“Why, I have seen ladies at a tea-party, perhaps not drunk, but certainly very jolly from drinking tea, and yet they come to this Legislature with petitions signed by all whom they could influence or bulldoze into signing, men, women or children to the number of ten thousand. There are eight hundred thousand people in Minnesota, and we are proposing to let these ten thousand override the other seven hundred and ninety thousand. They claim as prohibitionists that drinking tends to impoverish the people. Do you believe that? Look at the Germans! Many of them take a piece of land that would scarcely support a hog and make a fortune of it. They all drink beer. They take their wives and their children to the beer garden and sit down and drink their beer every day, and even the babe in arms will stretch to get a taste of it. These people are not impoverished by it. These people are so healthy in my neighborhood that I have actually not been able to make a living out of my German constituents. “They say it tends to the degeneration of the human race. How does it happen that in New England where prohibitory laws are in force the race has so degenerated that they do not seem to be able to raise any children? Look at the Germans who drink beer all the time. You will find a large family of healthy children in almost every German house. Are they degenerated? “The children of total abstinence people are constantly dying. From the vital statistics of Minnesota I learn that over two thousand children died last year under two years of age. They would not have died if they had been fed on good wholesome beer. I would advise mothers—and I have advised them in my practice—to give their sickly children plenty of beer, and I know I have saved many an infant’s life. Beer is the best cure for dyspepsia in the world. I have cured women of this terrible disease by advising them to drink three glasses of beer every day, and I say again to you mothers that if you will drink beer and feed your children on beer you will raise more and healthier children. “Referring to the vital statistics of the state, I find that but six men died of intemperance during last year—two of delirium tremens and four of something else, which they couldn’t tell anything about, and so called it intemperance. And yet you want to stop drinking. Eleven were killed by horses during the same time. Why don’t you abolish horses—never use them or go near them? Thirty-five committed suicide. Why don’t you prohibit the use of firearms and knives, and drain all your lakes and rivers for fear some poor fool will drown himself? Some 152 died of heart disease. I don’t want any heart in mine. Twenty ladies were scalded to death. You ought to prohibit the use of hot water for fear that more ladies will get into it and perish.