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of his testimony which we respectfully hope may be placed in the record of this hearing.

I appreciate the work involved, the conflicting interests at stake, and the problems with which your committee is confronted in amending our present communications law and bringing it up to date. After listening to all of the discussions since these hearings began, I am convinced you sincerely desire to so amend the Communications Act of 1934 as to preserve the best interests of all parties involved, in a fair and impartial way.

We wish to recommend the following amendment:

PROPOSED AMENDMENT TO S. 1333

Following the concluding words "recorded rebroadcast" of subsection (g) of section 315 and immediately preceding section 16, insert the following: "SEC. 15. (a) The heading of section 316 of such act is amended to read, 'Alcoholic beverages, lotteries, and similar devices,' and such section is amended to read as follows:

“No person shall broadcast by means of any radio station for which a license is required by any law of the United States, and no person operating such a station shall knowingly permit the broadcasting of any advertisement of (a) any spiritous, vinous, malted, or fermented liquors, or any combination thereof for beverage purposes subject to tax under title 26, subchapters a, b, or d, of the United States Internal Revenue Code, or (b) any advertisement of or information concerning any lottery, gift enterprise, or similar scheme offering prizes, dependent in whole or in part upon lot or chance, or list of prizes drawn or awarded by means of any such lottery, gift enterprise or scheme, where said list contains any part of all of such prizes. Any person violating any provisions of this section shall, upon conviction thereof, be fined not more than $1,000, or imprisoned not more than 1 year, or both, for each and every day during which such offense occurs.'

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The purpose of this amendment is to prohibit the advertitsing of alcoholic beverages over the radio. The Brewers Digest of April 1945, in an article on beer advertising, had this to say:

"By far more people listen to the radio within their own homes than at any other time. Consequently, it is a good medium for putting over educational propaganda, or for encouraging increased consumption of products consumed in the home.

"Its chief value is in implanting an idea and building up wants and desires in the consumer's mind, which he will satisfy later.

* * *

they

"Radio forces listeners to get a rather long commercial message have to listen to about 125 to 130 words of commercial on the same item, whether they want to or not.

"Radio shows build an audience of their own through the quality of presentation offered. If people like the show, the advertiser forces them to listen to his commercial; otherwise, they don't get the show. * * * The advertiser borrows an established audience, gets over his message quickly, before the listener gets up the energy to turn it off."

In this quotation you will note the claim that radio advertising "is a good medium for putting over educational propaganda”; for “encouraging increased consumption"; for “implanting an idea and building up wants and desires"; for forcing listeners to get rather long commercials "whether they want to or not." We believe that such use of the radio by the alcoholic-beverage industries should be prohibited for several reasons:

1. Radio audiences are made up in the home of little children, immature youths, and other minors as well as adults. Legislative wisdom in all the States through all the years has decreed that it shall be unlawful to sell alcoholic beverages to such little children and minors. If it is undesirable and unlawful for them to buy and consume such alcoholic beverages, then the radio ought not to be used by the brewers to force them to listen to beer prodrinking propaganda whether they or their parents want them to or not. They should not be forced to listen to radio sales talks that will build up in them "wants and desires" which it is illegal and unlawful for them to satisfy. To prohibit the advertising of alcoholic beverages over the radio is in harmony and keeping with the laws that prohibit the sale of these beverages to minors in all parts of the Nation.

2. In the second place, there are vast areas in many States where the people have voted as illegal the sale of alcoholic beverages under local-option elections. Wine cannot be legally sold anywhere in the States of Kansas, Oklahoma, Mississippi, or in 86 of the 95 counties of Tennessee. The sale of all alcoholic beverages

is unlawful in 139 Texas counties, 92 of the 120 counties in Kentucky, 67 Georgia counties, 52 of the 83 counties in Mississippi, 47 of the 67 counties in Alabama, 34 Arkansas counties, 16 Louisiana parishes. The sale of these beverages is also illegal in approximately 1,000 towns, districts, and political precincts in Illinois, 650 in Pennsylvania, 450 in Ohio, 350 in Wisconsin, more than 300 in Maine, 120 in New Hampshire, 100 in Vermont, and many others scattered in other States. Millions of American adult citizens in these areas have expressed their "public interest" in these areas by voting their conviction in these elections. You cannot confine radio waves to States and communities where the sale of alcoholic beverages is legal and the millions of American citizens who have exercised their democratic vote and made illegal the sale of alcoholic beverages should not be forced to sit in their homes by their firesides and with their little boys and girls hear the revolting sales talk and brewery propaganda coming from their loud speakers, whether they want to or not. (See pp. 10-22 of my testimony before your committee on S. 265 for "wet" and "dry" maps of these States.)

3. In the third place, the manufacture, distribution, sale, and consumption of alcoholic beverages are so impregnated with potential personal harm and public danger that all sorts of curbs, restrictions, and prohibitions are placed about them even in areas where they are legal.

Alcohol in beer, wine, or whisky is a habit-forming, narcotic, poisonous drug that befuddles the brain, distorts the vision, depresses the nerves, retards muscular reaction, and releases inhibitions.

The drinking of these beverages, in moderation at first, has ultimately led to alcoholism and death for countless thousands of people.

Several thousand people are killed every year in traffic accidents involving drinking drivers and drinking pedestrians.

The drinking of these beverages has led to family quarrels, divorce, and domestic unhappiness in thousands upon thousands of cases.

Police blotters and court records are replete with testimonies where people have committed serious crimes of all kinds while under the influence of alcohol. Such is not the case in the use of meat, bread, potatoes, sugar, shoes, tooth paste, and a thousand and one other items which are advertised over the radio. But this distinction between beverage alcohol and other advertised items are never mentioned in the radio advertising of alcoholic beverages. There is no warning, no caution, no hint of all the harm, suffering and sorrow associated with the use of alcoholic beverages for so many thousands of people. Listeners are urged to buy them, keep them in the home, drink them and serve them to friends and associates on the same plane with candy, ice cream, or chewing gum. We believe the advertisement of such a potential harmful product with no caution or hint of danger is postively misleading, contrary to public interest and should be prohibited on the radio.

4. In the fourth place, radio stations and networks that make their facilities commercially available at choice evening hours for the advertising of alcoholic beverages with no hint of the harm or injury that may arise from the use of these beverages refuse to make those same facilities commercially available at equal choice evening hours to the advocates of abstinence and prohibition that the public may hear the other side of this question.

I have listened with great interest, and no small amount of amusement and disgust, as the radio industry representatives in this hearing have talked about their desire for "free speech" and told how they are careful to see that both sides are accorded equal opportunity to be heard on controversial public questions. For 4 years the Columbia Broadcasting System has sold some $2,000,000 worth of time anually for the advertising of beer and wine and they have refused to sell a dime's worth of time to our forces.

The other networks have pursued a like policy.

Individual radio stations all over the Nation sell choice evening periods of time to beer and wine advertisers.

I challenge any man in this room to name as much as one radio station or network that has ever offered to sell our people time for a regular temperance broadcast at a choice evening period on equal footing with the beer and wine advertisers.

AN EXAMPLE OF BREWERY PROPAGANDA

Last spring when millions of people in Europe were starving, the Agriculture Department ruled that no wheat should be used in the making of beer. In the preceding 5 months (September, October, November, December, and January) the breweries had used a total of 27,937,798 pounds of wheat in beer produc

tion. (See page 36 of my testimony on S. 265.) Following this restriction placed on the use of wheat in beer making the brewers were prolific in their protests.

On Monday night, June 24, 1946, over KMOX of St. Louis, a Columbia owned and operated radio station, on a program sponsored every night by the Fallstaff Brewing Co., this was broadcast:

"If your dealer says 'sorry no beer', please don't feel that he is holding out on you. Remember there has been a drastic cut in all beer production. Originally it was thought that this would be a way to save wheat, but as everyone knows today no wheat is used in making beer and so besides your hard-put dealer who has less beer when you want it, the Government gets less of those taxes beer pays for the country's benefit; working people have fewer jobs; the farmer get less of beer's wonderful high-protein byproducts for stock and poultry raising. While present conditions prevail, your dealer can only ask you to bear with him, and remember-no wheat is used, no wheat is needed in the making of beer." Gentlemen of the committee, that was broadcasted not one night, not two nights, but repeatedly with slight changes in the wording for several successive nights. The same thing was done over WWL of New Orleans.

It was not beer advertisements but brazen brewery propaganda intended to undermine the Government's wheat-conservation program and to mislead and misinform the public.

Columbia and WWL and other stations sold them time for that broadcast on successive nights as a regular feature but refused to sell 1 minute of time for our side to support our Government's program by broadcasting the truth. That's what we are talking about. It was broadcast as beer advertising. Our organization has sought in vain to get the radio industry to mend its ways. At great expense and the loss of much valuable time we have made repeated visits to New York, Chicago, come to Washington, and held conference after conference with NAB, network officials, and station managers and asked them to be fair and sell us time on an equal basis with the beer and wine advertisers to broadcast our side of this controversial public question. Without a single exception they have maintained their unfair, undemocratic, one-sided policy.

NAB officials have had much to say about the Blue Book. I want to submit for your study a copy of the Brown Book entitled "Here's How," distributed by NAB to tell stations how to advertise beer over the radio, and there is not a word in that publication hinting that our side should be provided equal time for the presentation of the abstinence and prohibition views over the air.

They called attention to the Mayflower case in Boston and the Athestic Scott case in California and sought to leave the impression with you that when the FCC gave an opinion but renewed a radio license it struck fear and agony in the hearts of radio-station managers.

They never mentioned the KRLD case where our people presented our complaint against the renewal of a station license. The Commission gave its opinion that beer advertising was a form of propaganda and that it constituted a controversial public discussion but that since this policy was general in the industry they would not penalize KRLD by revoking her license.

Did that case give the broadcasters the jitters? They were more impudent and arrogant than ever. The experience of the Christian and temperance forces of this Nation with radio-station managers and network officials has demonstrated beyond the shadow of a doubt that they have no intention of ever pursuing a policy of free speech, fair play, and equal opportunity over the radio where the liquor question is involved.

Our people would a thousand times rather risk the protection of our first amendment and free speech to a law passed by Congress in the hands of the FCC than to risk it in the hands of radio-station managers who can't see anything but the dollar mark on a beer or wine contract where the drink question is involved.

The CHAIRMAN. There are two remaining witnesses today, Rev. Dale Crowley, and Miss Elizabeth Smart. I think that we will have to limit each of them to 15 minutes.

Do you have a written statement to file, Mr. Crowley?

STATEMENT OF REV. DALE CROWLEY, RADIO MINISTER AND OFFICIAL REPRESENTATIVE OF NATIONAL RELIGIOUS BROADCASTERS, INC., WASHINGTON, D. C.

Mr. CROWLEY. Yes, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. You may proceed.

Mr. CROWLEY. I shall confine my remarks within the period which you have suggested. I am Dale Crowley of Washington, D. C., ordained Baptist minister, devoting my time to the radio ministry, having put on some 2,500 radio programs in Washington, and some 1,000 broadcasts elsewhere in the United States. I am a director of the Naitonal Religious Broadcasters, Inc., of which I am also the representative before this committee. I am attaching to this statement, a copy of our constitution and bylaws, and code of ethics. I shall not take the time of your committee to review the reason for our organization in its entirety, but you will find a statement under article II concerning the objectives of the association.

Two things are set forth principally. One is that as broadcasters of religious programs it is our aim and desire to lift the standard of programing as far as we possibly can, so that we will put on better programs all the time for the listening public. The other is to protect our members as far as we can against unfair discrimination on the part of broadcasters in the handling of religious programs.

Now, one of the primary reasons why this organization came into being was to meet the crisis which has developed in recent years, wherein we have been denied access to the radio frequencies because of the unfortunate practice of discrimination against religious broadcasting on the part of large numbers of radio stations.

Our interest in this legislation is that the rights of religious broadcasting be specifically pronounced and safeguarded.

We recommend that this be done by specific amendment. We are thinking of section 25 of this bill, S. 1333; and I will have another word about that at the close of my testimony.

Now, it is needless to submit to this committee an argument to show that the broadcasting of religion is in the fundamental interests of the public. I deem it only necessary to remind the committee that our Nation was brought into existence in order that the propagation of religious beliefs might be free and untrammeled. We need only to examine the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights to see that our Nation was founded on strong religious convictions, based on the teachings of the Bible.

It is a fact well known that most of our American Presidents and most of the great leaders of our Nation have been men of firm religious convictions. Moreover, the Supreme Court of the United States is on record with the declaration, "This is a Christian Nation"-Holy Trinity Church case, 1893. Many of the outstanding thinkers and leaders of our day are freely declaring that the primary need of our Nation is a return to the principles and the teachings of the Bible. We submit to the gentlemen of the committee that within the entire realm of our national affairs, there is nothing of more importance to public interest than the subject and practice of religion. We submit that nothing could be more incongruous with the principle

of American freedom of speech, and nothing could be more out of harmony with the true purpose of the Communications Act than for a licensee to assume that he has the right or authority to discriminate against the broadcasting of religion.

It is a well-known fact that three of the major national radio networks have for a number of years followed an established policy of refusing to sell time for the broadcasting of religion; while the fourth major national network refuses to sell time for a religious broadcast at any time other than Sunday mornings.

Hundreds of individual radio stations, both network controlled and independents, have fallen in line with this unfair policy and practice. This unfortunate trend has gathered momentum. Many licensees who previously sold time to churches and religious organizations have recently arbitrarily eliminated all commercial religious programs from their schedules, substituting there for sustaining programs of limited periods of time each week, and at hours, usually, when the listening audience is smallest.

I may say here that the particular network that will sell time on Sunday mornings is the Mutual Broadcasting Co. Until a couple of years ago, they would sell time at other hours, during Sunday and even Sunday evening hours. But they arbitrarily decided they would not sell any more time for religious programs other than Sunday morning up to 1 o'clock. When they did that, they threw hundreds of programs out of gear, programs that had been built up through the years by such great religious leaders of our Nation as the Old Fashioned Revival Hour, and the Lutheran Hour, and the Percy Crawford Church of the Air. These programs were arbitrarily thrown out of gear because of the decision of the Mutual Broadcasting Co. not to sell time other than on Sunday morning. They have followed through a policy of substituting a sustaining program of a limited period of time each week, and at the hours usually when the listening audience is smallest.

Such sustaining programs usually are placed under the direction of some central religious organization whose program personnel is frequently incapable, in our opinion, of airing a broadcast worthy of the listener's time. Thus, the individual church, missionary society, or gospel organization, which has a worth-while inspirational, evangelistic, character-building message to proclaim are denied all access to the public through the radio frequencies.

This gentlemen, we believe you will agree, is a practice entirely unfair, wholly un-American, and diametrically opposed to the spirit and intent of the Radio Act.

Today, in most sections of the country, there are relatively few stations which will sell time for the broadcasting of religious subjects; and there are still fewer stations which will provide time for commercial religious broadcasts at any time other than on Sunday mornings which is well-known to be one of the poorest periods on radio so far as reaching the masses is concerned.

Within our knowledge, there are, in fact, less than 50 radio stations out of more than 1,500 in the Nation which will provide choice periods of time at regular commercial rates for a religious program.

An excellent example of this lamentable trend may be seen from the practice of Washington, D. C., stations. For several years only one radio station operating in the District of Columbia-I do not

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