Lancaster daily intelligencer. [volume] (Lancaster, Pa.) 1864-1928, 1889-07-03

LANCASTER, PA, July 3, 1889.



The license judges of Philadelphia
have issued wholesale licenses to all the
applicants who desire them, in obcdi-
ence to what they claim to understand
to be the decision of the supreme court,
and without waiting for "A special APP
plication or attempting any discrimina-
ton as TO the character Of the parties.
They accompany their act with an ex-
tended expression of their disgust AT
what they consider their discourteous
treatment 10y the supreme court and
J, with an argument against the con-
sistency of that court i'm declaring
that remonstrance is the proper basis
for the action of the court in refusing n
license. The license judges deny that
this has been the regular practice and
reply that they think ii a bad practice.
And it Is notable that they take this ex-
ception to the soundness Of the opinion
of the supreme court while declaring
that they have no grievance arising
from the fact that the supreme court
has interpreted the act of May Il, 1887,
differently from the construction we put
on it," Their grievance they say is that
but they are manifestly eager to get in
stab at the court wherever they think
its armor is open and II is with mon
strously poor grace that they submit
themselves To its control.
As bad boys when they are spanked
for ill-doing and find they have To quit
that kind of work, go off into quite the
other extreme and strive to see whether
they cannot follow the paternal injunc-
tion so literally as to show II to be alb
surd; so these license judges seize upon
the supreme court suggestion that the
proceedings taken in refusing whole.
sale license should be formally instituted
and he determined 10y evidence aud with
opportunity to the applicant to defend
his application, as an instruction that
the license court may not refuse license
even where the applicant is ineligible by
law, unless some one has 80 interested
himself i'm the matter as to file a remon-
strance against his application.
And yet this is the license court which
has undertaken to hear every applicant
for license and not only to hear testi-
mony In open court but TO inform them
selves out Of court, through any attain
able sources of information so that they
may refuse licenses to the unworthy. L.
II not clear that If these Judges had
shown "a catholic n desire toeNecute the
wholesale license law, in its spirit as il
Is adjudged by the supreme court, that
they would have scanned the list of
applicants and have caused the proper
mar If 4
are ruled to be proper TO give them juris-
diction, and that they would then have
let the knowledge they say they have
that a number of the applicants were
not entitled 10 license under the un-
doubted qualification demanded in the
law, have had Its proper effect in the re-
lection of the license application ?
These judges well know that the SUI
preme court did not direct that licenses
tie given TO such parties and il
is ili<sese disregard of their duty that
they issue licenses 10 those whom they
say they know TO bc disqualified by the
law. The attempt to make the supreme
court responsible for the issue OF such
licenses is an impudent exhibition of
childish malice.
What the supreme court declared was
that the license court was not warranted
in adding to the requirements of the law,
or In refusing wholesale licenses because
In their opinion they were unnecessary
and that their action in the matter of
rejecting licenses should he taken with
proper regard for the forms of the law
and SO that their reasons and the facts
sustaining them might appear on the
record and lie reviewed. No more
sensible declaration was ever made by u
court and no more contemplate an
effort was ever made To pervcrt a
supreme court correction than has been
made by these Philadelphia judges,
whose duty and pleasure it should have
been to give an intelligent obedience TO
the mandate of the court and to have
scrupul2H,sly refrained from treating it
with di)ny, Sill, This much they owed
TO the ang cSsg'of their places and the
unwriften law of their profession. In
violating decorum they have violated
good sense and made it all the more
clear that their discretion is of very
poor sort.