Evening Republican, Volume 19, Number 231, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 September 1915 — HOEHN GETS FINE AND JAIL SENTENCE [ARTICLE]

HOEHN GETS FINE AND JAIL SENTENCE

Wheatfield Man Found Guilty of Keeping a Blind Tiger—Conviction Aids Temperance.

George Hoehn, a Wheatfield butcher, was tried in the circuit court Tuesday on four counts, each alleging violations of the liquor laws. Three of the charges alleging giving liquor to minors. On one of these he was tried and the jury returned a verdict of “not guilty.” The other two cases were dismissed. The other charge was that he kept a place where liquor was sold, bartered and given away, contrary to law. This case was tried before a jury and he was found guilty and sentenced to jail for 30 days and to pay a fine of SSO.

His counsel was John Greve and Roy Blue, while the state’s case was looked after by- Prosecuting Attorney Reuben Hess and his Jasper county deputy, Chas. M. Sands. The evidence showed that Hoehn and his brother and a couple of parties who work for Hoehn were in the habit o “rushing the can.” This is a term almost obsolete in Rensselaer, but it consists of taking a bucket or can and sending for a quantity of beer and then drinking it, usually a number clipping in for the purchase and all who do are entitled to pour some of the suds down their necks. Hoehn and his friends were quite certain that their conduct in this matter was perfectly regular and that their act did not in any manner constitute a violation of the blind tiger act and that if he wanted to run his meat market and grocery store in that manner he tad a perfect right to do it, but the state found that some of the beer was est in the hack part of the store where some boys had access to it and while the defense showed that the defendant had warned the boys •gainst being about his place and there was no proof that he had permitted them to get the liquor, yet the ;ury held that his act was not proper and came within the province of the aw.

Hoehn is a jolly fellow and a good citizen when not intoxicated hut something over a year ago he was a defendant in the circuit court as a result of trouble said to have occurred while he was drunk. The marshal had tried to arrest him and a fight had ensued and it required several to put him in jail. He wrecked the jail and raised a lot of trouble and his conduct was far from exemplary. To all appearances he has exhibited somewhat of a cloven hoof in opposition to the enforcement of the liquor laws. Mt. Ayr for a long time had a man who defied the laws in this respect. He was arrested and fined and sentenced to jail and his sentence suspended and he returned to ply his old trade of law violation. Finally he was placed in jail and kept there fpr some time. This reformed him and persons who know Pat Miller and his naturally kindly ways realized all the time that he was making a big mistake and that he was in the end to be his own chief enemy. Nothing out of tne way has been (heard of concerning Pat for a long time and we hope that there never will be again.

Wheatfield was without saloons for a number of years. When the proposition was up to vote as to whether there should be a saloon again or not it was argued by the friends of the saloon that there would be blind tigers and bootlegging unless a saloon was provided. There had been efforts to convict Billy Weiss and one or two others during the time there was no saloon, but the same persons who argued for saloons because they improved the blind tiger condition were the ones who came to the rescue of those who had been accused of the violations. It is a hard matter to secure convictions in liquor law violations and if courts and juries waited until "the accused pleaded , guilty and told the “.truth, whole truth and nothing but the truth” there would never be any convictions. If Mr. Hoehn was guilty and twelve mighty good men decided he was, then he should be punished according to the sentence, unless, as would be most desirable, he would assure the officials that he will never again give them any trouble. Peculiarly there seems to obscess about every man who is charged with liquor law violation that he is going to continue to violate the laws with the mistaken idea that he is getting even with some one. As a matter of fact the persons who are identified with the movement to prosecute and convict those who evade the laws are the best friends and not the enemies of the violators and if George Hoehn, big, jovial and qualified for the best of citizenship, would just cut out “rushing the can” and never give occasion to have to forbid boys to stay away from his meat market and grocery store we believe he would be much better satisfied himself, have the support of all the people and be of vastly greater good to the community in which he lives. —• Reform in temperance will come

about by degrees. Education, religion, good health and decency are gradually rooting liquor from the fastnesses in which ignorance, deleaved appetites and organization c the manufacturers had intrenched it. j Sight or nine years ago there were a number of business houses in Rensselaer where the proprietors and employes “rushed the can,” but the practice disappeared with the defeating of the saloons and Rensselaer is a greatly improved city and there are not many boys raised up with a desire to sneak in some place and get a drink of beer. More and more each year we realize the folly of the liquor traffic and the injury it lias been to otherwise good citizens and the homes it has wrecked and youths it has deprived of an education and as long as there are men who can not see this and have the character to comply with it, it will be necessary to prosecute and convict the violators of the law and to send them to jail and require them to pay a fine. Mr. Hoehn was permitted to return to Wheatfield pending a motion for a new trial.