Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 40, Number 65, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 April 1908 — DRUGGISTS DID FLOURISHING BIZ [ARTICLE]

DRUGGISTS DID FLOURISHING BIZ

Rensselaer Apothecaries Testify Before Grand Jury and Snbmit Application Blanks. The Rensselaer druggists all testified before the grand jury this week and along with their oral testimony they submitted the whiskey applications that they had collected from the sick public during the past few months. There was a great Volume of these blanks and they showed a remarkable variation of customers. They were frotn some of the old topers and from some who are not recognized as drinkers and occasionally a presumed-to-be tetotaler had made application that he was nigh unto death with a dis-i ease that nothing but a quart of Bourbon would relieve him of. Some of the applicants were sick only once in a long while and some others got sick every few days and one, a young single man, had got sick and been sold a quart on 17 applications within one month.

Each druggist is said to have felt that the other would sell if he didn’t and so they took things easy and didn’t disappoint any one. There was no disparity in favor of any of the druggists; they seemed to get an even start and to run even all the time, and they ended up with a head and neck finish. Evidently there was no great difference in the quality of the liquor sold by any of them or one or the other would have maintained the lead. It was all either good enough or bad enough and the purchasers didn’t kick, they just signed up the applications and poured down the booze. It was easy picking for the druggist and the business flourished. When a person testifies before • a grand Jury they are given a practical immunity bath from prosecution and there will be nothing done because of the wholesale violations on the part of the druggists and the falsifying applicants, but all have been admonished that future violations will be unrelentingly prosecuted. It would be a good time for tbj« triumvirate of druggists to decide collectively and individually, that they wHI not sell whiskey and they can aid more than any other persons in stamping the shameful traffic out of Rensselaer. They should do this and the public should help them do it