led
spirits in bond, as above named, should the national exigency call for
such action. The Senate approved the bill as thus amended.

The antiwhisky provisions, which were due to the Prohibitionists, were
denounced as unconstitutional. Nevertheless, the House vote on the
bill was 365 to 5. The Senate vote was as emphatic, being 81 to 6.

A more direct contest with the President over his war powers was waged
around the Espionage Bill. Though primarily framed to make spying and
its attendant acts treasonable offenses punishable by death or heavy
fines and imprisonment, it was projected more as a measure aimed at
news censorship, on account of a section forbidding the pursuit and
publication of information on the war. A violent and persistent
agitation by the press of the country against such a restriction,
echoed in both Houses in the course of lengthy debates, finally won
the day. All control of the publication of war news was denied the
Administration, despite the President's appeals to Congress for the
provision of a press censorship. The newspapers demanded to be placed
on their good behavior and scouted the idea that any law was needed to
restrain them from publishing information likely to give aid and
comfort to the enemy. Thwarted by Congress, the President had to be
content to forego the authority he sought for placing a veto on war
news except such as the Government permitted to be disclosed. He was
reminded that when relations were broken with Germany and war neared,
the press readily responded to the Administration's request--made in
the absence of legal authority to establish a press censorship--to
suppress the publication and transmission of information concerning
the movements of American merchant craft, then about to be armed
against German submarines. Since then announcements of arrivals at and
sailings from American ports of all vessels were excluded from the
newspapers.

The Espionage Bill had an inherent importance of its own, but its
purposes had been so overshadowed by the prominence given to the
censorship provision that they were lost sight of. It empowered the
President to place an embargo on exports when public safety and
welfare so required; provided for the censoring of mails and the
exclusion of matter therefrom deemed to be seditious and anarchistic,
and making its transmission punishable by heavy fines; the punishment
of espionage; the wrongful use of military information; circulation of