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Rh fermented, or other intoxicating liquors of any kind, or containing a solicitation of an order or orders for said liquors, or any of them, shall be deposited in or carried by the mails of the United States, or be delivered by any postmaster or letter-carrier, when addressed or directed to any person, firm, corporation, or association, or other addressee, at any place or point in any State or Territory of the United States at which it is, by the law in force in the State or Territory at that time, unlawful to advertise or solicit orders for such liquors, or any of them, respectively.

If the publisher of any newspaper or other publication or the agent of such publisher, or if any dealer in such liquors or his agent, shall knowingly deposit or cause to be deposited, or shall knowingly send or cause to be sent, anything to be conveyed or delivered by mail in violation of the provisions of this section, or shall knowingly deliver or cause to be delivered by mail anything herein forbidden to be carried by mail, shall be fined not more than one thousand dollars or imprisoned not more than six months, or both; and for any subsequent offense shall be imprisoned not more than one year. Any person violating any provision of this section may be tried and punished, either in the district in which the unlawful matter or publication was mailed or to which it was carried by mail for delivery, according to direction thereon, or in which it was caused to be delivered by mail to the person to whom it was addressed.

Before the passage of the national legislation, regulation in some of the States had been very strict about the insertion of advertisements of liquors. In Texas, for example, there appeared under every advertisement of whiskey, beer, wine, etc., a notice to the effect: "No orders solicited in, filled in, or shipped into prohibited territory in violation of the Texas laws." In "wet" territory, the exclusion of liquor advertising by newspapers was usually due to agitation started by women who somehow knew how to establish a boycott without breaking the state law. Other papers voluntarily excluded liquor advertising because they thought that newer standards demanded that the paper going into the home should be without the odor, or, to be more exact, the suggestion, of the alcoholic beverage. Unquestionably the decision of magazine publishers, who were the first to exclude liquor advertising, had much to do with the policies adopted by the newspapers. The change in editorial attitude of magazines and newspapers on the temperance question was one of the most remarkable total reversions of policy in journalism history.