would strike from the $11,000,000 emergency agricultural agri-cultural bill a house amendment pro hlbiting the use of some $6000,000 carried by the measure unless manufacture manu-facture of wine and beer wa- stopped by the president. Senator Smith of, j South Carolina, chairman of the agrl cultural committee upon his return to I Washington tonight, said he was in-J in-J clined to oppose the amendment because be-cause a very small proportion of grain : is beinc used in the production of al-jcohollc al-jcohollc liquors since the distilling of ! whiskey was stopped last September Senator Smith said efforts would be I made to have his committee take up ' the bill without delay. Mr Hoover explained his position in a statement made public tonight along With his letter to Senator Sheppard. He said that if "the American people I want prohibition it should prohibit by I legislation to that end and not force the food administration to the responsibility re-sponsibility for an orgy of drunkenness." drunken-ness." Hoover Would Suppress Drinks "As to the discussion over the suppression sup-pression of brewing." said Mr. Hoover's Hoov-er's statement supplementing his letter let-ter to Senator Sheppard, "I wish to say emphatically that from a strictly food conservation point of view I should like to see the use of foodstuffs suppressed sup-pressed in all drinks, hard and soft. "This Is not, however, the whole story' We stopped distilling a year ago. There Is a long supply of whiskey, whis-key, gin and other 20 per cent to 40 per cent distilled drinks in the country. coun-try. We have reduced the consump ! tion of foodstuffs In brewing by 30 per j cent and reduced the alcohol content of beer to 2 per cent. If v.e stop brewing, the saloons of the country will still be open, but confined practically prac-tically to a whiskey and gin basis. Any ! true advocate of temperance and of (national efficiency in these times will I shrink from this situation for the national na-tional danger in it Is greater than the use of 4,000.000 bushels of grain monthly in the breweries. "If the American people want prohibition pro-hibition it should prohibit by leglsla- Hon to that end and not force the food administration to the responsibility for an orgy of drunkenness. It is mighty difficult to get drunk on 2i 'per cent beer; it will be easy enough j if we force a substitution of distilled drinks for it. "The food administration has gone j as far as it can towards temperance without precipitating a worse situation. situa-tion. If the American people or con-1 con-1 gress will stop the sale of distilled liquors the administration will find no difficulty in stopping brewing." In his letter to Senator Sheppard, Mr. Hoover said no effort had been 'made to exercise the authority under the food control act to prohibit the manufacture of wine because "the wines produced In this country are from grapes of which a very small proportion pro-portion are available as table or raising rais-ing grapes and therefore the stoppage of wine making would add no consequential conse-quential amount of food to our national supplies. The conversion of grapes to grape juice instead of wine as suggested, suggest-ed, would add nothing to our national food supplies." oo |