Evening Republican, Volume 22, Number 108, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 May 1919 — WHAT CAN WE DO IF NATURE HARDEN’S CIDER? [ARTICLE]

WHAT CAN WE DO IF NATURE HARDEN’S CIDER?

Washington, D. C., May 6. (Special.) —If an American citizen permits nature to take its course with a keg of cider does he violate the wartime prohibition law? (This is a question which the department of justice has been asked to determine and there are thousands of persons in as many communities who will be interested in the decision. Can a citizen be held to have manufactured alcoholic or intoxicating liquor if there is found in his possession a keg of hard cider which, when it first came into his possession, was nonalcoholic and as soft as mush? That is the issue. The aforesaid citizen performed no labor in connection with the keg of cider. He contributed nothing to the process of nature in making the cider hard and obnoxious to the general health and welfare of the community. So far as the citizen is concerned, friends of hard cider argue, he is entirely innocent of any wrong in the transaction. . * " The prohibition argument, however, is that the citizen is blamable because he did not drink the cider before it reached an intolerant state. In many instances, the prohibitionist holds the citizens unquestionably prayed on the cider and in doing so technically aided and betted an unlawful process. Therefore he is guilty. Prove it, says the citizen. *•