AFTER RECESS

The committee met, pursuant to the taking of a recess, at 2 o'clock p. m.

Mr. HERSEY. The committee will be in order.

Mr. WHEELER. Mr. Chairman, if it please the committee, Bishop Nicholson, chairman of the delegation that has been sent here from the Methodist General Conference, and his committee, representing various sections of the country, will have to return as soon as possible. I wish the committee could hear Bishop Nicholson and that committee at this time.

Mr. HERSEY. I think that is the understanding.

STATEMENT OF BISHOP THOMAS NICHOLSON, CHICAGO, ILL.

Mr. HERSEY. Whom do you represent?

Bishop NICHOLSON. My name is Thomas Nicholson, and I am the resident Methodist bishop in Chicago. I come with four associates here at the special behest of the General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church. The General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church is a representative body which meets only once in four years. It is now in its quadrennial session in the city of Springfield, Mass. That body has a delegated representation from all of this country and from several of the other countries of the world. Its total membership is a little over 850.

Now, I am perfectly aware that sometimes these organizations come before you and their representatives say they represent so-and-so, when it is frequently the fact that what they represent or what they say has not been actually voted upon by a representative group. I beg you to understand that what we are presenting to-day has been definitely voted upon by that representative body.

Mr. FOSTER. That has been quite recently, has it not?

Bishop NICHOLSON. I hold in my hand a copy of the official record of their proceedings at the last writing, and I am going to ask the privilege of filing this with your committee, because on page 31 it has a resolution which was actually presented to that body and voted upon. I will read only two brief paragraphs of the resolution which I will file with you. [Reading:]

At this moment the Judiciary Committee of the House of Representatives in Congress has under consideration the Volstead act and several bills, which have been introduced seeking to change the act, by permitting the sale of wine and beer containing 2.75 per cent of alcohol by weight.

Further down it says [reading]:

* * * Believing in the language of the Supreme Court of the United States that "Congress has power, when it undertakes to suppress what it is free to regard as a public evil, to adopt such measures having reasonable relation to that end, as it may be necessary in order to make its action effective," we urge Congress not to permit any change in the percentage of alcohol allowed, in a liquor, as prescribed by the Volstead Act, believing that such a change would not only be in violation of the eighteenth amendment itself but would also render more difficult the enforcement of law.

Mr. Chairman, I quote that in order that there may be no misunderstanding as to what this body voted on. The clear-cut issue which has been stated here several times was before the body. was taken up at the very first session.

This

This body of which I am speaking is composed one-half of clergymen and one-half of laymen. Among the 425 laymen are governors of States, lawyers, business men, judges, men prominent in public life in every State of the Union. They are intelligent men. In addition, there are one-half as many reserve delegates. Those, of course, were not all present, but I have persuaded myself that their sentiment is the same as this. This resolution was not only adopted unanimously but by a rising vote, and in addition there are 42 bishops of the church who were upon the platform. They are there in an advisory capacity, and do not vote. In addition, there were other persons present, to the number of about a thousand, and that was the unanimous vote, characterized in its passage by the greatest enthusiasm.

Mr. FOSTER. This resolution is less than a week old?

Bishop NICHOLSON. It was adopted on Friday morning of last week.

Mr. DYER. At the present conference at Springfield?
Bishop NICHOLSON. Yes.

I wish to call your attention to another thing. The first resolution said, "It is directed that copies of these resolutions be forwarded to the Speaker of the House of Representatives and to the chairman of the Judiciary Committee having the bills in charge." That was in the resolution. Now, the sentiment of house was so keen and so intense on this question that, when the amendment was offered, instead of waiting to send these resolutions to the Speaker and to the chairman of this committee, it was voted that a delegation should be appointed to bring them in person. The delegation consists of two bishops-I shall introduce my colleagues to you-and three other representatives of that conference.

Mr. FOSTER. Might you read into the record the names of the members of that committee now?

Bishop NICHOLSON. The committee consists of Bishop A. W. Leonard, who is the resident bishop in San Francisco, Calif. His home is actually in Berkeley, but his official residence and office are at San Francisco. Then, there is Dr. Clarence True Wilson, who is the head of our temperance prohibition organization, who has his office here in this city, but who legally represents the State of Oregon and the Oregon conference. He really belongs to the Pacific coast and comes representing the Pacific coast. Then there are Judge Charles A. Pollock, of North Dakota, and Mr. Van Benschoten, an attorney from the city of New York.

Now, it is not my purpose to make a speech-I want to introduce these gentlemen-further than to call your attention to this. The Methodist Episcopal Church has about 4,600,000 members. It has just a few hundred under 5,000,000 in its Sunday Schools. I have been in a good many of the conferences of our church, and I wish to say to you that so far as my observation goes the unanimity with which this general conference adopted this resolution characterizes what has been done in individual conferences, I come from Illinois, and the Rock River conference in Illinois is one of the largest. Similar resolutions were adopted by it in October with just as great unanimity as this was adopted by our general conference here. So with the other conferences which I represent.

I would like to call attention to still another thing. Yesterday we had a memorable scene at this general conference. We planned the union of our branch of the Methodist Church with the Methodist Episcopal Church South, the latter body representing 2,500,000 members. Our body adopted that plan of unification and, while I am not authorized to speak for the Southern Methodist Church, the fraternal delegate of that church, on the evening before, speaking on that resolution, ventured to say that the prohibition sentiment and the law-enforcement sentiment of that church was just as strong as any he had seen manifested in our own body. I believe, in that sense, that I represent the united sentiment of our church, and the two bodies represent 7,000,000 or 8,000,000 actual communicants and about as many more Sunday-school scholars, a general constituency of about 20,000,000 people.

Now, Mr. Chairman, I will trespass on your time further to say only one more thing and give a single illustration. Why is there such unanimity of sentiment in this large body of representative organizations? Because we believe that the eighteenth amendment to the Constitution was put into the Constitution after long discussion and after the most thorough legal procedure, and that it is there by the vote of the vast majority of the people. It represents the minds of the vast majority of the citizens of this Republic. Secondly, we believe that the Constitution was never intended to enforce itself, and that in a case like this, if the Constitution is going to be valid, it must have proper laws for its enforcement. We think that whenever individuals or groups of individuals undertake to weaken the enforcement laws they provide for more or less of nullification, and we are not nullificationists. In the third place, we believe that the present prohibition law is of inestimable benefit to the citizenship of the Republic.

About two months ago I had an engagement down State, in my State, in the vicinity of the city of Danville. The city of Danville is well known here in Washington as the home of former Speaker Cannon. I was going to a little town known as Westville. That is a mining town. It is the center of one of the greatest of the United States Steel Corporation's mines. It is one of the finest mines in my State. A gentlemen by the name of Mr. Spang, who is proprietor of the elevator and a director of banks, a leading business man in the town which is 2 or 3 miles farther on, originally owned the property on which Westville is located and he took me in his car over to the place where I was to go. As we rode by he said, "I will show you what prohibition is doing in our State. He said, "This town of Westfield had the reputation of being one of the worst rum holes in the State of Illinois five years ago." He told me that there were 55 saloons in that town of 3,000 people, and that there was a brewery that did a business of $100,000 a month. "Now," he said, "we had to do with the selling of this property around here. At that time, if the families here undertook to own their homes, they would make little payments on them and ultimately they would come back to us. That was before prohibition came into effect. Now, do you see all these new homes there?" I was right in the midst of new houses costing, I guess, $6,000, $8,000, and $10,000. "Now," he said, "there is hardly a family in this town that does not either own its house or have the payments well along toward completion. We

have no saloons; the brewery is out of business; it is closed up and gone. The town has grown more than 25 per cent in the four years, from 3,000 to 4,341, the official statistics of today. And I mean to say to you, as a director of the bank, that these people have over $400,000 in that savings bank across the street."

Now, gentlemen, we see these beneficial effects on every hand in our territory. I am familiar with them. I appoint 1,500 Methodist preachers each year. I have known of these facts, because I go into these communities. That represents what I saw of the benefits of prohibition, and it is because of these facts that these men who come from all parts of the country, feel so tremendously in earnest that they have asked five of us to leave our official duties and to come down here all the way from Springfield to Washington to make this presentation to you.

Now, Mr. Chairman, I would like to introduce my colleague from California

Mr. PERLMAN (interposing). Are you connected with the AntiSaloon League?

Bishop NICHOLSON. I am.

Mr. PERLMAN. Are you an officer?

Bishop NICHOLSON. I am the president of the Anti-Saloon League of America.

Mr. PERLMAN. You get a salary?

Bishop NICHOLSON. No, sir; I pay my own expenses while I travel.

Mr. FOSTER. We have heard various statements as to the salary of Mr. Wheeler. What is his annual compensation?

Bishop NICHOLSON. I will answer that question by an illustration which I gave in this city a while ago. A friend of mine was walking along the street and pointed out to me some of these electric signs, and called my attention to the fact that a friend of his had recently completed a contract with one of the big firms for electric signs for $1,000,000 a year for three years and had gotten a 7 per cent commission out of it, or $210,000. He saw the check; and I said what I think can be substantiated that that check represents more money for a single contract than Mr. Wheeler has received in all his 30 years' service as an officer of the Antisaloon League.

Mr. PERLMAN. What is his salary?

Bishop NICHOLSON. The salary was originally $5,000. That was the limit for salary approved by the Anti-Saloon League. At the last meeting of the executive committee the offices of attorney and legislative superintendent were combined and a committee was appointed to adjust that salary. I am not sure what they did.

Mr. WHEELER. $666 a month.

Bishop NICHOLSON. The committee has never reported it in my hearing since.

Mr. PERLMAN. And how much is given for his office expenses? Mr. DYER. The chair will suggest to the committee that he does not think this is important.

Mr. FOSTER. In that connection one witness who is asking for these bills voluntarily stated that your Anti-Saloon League had spent $32,000,000, not mentioning what period of time it covered and what States nor anything of that kind. I do not know anything more material than to have from you, as the successor of Doctor Baker, a

statement to this committee of Congress showing what period of time that covered and the nature of the work.

Bishop NICHOLSON. Mr. Chairman, I did not come with the intention of defending the Anti-Saloon League. However, I am perfectly willing to answer these questions.

May I say that you are in error in thinking of myself as the successor to Doctor Baker. Doctor Baker was the general superintendent, and his successor is Mr. Scott McBride, who has been the State superintendent until recently. He is a paid officer and receives I suppose his salary will be fixed at $6,000. It had not been fixed the other day when I left the executive committee. I am entirely a voluntary worker. I am simply serving as president and preside at the meetings. I never have received one penny of compensation in any way. Most of the time I travel at my own expense. Mr. PERLMAN. Was Mr. Anderson, of New York, an officer of the Anti-Saloon League?

Bishop NICHOLSON. I do not have any occasion to discuss the Anderson question.

Mr. PERLMAN. Answer my question, please. Was he a member of the Anti-Saloon League?

Bishop NICHOLSON. He was a member.

Mr. PERLMAN. Was he an officer?

Bishop NICHOLSON. He was.

He is not now.

Mr. PERLMAN. Is the Anti-Saloon League financing the legal fight now being made in his behalf?

Bishop NICHOLSON. Not so far as I know.

Mr. PERLMAN. Have you any information on the subject at all? Bishop NICHOLSON. No, sir.

Mr. PERLMAN. Didn't the Anti-Saloon League pass a solution commending Mr. Anderson after his conviction?

Mr. MICHENER. This is entirely irrelevant and immaterial. We all know that Mr. Wheeler earns his money, whatever salary he may get.

Mr. DYER. The Chair undertook to state to the committee that they were going far afield and asked that we might proceed in order. Bishop NICHOLSON. So far as I know, there never was any such sum raised for the Anti-Saloon League, and no such expenditures have been made.

Mr. PERLMAN. Just before the bishop retires I want to ask just a question or two.

Mr. DYER. A member of the committee desires to ask a question. The Chair can not know what it is in advance.

Mr. PERLMAN. Have any of the officers or employees of the AntiSaloon League in the past been charged with violation of the eighteenth amendment and the Volstead law?

Mr. SUMNERS. I respectfully object to that question and that line of inquiry. My reason ought to be prefectly apparent. These gentlemen are here to assist us in determining whether or not one of the bills providing for a content of 2.75 per cent alcohol ought to be favorably reported by this committee. Now, with due respect to everybody, I want to suggest to my colleague that he must recognize that that line of inquiry is not calculated to inform this committee or the gentleman himself as to what he or the committee ought to do with reference to this proposed legislation.