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."