Rensselaer Republican, Volume 20, Number 30, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 March 1888 — A BLOW AT PROHIBITION. [ARTICLE]

A BLOW AT PROHIBITION.

The United S'ntea Supreme Court Holds the lowa Law Invalid In One Respect. The decisioir bf the DnitedStates Supreme Court, on Saturday, in the case of Bowman against the Chicago A Northwestern Railway Company, involving a construction of the prohibitory liquor law of lowa, establishes a point of more importance than appeared on the surface. The case strikes at the root of the lowa prohibitory law, and tne decision will be received in lowa and other States with prohibition laws with unusual interest. The lowa law prohibits the introduction of liqnor into the State, as well as its sale therein. Railroads, as common carriers, are paiticnlarly enjoined from bringing liqnor from other States. Bowman is a brewer at Marshalltown, la., and in order to test the question whether the Idwa law preventing the railroads from delivering liquor wonld be upheld in the courts, he ordered a quantity of whisky in Chicago. It was delivered to the Chicago A Northwestern railway. That company declined to r aceive and transport it. Bowman thereupon began suit for $5,000 against the company. The case came to trial before Judge Blodgett, in the United States, District Court, abont fourteen emonths ago. The railway pleaded the prohibitory iaw of lowa as an exeuse for its refusal, but Blnm A Blum, who were Bowman’s attorneys, then and subsequently in the Supreme Court, attacked the law as unconstitutional and void, upon the ground that it was an attempt to regulate interstate commerce. Blum A Blum were pitted against W. C. Gondy and J. E. Honors,who represented the company, while the Attorney general of lowa appeared for the State of lowa. Judge Blodgett decided in favor of the company, that the law waa valid,

bui Bowman’s attorneys took the ease to the United States Supreme Court, with the result that the lowa law is declared unconstitutional and void. Oat of nine justices th(re were three who dissented from this opinion, one being Chief Justice Waite. The railway company is held to be liable to brewer Bowman for its refusal to deliver his whisky, but a more important result is the declaration in the decision that railroads can carry liqnor into lowa. “The effect,” said Mr. Blum, Tuesday, “is to render nugatory the prohibitory- law. The Attorney general stated before Judge Blodgett that it would be impossible to maintain prohibition in lowa if the authorities were denied to prevent the shipment of liquors into the State.”