Intorienting liquors in interstate commerce have a different status from any other commodity Regarding the effect of the twenty-first amendment the Supreme Court said in Zifrin v. Reeves (308 U. S. 132, 84 L. Ed. 128 (1939)): "The twenty-first amendment sanctions the right of a State to legislate concerning intoxicating liquors brought from without, unfettered by the commerce clause. Without doubt a State may absolutely prohibit the manufacture of intoxicants, their transportation, sale or possession, irrespective of when or where produced or obtained, or the use to which they are to be put. Further, she may adopt measures reasonably appropriate to effectuate these inhibitions and exercise full police authority in respect of them.” In the latest case construing the amendment, that of Carter v. Commonwealth of Virginia (88 L. Ed. Adv. Op. 387), Mr. Justice Black said in his concurring opinion. "The twenty-first amendment has placed liquor in a category different from other articles of commerce." The 3.2 Percent Beer Act passed by Congress in 1933 was repealed by the Liquor Law Repeal and Enforcement Act of 1935 Following the repeal of the prohibition amendment to the Federal Constitution, Congress expressly repealed the so-called 3.2 Beer Act of March 22, 1933, by the act of August 27, 1935, entitled, “The Liquor Law Repeal and Enforcement Act." In section 202 (a) it is provided: "The act of March 22, 1933 (48 Stat. 16), entitled 'An act to provide revenue by the taxation of certain nonintoxicating liquors, and for other purposes,' is hereby repealed.” Insofar as the Federal law now stands, there is nothing in the acts of Congress which sanctions or recognizes the distinction between 3.2 percent and any other form of beer. The beer now being generally sold is of the strength of ordinary commercial beer. It is this type of alcoholic beverage that is being advertised over the licensed radio stations. CONCLUSION The twenty-first amendment was intended to allow the people in every State to work out the liquor problem as they see fit. Such efforts involve the right not only to determine whether liquors shall be sold at all, and if so, under what terms and conditions, but also the authority to deal with the promotional aspects of liquor sales, such as advertising. The present use of the federally controlled instrumentality, the radio, to promote the sale of liquor by advertising produces a conflict between State and Federal Governments in this area which should be resolved by fegislation. The present practice allows the dissemination of a constant propaganda for the use of alcoholic beverages in areas where the people have voted against the sale of the product advertised. In other States it hampers efforts to enact adequate legislation to deal with the promotional aspects of the liquor problem. The enactment of the amendment would violate no constitutional right and would not interfere with the privilege of licensed dealers in any State to continue their business. It would, however, deny them the use of the radio spectrum, the property of the whole people, for the conduct of a continuous sales propaganda. Its enactment would, in our judgment, be consistent with a sound adjustment of the relationship of State-Federal responsibility, and also be in the public interest. Congress should enact its own standard by writing a provision into the law itself and not leave the determination of whether the advertising of alcoholic beverages is in the public interest to be decided by either the radio licensees or by some administrative agency. STATEMENT BY W. G. H. FINCH FINCH TELECOMMUNICATIONS, INC. (General Offices: Passaic, N. J.-Sales Offices: New York and Washington) NEW YORK 16, N. Y., June 24, 1947. The Honorable Senator WHITE, Chairman of the Interstate Commerce Subcommittee on the White Radio Bill, The Senate, Washington, D. C. DEAR MR. WHITE: I notice in the June 24 issue of the Radio Daily a news release of the testimony of Mr. Niles Trammell, president of NBC, before your committee in which he testified about a new "high-speed communication system." Inasmuch as such noble phrases as "a free press," "a free society," and "freedom for radio," with which all right-thinking people are in agreement, are interspersed with technical descriptions, they may readily be misconstrued and leave one with the impression that the two are inalienable complements of each other, and I believe it is in order to provide you with further factual material. It is possible for a reader of Mr. Trammell's testimony to be misled into believing that high-speed message transmission using television technique is a recent RCA development. I am accordingly enclosing an article from the June 1937 issue of Editor and Publisher describing a patent granted to me that year which utilized mechanisms similar to that "employed in television receiving apparatus" and which is "a method for high-speed recording of pictures." As the article goes on to point out, the "patent describes a novel electronic scanning method which, it is claimed, will radically alter present conceptions of existing speed limitations." The problem when I made the invention in 1937 was one of transmission medium, and today the terminal equipment substantially embodies what I proposed in 1937 but is still limited by transmission problems. This is so despite the enormous advances that have been made in microwave transmission during the war. It may not have been Mr. Trammell's intention to leave the impression that a million words can be transmitted per minute over any reasonable transmission channel now in existence or likely to be in existence in 1947, but that is certainly the possible inference. It may not have been his intention to leave the impression that terminal equipment for such high-speed transmission is just a recent RCA development, when as a matter of fact Editor and Publisher of 1937 and the Patent Office by its patent grant 2,082,692 in 1937 established the contrary, but that inference is still a possible conclusion from the article. I trust this letter will be of service to you in analyzing this type of testimony and made part of the record. Very truly yours, FINCH TELECOMMUNICATIONS, INC., NEW HIGH SPEED CATHODE RAY SYSTEM SHARPLY CUTS WIRE PICTURE TIME Invention of a fundamentally new telepicture system using cathode ray tubes somewhat similar to those employed in television receiving apparatus and a method for high-speed recording of pictures on a continuous roll of film by means of movements of an electron beam within a cathode ray tube is disclosed in United States patent 2,082,692, granted this week to W. G. H. Finch, president of the Finch Telecommunications Laboratories, Inc., 37 West Fifty-seventh Street, New York City. Based on an entirely new approach to the wire-picture problem, the Finch patent describes a novel electronic scanning method which it is claimed will radically alter present conceptions of existing speed limitations and apparatus design in the picture-transmission field, since the new method requires neither conventional scanning machines nor elaborate synchronizing devices. Five- by seven-inch pictures have been transmitted in 1 minute by the new system and with further refinements it is expected 8- by 10-inch pictures will be moved at the same speed. WILL USE COAXIAL CABLES Mr. Finch, inventor of the Finch telepicture system, whose natural-color telechrome wire picture transmission process was described last week in Editor and Publisher, together with the first printed reproduction of a full-color photograph made by the telechrome process for that publication, predicts that the new electronic telepicture system, which is under development in his laboratory, will be especially adaptable for use in the rapid transmission of news photographs over coaxial cables and ultra high frequency radio channels where high-speed operation is particularly desirable in order to obtain economical and efficient use of such circuits. Extension of wire-picture transmission methods to other fields upon the introduction of the invention is also foreseen by Mr. Finch, who states that by means of the unique ability of the new system to record pictures or other copy on a continuous roll of film uninterrupted transmission and reproduction of large quantities of copy can be effected without loss of time in starting and, stopping for loading purposes. This feature, Mr. Finch believes, will bring to a telepicture technique the advantages of continuous operation in a manner similar to that of the modern printing press, and this, together with high-speed operation, will eventually lower picture transmission costs on high-speed communications channels to a point where it may even be economically feasible to send short motion-picture news reels of major events over coaxial cable or radio channels for simultaneous distribution to film exchanges in various cities in lieu of present airplane delivery of such films. SPECIAL CATHODE RAY TUBE The heart of the new invention, as disclosed in the Finch patent, lies in the use of a special cathode-ray tube and an associated electronic control circuit at both transmitter and receiver. At the transmitter this tube and its control circuit scans the picture without need for any mechanical scanning devices, such as rotary cylinders, synchronous motors, or gears, and silently converts the photographic or other copy into an electrical signal which may be transmitted by highspeed wire or radio channels to the receiver, which also employs a cathode-ray tube to record on a roll of film a reproduction of the picture at transmitting device. A beam of electrons, termed a cathode ray, as in television work, is focused by purely electrical means into a small spot of considerable brilliancy on a special fluorescent screen disposed at the end of the transmitting cathode ray tube on its inner surface. This spot, which appears to the eye as a bright green point of light, is then projected by means of a cylindrical lens to a photographic film carrying the picture to be transmitted. The light passes through the film and enters a cylindrical photoelectric cell. By electrical means, without the use of any form of mechanical device, the cathode ray is swept across the end of the tube in a straight line and the spot of light produced on the fluorescent screen thereby tracés a path across the photographic film and produces variations in electrical current in the photocell circuit. These variations in current act as a throttle on a frequency generator and form a telepicture signal which rises and falls in intensity in exact accordance with changes in the density of the photographic copy at different points in the scanning line. When the point of light has swept across the picture in a line and reaches the edge of the film, the marginal strip controls actuation of a second photocell element which produces a marginal signal and energizes an electromagnetic line advance device to move the film upward through a distance equivalent to the width of a single scanning line. Thus the entire film is scanned. At the receiver of the new Finch telepicture signal, another cathode ray tube is employed. There a similar spot of light produced by a cathode ray impinging on a special flourescent screen having what is termed high persistence, traces a longitudinal wave pattern cross the end of the tube. The wave pattern contains an exact electrical representation of every shade of white and black appearing in a single scanning line on the film at the transmitter, high and low points of the wave pattern representing white and black areas of the picture. PATTERN CALLED WAVE ENVELOPE The pattern, which is technically termed a wave envelope, is clearly visible to the eye of an observer since it is stationary for a time interval equivalent to that of a single line scanning operation and remains on the flourescent screen during the time taken for the scanning of one line. By means of a lens this pattern with its high and low points corresponding to black and white areas of a line of the picture is reduced in vertical dimension and is projected and photographed on the light-sensitive surface of a film which in roll form is employed as the medium on which the received pictures are recorded. At the completion of each scanning stroke of the light spot at the transmitter a marginal or line advance signal is transmitted over the telepicture circuit to the receiver where by means of a wave fiter or signal selective device the line advance signal selectively actuates an electronically controlled line advance device of the same type used at the transmitter, and moves the film up one line. |