2 
Editorial. 
[Am.  Jour.  Pharm. 
January,  1918. 
Congressional  Enactment  vs.  Departmental  Regulation. 
We  in  Congress  think  we  enact  the  laws  and  we  have  a  clear 
idea  as  to  our  intent  and  the  purpose  of  the  law,  but  after  we  have 
passed  a  law  a  Department  may  frame  regulations  which  modify 
our  intent  or  even  nullify  the  purpose  of  the  act,  and  the  regula- 
tions stand.  In  a  recent  interview  in  which  the  regulations  pro- 
mulgated by  the  Treasury  Department  governing  the  use  and  sale 
of  non-beverage  alcohol  were  discussed,  the  above  statement  was 
made  by  a  member  of  Congress,  who  has  long  represented  his  dis- 
trict in  the  House  of  Representatives. 
This  statement  regarding  what  is  continuously  becoming  more 
flagrant  was  unquestionably  founded  upon  existing  facts  and  condi- 
tions and  voiced  a  sentiment  that  not  infrequently  has  been  ex- 
pressed in  congressional  circles.  That  Congress  will  long  continue 
to  surrender  its  constitutional  authority  or  consent  indefinitely  to  a 
perversion  and  subversion  of  its  enactments  cannot  be  expected. 
In  the  existing  status  of  legislation,  with  the  demand  for  war  meas- 
ures, the  tendency  has  been  toward  the  centralization  of  power  and 
the  encroachments  of  the  Departments,  even  though  radical,  may  be 
temporarily  overlooked.  In  the  post-bellum  days,  when  more  de- 
liberate thought  on  such  subjects  will  be  given  we  may  expect 
Congress  to  again  assert  its  prerogative  and  reclaim  its  constitu- 
tional authority. 
In  a  previous  editorial  we  referred  to  the  impracticability  of  cer- 
tain features  of  the  regulations  that  have  been  promulgated  for  the 
enforcement  of  those  sections  of  the  Food  Control  Act  and  of  the 
War  Revenue  Act  that  relate  to  non-beverage  alcohol.  Since  then, 
many  examples  of  the  unreasonableness  of  these  and  the  hardships 
resulting  from  their  enforcement  have  been  presented  by  physicians, 
patients,  chemists,  pharmacists  and  industrial  operators  who  needed 
pure  ethyl  alcohol  for  legitimate  non-beverage  purposes  and  whose 
uses  evidently  came  within  the  sanction  and  intent  of  these  con- 
gressional acts  but  not  of  the  departmental  regulations. 
Ethyl  alcohol  is  an  essential  raw  material  of  innumerable  medi- 
cines and  in  many  technical  operations,  and  the  physician,  pharma- 
cist, chemist  and  many  artisans,  whose  business  demands  such,  can 
find  no  substitute  for  it. 
The  moral  question  of  its  improper  use  as  a  beverage  has  noth- 
ing whatever  to  do  with  its  proper  economical  and  industrial  uses. 
