Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 36, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 February 1918 — BREWERS WIN IN FIGHT ON NEW DRY LAW [ARTICLE]

BREWERS WIN IN FIGHT ON NEW DRY LAW

The breweries won the first big point in their effort to have the Indiana prohibition law declared unconstitutional Saturday, when Judge Hostetter of he superior court at Evansville overruled the demurrers of the state to the petition of the breweries for an injunction to prevent enforcement of the law when it goes into effect on Anril 2 Arguments will now be held on the petition itself, but this will be merely perfunctory, as it had been recognized that the argument on the demurrer covered the whole ground. Following a final unfavorable decision Prosecutor Osborn will appeal the case to the supreme court, where he will permit Attorney General Stansbury to represent him. Arguments on the demurrer were made on February 4, an entire day being taken up. The argument for the liquor interest was based on the case of Beeble against the state in 1855, when prohibition was held unconstitutional under the Indiana law. They pointed out twenty-seven instances where the supreme court held similar measures unconstitutional. The plaintiff also contended that the title of the act was not sufficient. They cited eight rulings of th,e supreme court to uphold the contention. The defense replied with a situation claiming that the title of he act need make no more than a general reference to the matter. Judge Hostetter bitterly scored the arguments of prohibitionists. In commenting on the prohibitionists’ argument that the excessive use of alcoholic beverages causes unspeakable misery and distress on mankind, and that the legislature was given police power to prevent this distress Hostetter said: “No evil has grown or can grow from the temporal use of alcoholic liquors, which the law would forbid. “There argument also takes into consideration the enormous and acute misery caused to our race from drunkenness. But this misery can never be compared to the bloody anguish resulting from arrogance and the insidious increases of denials of personal liberty and the multiplying denials of personal rights of citizens. “As the result of this we have had the burning of witches and Quarkers, and it has found its climax in the bloody battlefields of Alexander, Caesar, Atilla and in the thousands of innocent people now being sent to their ruin and death by Hohenzollerism. Of this the bloody St. Bartholomew day massacre and the French revolution will every be an eternal reminder.”