The demobilization of the military forces of the country has progressed to such a point that it seems to me entirely safe now to remove the ban upon the manufacture and sale of wines and beers, but I am advised that without further legislation I have not the legal authority to remove the present restrictions. I therefore recommend that the Act approved November 21, 1918, entitled "an Act to enable the Secretary of Agriculture to carry out, during the fiscal year ending June 30, 1919, the purposes of the Act, entitled 'An Act to provide further for the national security and defense by stimulating agriculture and facilitating the distribution of agricultural products, and for other purposes,' be amended and repealed in so far as it applies to wines and beers."
Congress refused to act upon the President's recommendation.
Under date of June 27, 1919, I sent the following cable to the President:
There are only four days left until nation-wide prohibition becomes effective and the country will go on a whiskey basis unless you act to suspend it. Everything that has happened in the last few weeks confirms the views I expressed to you in May excepting that added force has been given to every argument made, especially by the action of the American Federation of Labour whose membership almost unanimously voted at its convention for lifting the ban. The action of Canada in lifting the ban is regarded by the country as significant. Workingmen and common people all over the country cannot understand why light wines and beer cannot be permitted until the Constitutional amendment becomes effective. Only this week the Pennsylvania Legislature voted to legalize two and three-quarters per cent, beer and light wines. Similar action will follow in other states. The consensus of opinion in the press is that if prohibition is to be effective, it might better be by action of three quarters of the states rather than by Presidential proclamation for which you alone and our party would bear the responsibility. The prohibitionists in Congress are fearful that the enforcement of wartime prohibition will cause a harmful reaction on real prohibition, and I believe that they are secretly in favour of your lifting the ban for this reason. Demobilization figures officially announced by the War Department show that the number of troops now remaining in service is practically only the number of troops in the Regular Army. Samuel Gompers, Mary Roberts Rinehart, Mrs. Douglass Robinson, sister of the late Theodore Roosevelt, Miss Gertrude Atherton, Frank S. Goodnow, president of Johns Hopkins University, and Cardinal Gibbons out in strong statement favouring retention of beer and light wines. If you do not intend to lift the ban on July first, you can announce your intention to suspend it as soon as the War Department notifies you demobilization is accomplished which, the best opinion says, will be August first. The feeling all over the country is one of harmful uncertainty and I strongly recommend that a definite announcement, of some nature which will clear the atmosphere, be made.
TUMULTY.
On June 28, 1919, I again cabled the President, as follows:
The White House, Washington,
28 June, 1919.
THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES,
Paris.
Received your message saying that you do not intend to lift the ban. The Republicans have been industriously spreading the story throughout the country that you in fact have power under the Act of November 21, 1918, to lift the ban. I think it important, wise, and politic, therefore, for you to make a statement which we can issue from the White House along the following lines: Quote I am convinced that I have no legal power at this time in the matter of the ban of liquor. Under the Act of November 21, 1918, my power to take action is restricted. The Act provides that after June 30, 1919, until the conclusion of the present war and thereafter until the termination of demobilization, the date of which shall be determined and proclaimed by the President, it shall be unlawful, etc. This law does not specify that the ban shall be lifted with the signing of peace but with the termination of the demobilization of the troops, and I cannot say that that has been accomplished. My information from the War Department is that there are still a million men in the service under the emergency call. It is clear, therefore, that the failure of Congress to act upon the suggestion contained in my message of the 20th of May, 1919, asking for a repeal of the Act of November 21, 1918, so far as it applies to wines and beers, makes it impossible to act in this matter at this time. Of course when demobilization is terminated, my power to act without congressional action will be exercised End quote.