Jasper County Democrat, Volume 20, Number 65, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 November 1917 — TEMPERANCE PEOPLE AROUSED [ARTICLE]

TEMPERANCE PEOPLE AROUSED

Declare Wheatfield Saloon License Was Illegally Issued. It is said that legal steps are to be taken at once to stop the operation of the saloon of James C. Anderson at Wheatfield under the license granted last week by the board of county commissioners. The anti-saidbn people contend that the board had no legal right to “review” their 1 action of July 2 when it held the remonstrance sufficient, and that if the remonstrance was not signed by a majority of the legal voters of Wheatfield township it was up to the applicant to appeal to the circuit court and thrash the question of legality out there. It will be' remembered that an election was held in Wheatfield and that of the “dry” votes cast 125 were by women who voted before the suffrage law —since declared unconstitutional —was in effect; that a remonstrance was then filed, after the law had been put in effect, and that several women signed eaid remonstrance. The grounds for granting the license, if is said, were that because of the names of several women on the remonstrance and they have since been eliminated as voters by the decision of the higher court, it left a minority of male voters on the remonstrance. However, the “antis”

claim that the board had adjudicated the matter on July 2 when they held the remonstrance was signed by a majority of the legal voters of the township, and “was sufficient,” and that it could not go back four months later and rescind this decision at another term from which the above order was made. They are also very much offended because they w’ere given no notice whatever of this contemplated action when their attorney, S. C. Irwin, had his office just across the street from the commissioners’ court room and could have been reached in a moment’s time had the board desired to have done so.