The man, whoever he is, who is privileged or licensed to provide refreshments for the immigrants does not provide that which he should. He has been talked with often about providing milk, and tea, and coffee for the women and children, but as yet he has not done so; and I believe, Senators, something can be done along that line to benefit these immigrants, and we are intensely interested that it should be done.

Senator DILLINGHAM. Does he sell food?

Mrs. ELLIS. Yes, sir.

Senator DILLINGHAM. But he does not furnish tea?

Mrs. ELLIS. He does not furnish tea, or coffee, or milk. There are now two restaurants at Ellis Island where visitors like yourself or myself can get a luncheon with tea, or coffee, or milk, but the immigrants are debarred from getting in there.

Senator PENROSE. Are there any evidences of intoxication to be seen in visiting Ellis Island?

Mrs. ELLIS. Yes; as I said. Father McCaul, the missionary priest, said that young men who arrive in the morning sober are often under the influence of liquor by afternoon. Miss Matthews, who has been a missionary for many years, connected with the Methodist Episcopal Church at Ellis Island, looking after the immigrant girls, told me the same thing, and that it had a most pernicious influence upon girls as well.

You know the very first lesson the immigrants receive from the Government of the United States is that it is a good thing to buy and sell beer. To my mind it is not a marvel that out of the 250,000 saloon keepers in America two-thirds or three-fourths are foreigners. The very first lesson the immigrants receive is from Uncle Sam to sell liquor.

As you say that this committee has nothing to do with Soldiers' Homes, I will only say this on that subject, that I have been at Hampton, have spent days there, and during the day seen men-old menlying on their beds sleeping a drunken sleep, with decent men about them-men who, as Mrs. Thacher has said, want a different companionship than a man emitting the drunken fumes of beer and in the disgusting condition of the drunkard. And yet respectable men have to be there with the drunken men. For the sake of these drunken men it seems to me we might very wisely refuse to permit the sale of liquors. They stand in line hours to get their beer. A few years ago, at Togus, Governor Stevenson, who was a good man, permitted only a certain amount of liquor or beer to be sold to the inmates, and he limited it to 10 barrels of beer a day for the inmates of that Home. That was the "prohibition" of Governor Stevenson.

Mr. CRAFTS. I will now introduce my associate, the field secretary of the International Reform Bureau, Rev. O. R. Miller, who comes from Holyoke, Mass., and will, in intervals of Congress, give especial attention to the New England part of our international constituency. Mr. Miller has just visited Ellis Island, and can speak from experience.

STATEMENT OF REV. 0. R. MILLER.

MI. MILLER. I visited Ellis Island on Friday of last week, and I am here simply to confirm the statements which have already been made. If persons went there as visitors, they might go into the restaurant

and they would find where milk, and tea, and coffee, and soda water are being sold as well as beer. I called for a glass of soda water, which tasted as though it had been out in the sun, and almost made me sick. I have no doubt the beer was ice cold. It looked as if they did not desire to make the soda water popular.

Inside the immigrant station, where the newcomers are detained, of course I saw the women corralled like prisoners behind big wire cages, with the little children hanging to their skirts, eating their lunches with no hot coffee or milk to be had. I was stirred with feelings of sorrow and disappointment and disgust to find Uncle Sam, at the very landing of our immigrants our future citizens-trying to sell everyone who came a glass of beer. I thought what an impression they must get their first impression-of this "Land of the free and the home of the brave."

Such action as that only helps to increase the number of criminals and paupers in our land. Our Government has strict laws, providing that all who have no visible means of support shall be sent back, lest they become paupers and criminals and so a public charge.

See the absurdity of the position which our Government takes. It sends one immigrant back lest he become a pauper. It sells another liquor that he may become a pauper, and thus afterwards a burden upon the taxpayers of our country.

As to Soldiers' Homes, let me say that it was my pleasure yesterday to visit the Soldiers' Home of the Regulars here in our own city of Washington, where there is no liquor selling of any kind. I was all over the grounds and in several of the buildings. I saw large numbers of soldiers and talked with a number of them. I did not see an intoxicated man, nor did I see one who had the least appearance of having been drinking. Of course, I do not say that none of them drink.

Everywhere there I found quiet, contentment, and satisfaction. In the game room many of the soldiers were playing chess, billiards, pool, cards, and other games. I visited the restaurant, where they sold soda water, milk, coffee, and tea, but no intoxicating liquors. Groups of old soldiers were sitting around on the piazzas, on the steps of the different buildings, and under the trees, and the whole scene was a picture of restful ease and contentment.

How different this scene would be if our Government tolerated a liquor-selling canteen there. Drunkenness and attendant evils, which are everywhere in evidence in Soldiers' Homes where the canteen is allowed, would at once appear there.

It is argued, I know, that if the soldiers can not get liquor in the Homes they will go outside to get it, and doubtless some of the soldiers do come to the city for that purpose. But experience everywhere has shown that men will drink more if there is a drinking place near at hand than if they have to go far to get it. This is illustrated in our no-license towns. Liquors may be sold in the next town, yet not half so many people will drink if they have to go to the next town to get it as would do so if it was sold near their own homes and shops. As the old soldiers in the Homes, for the most part, have no employment, but spend their time in idleness, the temptation to drink hard is very great where the canteen is opened in the Home itself. Many who would not often go to town to get a drink continually resort to the convenient bar, where they can ever drink on credit.

Congress has seen fit to provide that at the Home for regulars in this city and for a mile around the Home no liquor should be sold. If the Government finds it right and proper to do that here for a Home to which it never voted a dollar, it has a greater right and obligation to prohibit it in those Homes which are subsidized by large Government appropriations.

Mr. CRAFTS. I am very glad to have with us the secretary of the National Anti-Saloon League, Hon. S. E. Nicholson, of Baltimore, the author of the Indiana Nicholson law, one of the best local-option laws.

STATEMENT OF S. E. NICHOLSON.

The CHAIRMAN. You represent the Anti-Saloon League? Mr. NICHOLSON. Yes, sir; and I am here in a representative capacity and not as an expert witness along any of these lines. First, with reference to the representative character of the organization I am here to represent. It is a national organization, with a legislative department here in Washington. In addition to being secretary I am a member of the legislative committee. We have organizations in almost 40 of the States. We have directly affiliated officially with our national organization more than 250 different religious and reform organizations, including synods and conferences of churches, and the like. I mention this fact because, while it is commonly understood that temperance organizations will ask for temperance measures, it may not be so well known that the various organizations appearing by their officers here to-day represent besides the temperance societies many religious organizations and good-citizenship bodies, embracing practically the great mass of what is usually termed the "good citizenship" of the country. In view of that fact our appeals for this measure must have great weight.

It occurs to me that the question which was asked by the chairman of the committee in the beginning of this hearing constitutes one of the very best reasons why a bill of this sort ought to become a law. I am sure the same query naturally would be asked by the average person who is thinking about this matter: "Are not canteens in old soldiers' Homes as well as in the Army illegal now under the anticanteen law?" But inasmuch as that construction is not put upon it, and inasmuch as the arguments that were put forward for the passage of that bill would largely apply to this bill also, the very similarity of the two cases which prompts the question is one reason why favorable consideration should be given to this measure.

With reference to the application of this bill to the immigrant station we all recognize the fact that America is supposed, and is generally admitted, to represent the very best and the highest class of citizenship and of Christianity in the world. And yet when, by official sanction, or permission at least, of the General Government, those who come to our shores for the first time, many of them seeking better conditions, are met with conditions that are generally admitted by our own people to represent the worst class of society, then certainly their first impressions of American freedom and of American civilization are not of the best character.

I wish to say just a few words as to Soldiers' Homes. It was my good fortune to live for about ten years of my life-up to two and a half years ago-very close to the city of Marion, Ind., which has been referred to as the location of the only Branch of the National Soldiers'

Home that sells no beer to its inmates. I know that that Soldiers' Home is the pride of all that country and of the State of Indiana, which it certainly would not be if there were the saloon or the canteen within it. I know that the governor of the Home has repeatedly tried to get a measure passed that would remove the saloons on the outside from the immediate vicinity of the Home, a thing which certainly would improve the conditions; but the one thing above all others, I am sure, that has contributed to the high standing and high regard that is had for that Home in all that part of the country is the fact that it is recognized as a temperance Home. There are not within the boundaries of the Home, within the grounds, the temptations that lower the standard of morality and of citizenship in general.

I wish to call your attention in connection with that to this fact: It may be said that if the sale of liquor is removed from within the Home as much will be sold anyway; that the soldiers will go outside and get it. I have here the statistics which show that at the Marion, Ind., Home_there was expended in 1900 for supplies at the Home store and I take it for granted the supplies are such as are beneficial to the men $27,694, a larger sum than was spent at any other Home store at any of the Government Homes. With 3,508 less population than the Dayton Home, Marion spent $2,557.30 more for useful articles at the Home store. A like contrast to the other Homes could be shown. For example, in Togus, Me., only $16,000 was spent in the Home store, against $40,000 for beer. Undoubtedly the fact that the old soldiers at Marion could not get beer within the Home accounted for the increased expenditure for articles beneficial to them.

This thought in conclusion: There are undoubtedly a great many old soldiers in these Homes who would be extremely glad to have temptations removed from them. That is the argument advanced as to the young soldier going into the Army. But take the old soldier who has formed an appetite and yet who has not lost every feeling of manhood, and who would be only too glad to be freed from these temptations, but when he is thrown in with them, when his association is where the liquor is being sold, the expenditures for beer show that they do go in great numbers and spend their money for drink. Certainly the United States Government can do no less in helping to make decent the closing days of these old soldiers, who have given their lives to the Government, than to remove these inside temptations from them. For these reasons, and for other reasons that have been given, the organization I am here to represent respectfully asks favorable consideration of this measure.

Mr. CRAFTS. Here we will introduce the statement of Joshua L. Baily, president of the National Temperance Society, who has visited and studied all the Branches of the National Soldiers' Home, except the Pacific coast Branch. He finds the buildings and grounds in each case attractive and well kept, and the Homes well managed except in two respects: First, the idleness of the men, many of whom are abundantly able to work, and would be healthier and happier if regularly employed, is condemned; second, the beer canteens.

STATEMENT OF JOSHUA L. BAILY.

Dayton.-One important building not yet described is the beer hall, or canteen-a one-story structure measuring about 40 by 120 feet. Excepting as to a small room at one end, the building is one apart

ment. Extending nearly the whole length of the interior is the bar, elliptical in form, the bartenders occupying the center, their customers being around on the outside. At one end is the cashier's desk, where tickets are sold at 5 cents each, each ticket entitling the purchaser to one mug of beer. There is no restriction on the number of tickets a soldier may buy, and purchases of ten and even twenty at a time are frequently made. The sales are for cash only. No one can buy on credit. Four bartenders are constantly employed. The hall is open from 7 o'clock a. m. to 5 o'clock p. m., excepting during the interval for dinner. The beer comes up through pipes from barrels in a cold cellar below, and the flow is constant while the hall is open. I visited this barroom on two occasions and at different hours, each time finding it thronged with drinkers. I judged there were as many as 200 soldiers present on each day, and a nearly continuous line was kept up, going in at the door at one and coming out at the other end, and often only again to join the line to go in for another draft.

At my second visit I was at the Home early enough to be present at the guardhouse, where court is held at 8 o'clock every morning, and those who have been arrested for misdemeanors committed on the day preceding are arraigned for trial. The governor of the Home, Col. J. B. Thomas, sat as judge or committing magistrate. Strangers are not usually permitted to be present, but the governor, learning my object, couteously accorded me the privilege. Nineteen men were arraigned—17 of them either for being drunk or for bringing intoxicating liquors onto the premises. The charges were preferred by the officers by whom the arrests had been made. One was confronted by a quart bottle of whisky which he was trying to smuggle under his coat. One poor fellow was brought in with his head tied up with bandages. He had fallen on the edge of a stone step as he was entering the gateway. He owned that he "would not have fallen only that he was drunk. Another said that "he would not have been drunk only that he had taken some whisky and had got just a little beyond his line." "It was quite unintentional," said another. None attempted to deny the charges. Some said they were uncertain of what had happened, but "supposed that what the officer said of them must be true."

Governor Thomas spoke kindly to all of them. He had a fatherly way of reproving them. Two for whom this was said to have been a first offense he gently admonished and allowed them to go unpunished. For those whose offense was for the second time or oftener he had punishments of different grades. Some were deprived of their passes to go out of the grounds for a period of thirty to forty-five days; some were prohibited from having any beer for a certain period; one was sentenced to work on the road for thirty days without compensation, and two were remanded for further hearing. Adjacent to the police quarters was the guardhouse, a stone building with iron bars across the windows. Here I found eight or ten soldiers in confinement. Near by was the "Annex," a much larger building, surrounded by a high fence, where, as I learned, a much greater number were frequently confined for drunkenness and other offenses.

I found it to be the opinion of the governor that few of the men got drunk on beer sold at the canteen, but that they got drunk from excessive indulgence outside, this being more perceptible in the period immediately succeeding the payment of their pensions, when they used their passes to go into the city and would spend their money freely.