Jasper County Democrat, Volume 19, Number 86, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 January 1917 — FARCE IS MADE OF THE LAW [ARTICLE]

FARCE IS MADE OF THE LAW

After deliberating only six minutes the jury in rhe trial of the Columbia club—the silk-stocking Republican state organization by that name—and the University

club, another high-toned organization of the capital city, on blind tiger charges filed recently by former “*■ Republican Mayor Lew Shank, brought in a verdict of acquittal. And this, too, notwithstanding the fact that drayloads of booze was found and guests were being served with liquors < at the time of the raid. In no secret whatever is made to the serving of intoxicating liquors in these clubs, which have no retail license fdr so doing. But they are rich men’s- clubs. Had they been otherwise it would harq been an easy matter to make such charges stick. Everyone knows that in Chicago the. law is'openly violated in theselling Of liquor on Sundays and it has been so for scores of years. Yeti it is impossible to convict a saloonkeeper On such a charge, and the attempt to do so has. finally been abandoned. All he has to do is to get a jury trial and the rest is easy. Unless such alleged booze joints as the Columbia and University clubs can be stopped from dispensing intoxicating liquors in defiance of the law' 1 there is little use of talking about state-wide prohibition in Indiana, although, no doubt, nearly every mother’s son of these club members are heartily in favor of making it impossible for the man without wealth or political influence to secure a drink of intoxicants anywhere in the state, while they themselves sit at the tables in their luxurious club rooms and drink to their heart’s content and some of them until they are so thoroughly intoxicated that they have to be put to bed by attendants.