Chapter 17

MILLIONS EXPENDED IN CORRUPTING ELECTIONS

UNITED STATES BREWERS' ASSOCIATION EXPOSED

I have also many times urged the brewers to break away from their national organization, the United States Brewers' Association--also known as the Brewers Trust--because I felt convinced that they would sooner or later lay themselves open to exposure and criminal prosecution, and that it would further increase the hostility toward their industry if they should persist in their attempts to defeat the prohibition movement by the expenditure of money in corrupting elections, legislation and public officials.

Political contributions amounting to many millions of dollars, based upon the annual output of brewers throughout the country, are turned into their association.

Other enormous sums are collected from those who sell to brewers. They are expected to join a "league of manufacturers and dealers" organized to fight prohibition. From invoices rendered to brewers for goods purchased a certain amount is retained.

Officials of the United States Brewers' Association declare that checkbooks, bank passbooks, checks, stubs and correspondence are destroyed monthly, and that the only record left is the money the association has in bank.

That my warnings were justified was amply proven when, not long ago, the large brewing companies in the state of Texas were indicted charging them with the distribution of many millions of dollars to promote anti-prohibition legislation and the payment of the poll taxes of thousands of persons so that they could vote against prohibition. All of these breweries except one pleaded guilty to the charges against them and paid penalties aggregating $276,000, also expenses incurred by the Attorney General's office, totaling about $10,000, and the court costs, and they accepted an injunction restraining them from violating the state anti-trust laws and contributing to political campaigns in the future.

One hundred large brewing companies in the State of Pennsylvania, and officers of the United States Brewers' Association, were indicted by a Federal Grand Jury, charging conspiracy in the unlawful expenditure of money to influence elections at which votes for federal officials were cast.

The office of the United States Brewers' Association in the City of New York was raided and its files were seized. The secretary of the association was committed to jail.

It was alleged that these brewers raised and spent a fund exceeding $1,000,000, to influence the election of a United States senator and thirty-six members of the lower House of Congress and to pervert to selfish and sordid purposes the government of the nation.

The United States Attorney charged in court that these brewers had boasted in their circulars of their ability to poison the ranks of organized labor through labor unions, to kill at one session of Congress two hundred bills inimical to the liquor interests, and to capture entire states at elections.

Fines aggregating $50,000 were imposed upon thirty-three of these brewing companies. The United States Brewers' Association was fined $10,000--the maximum amount possible under the Federal law.

Federal authorities have hinted at a nation-wide traffic in election corruption. Intimations have come from the same source that similar indictments may be handed down against brewers in all parts of the country.

But even the scandalous exposures in Texas and Pennsylvania will not stop their interference with elections.

The truth is that the very nature of the business of the brewers makes it imperative that they retain a strong hold on the ballot box. By those methods alone have they been able to exist in the past. By those methods alone can they hope to save themselves.

In New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, the mere suggestion to keepers of saloons, hotels and other places where liquor is sold that the "dry" wave may soon put them out of business usually brings forth the reply: "Our state will never go 'dry.' The brewers have too much money. They can buy all the votes required, as well as public officials, to kill any legislation hostile to them."