Theodore R. McKeldin                                  349

VETOES

TITLES AND MESSAGES

Senate Bill No. 38—Manufacture of Beer

AN ACT to repeal and re-enact with amendments Section 7, (a) of
Article 2B of the Annotated Code of Maryland (1951 Edition), title
"Alcoholic Beverages", sub-title "Manufacturer's and Wholesaler's
Licenses", providing for certain additional qualifications for appli-
cants for a Class 5, Manufacturer's License (Brewery License).

March 20, 1956.
Honorable Louis L. Goldstein
President of the Maryland Senate
Annapolis, Maryland

Dear Mr. President:

After full consideration of the arguments presented for and against
Senate Bill 38, I am returning it to your honorable body without my
signature.

I take this action without criticism of either the Maryland com-
panies who caused its introduction or the majority of members in
the General Assembly who passed the measure and sent it to my desk.

It is not difficult to understand the quick concern of the former at
the apparently rather sudden prospect of having a highly successful
competitor enter the field of their immediate operations. With a ses-
sion of the Legislature approaching at the time and with those men
of the business world thinking in terms of business rather than of
statesmanship, it was perhaps natural that they should turn to their
representatives in the Assembly for that which they themselves have
called protection.

I feel that the short session in which the bill was introduced and
passed did not give many of the Legislators time to consider the long
range effects of such legislation. They viewed the question from a
purely local point of vantage. They were not aware at the time of
the international repercussions which since have developed, of the
concern later to be expressed to me by the State Department of the
United States Government, or of the unfavorable impact which the
legislation was destined to make on substantial and representative
spokesmen for American business and industry.

Senate Bill 38 was designed ostensibly to prohibit the issuance of
a brewing license to any corporation whose majority stock is not
owned by citizens of the United States.

Actually, its admitted purpose was to keep the Carling Brewing
Company from locating and operating a brewery, as planned, in
Baltimore County, Maryland.

In its written form, the bill would be contrary to the continuing
efforts of the Federal Government to build good will through inter-