Jasper County Democrat, Volume 13, Number 89, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 February 1911 — DRUG STORE BILL FAILS [ARTICLE]

DRUG STORE BILL FAILS

In the Senate for Want of Constitutional Majority. Indianapolis News: The Halleck bill, wfhich is aimed at the liquor selling drug store, failed in the senate yesterday afternoon for want of a constitutional majority, the vote standing 22 to 22. The bill, which originally started out as a measure to amend the Beardsley law so as to make a prescription or application on whidh a druggist sells liquor a public record open to public inspection, was amended yesterday so as to eliminate the «ght of the druggist to sell on application except in a very restricted way. The roll call had hardly been completed when Senators Lambert 4 and Shively dhanged their votes from “no” to aye.” This tied the vote, and the roll was at once handed up to the Lieuten-ant-Governor, and the fact that the bill had failed for want of a constitutional majority was announced while Senator Proctor and others who had voted for the' bill were demanding' that the absentees be brought in. Tlhe original purpose of the Halleck bill was to make the Beardsley act operative, as the author of the bill expressed it. While the Beardsley law requires a prescription or applicafor failure to require these are hard to bring. The supreme court has held that the prescription or application is the property of the druggist after he has "filled it,” and while he cab .be compelled,* to produce these before ffiie grand jury, if he does so he can not be prosecuted for anything disclosed by these papers, inasmuch as he would then have been forced to

give testimony against ttiimself. Senator Halleck, the author of the bill, was “there with the goods” in giving a concrete illustration of the way some drug men ohserve the law'. When he arose to speak on an amendment to his bill there was the rustling of a newspaper, and Halleck produced from the folds a quart bottle of “Old Crow,” holding it up for insepction. This, he announced, lhad \>een bought at an Indianapolis drug store for 97-cents a short time before, and “no questions asked.” > Replying to objections previously urged by Senator Clark that the prescriptions and applications, jf filed with the county clerk in Marion county, w r soon fill the available space in the clerk’s office, Halleck said he doubted whether the! prescriptions and applications required in Indianapolis in a hundred years would fill the bottom of a barrel. , There was a great deal of merriment in the ~tnate after tialleck produced his" red-eyed quart artd Senator Durre attempted td coni J mi: petit larceny at Haileck’s'expense but was caught in the art. An amendment by senator Curtis changing the bill so as to provide that the prescription or application Should be a record, open to the inspection /of the prosecuting attorney and strik-

ing out the provision which made these open to the public inspec- i tion was carried by a vote of 23 to 20. • J Senator Clark offered an amendment which struck from tlhe bill the provision which permitted the druggist to sell on application of a person known to him to be a person not in the habit of using intoxicating lipuor as a beverage. This was carried by a viva voce vote. This left the bill in such shape tihat it provided only for sale upon physician’s prescription •or upon the written or signed application of the superintehdent of any hospital or educational institution, where such liquor is used solely for medicinal or scientific purposes. \ Senator Curtis tfhen made a speech in which he opposed the bill as restricted by the Clark amendment, Traylor and Gers also opposed the bill.