Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 39, Number 26, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 November 1906 — The Moore Law Sustained. [ARTICLE]

The Moore Law Sustained.

Blanket Remonstrance is Valid But All Applicants Must Be Given Hearing. The supreme court held Thuisday that the Moore law, proviving for “blanket remonstrances” against granting saloon licenses to any and all applicants in a town ship or ward is valid. The court also holds that such a remonstrance may besigned by an attorney holding separate powers of attorney from each of the voteis he represents which have been sent to him by letter or postal card; that after the remonstrance has once taken effect voters can not afterward withdraw their names to favor an applicant for license at a future term, and that a sufficient remonstrance, once filed, cuts off all right of the commissioners to issue a license to anybody for two years.

HEARING FOR APPLICANTS. But it decides that each applicant in turn may deny that the remonstrance bears the requisite number of names, or that it was really signed by the persons whose names it bears or by their attorney, or that such persons are legal voters or a majority of the legal voters of the township or ward. It holds that each applicant is entitled to his “day in court” to controvert the filing of a legal remonstrance. but if the fact the fact that a legal remonstrance was duly filed is shown, he can not obtan a license. The case of Oliver P. Cain vs Jonathan L. Allen, appealed from the Owen circuit court, was reversed because Cain was refused an opportunity to prove that the remonstrance which had been filed in his case was not signed by authority of some of the voters named as remonstrators. Five other cases in which the constitutionality of the Moore law was involved were consolidated with that case as’to the constitutional question and all were argued together. “ A general remonstrance, signed by the required number of voters and filed with the auditor three days before the beginning of any regular session of the board of commissioners continues to operate against the granting of a license to any and all applicants for two years frcm the date of its filing. “All voters who have legally feigned it and who do not withdraw their names before the beginning of said three days’ period, must abide by the remonstrance for two years.

“If it is found that the rembn strance is in due form and adequately signed, that finding, ipso facto defeats the further jurisdiction of the board.”