Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1890-04-29


the seizure of spirits shipped in original
packages are an interference with inter-
State commerce. A dissenting opinion was
given by Justices Gray, Harlan and
Brewer.
WASHINGTON, April 23.-The United
States Supreme Court, through Chief JUS
tice Fuller, to-day rendered an opinion ad-
verse to the constitutionality of State laws
providing for the seizure OF liquor brought
into the State in original packages. Such
laws, the court holds, are an interference
with interstate commerce. After the
liquor becomes the property of the importer
the State may, under its police powers,
regulate or prohibit sale, but it has no
power in the absence of express Con-
gressional authority to prohibit the trans
portation of the article from another State
for its delivery to the importer. The case
in which the decision was made was that of
Gus Leidy & Co., plaintiffs in error, VS.. A.
J. Hardin. 1t was brought here on an ap-
peal from the Supreme Court of Iowa, and
this court reverses the decision of the
State court. Justices Gray, Harlan and
Brewer dissented. The case is one of great
importance to Prohibitionists and liquor
dealers.
THE OPINION.
The Chief Justice in delivering the
opinion of the Court. said: "The power
vested in Congress to regulate commerce
among the several States is the power to
prescribe the rule by which that commerce
is to be governed, and is a power complete
in itself, acknowledging no limitations
other than those prescribed in the Constitu-
ton. 1t is co-extensive with the subject on
which it acts, and cannot be stopped at the
external boundary of State, but must
enter its interior and must be capable of
authorizing the disposition of those articles
which it introduces, so that they may become
mingled with the common mass of property
within the Territory entered.
WHISKY A COMMERCIAL COMMODITY.
That ardent spirits are subjects of inter-
State commerce cannot be denied. When
ever law of State amounts essentially to
q regulation of commerce, as it does when it
inhabits directly or indirectly the report of
a commodity or its disposition before it has
ceased to become an article of trade between
one State and another, it comes into conflict
with power which in this particular has
ment and is therefore void.
Undoubtedly it is for the legislative
branch of the State Governments to deter
termine whether the manufacture of
particular articles of traffic will in
juriously affect the public, and it is
not for Congress to determine what meas
ures State may properly adopt as appro-
pirate and needful for the protection of
the public morals, life or safety, but not
withstanding it is not vested with supervis-
ory power over matters of local administra-
tion the responsibility is upon Congress so
far as the regulation of Interstate commerce
is concerned to remove restriction upon the
State in dealing with imported articles
which have not been mingled with the COM
mon mass Of property therein.
TOO MUCH OF A CONCESSION.
Whatever our individual views may be
as to the deIeterious qualities of particular
articles. we cannot hold that any articles
which Congress recognizes as subjects of
Interstate commerce are not such, or that
whatever are thus recognized can be con-
trolled by State laws amounting to regula-
tions, while they retain that character; al
though at the same time directly dangerous
to themselves. the States may take appro-
pirate measures to guard against injury be-
fore it obtains complete jurisdiction over
them. To concede to State the power to
exclude, directly or indirectly, articles so
situated without Congressional permission,
is to concede to a majority of the people of
State, represented in the State Legislature,
the power to regulate commercial inter-
course between the States by determining
what shall be its subjects, when that power
was distinctly granted to be exercised by
the people of the United States, repre-
sented in Congress, and its possession by the
latter was considered essential to that more
perfect union which the Constitution was
adopted to create. Undoubtedly there is
difficulty in drawing the line between the
municipal powers of our Government and
the commercial powers of the other. But
when that line is determined accommoda-
ton to it without serious inconvenience may
readily be found in a frank and candid CO.
operation for the general good. The deci-
sion of the Supreme Court of Iowa is re-
versed
THE DISSENTING OPINIONS.
Justice Gray delivered dissenting opin-
ion in behalf of himself and Justices Har-
Ian and Brewer. 1t says:
Common experience has shown that the
general and unrestricted use of intoxicating
liquors tends to produce idleness, disorder,
VI
The power OF regulating or prohibiting
the manufacture and sale of intoxicating
liquor appropriately belongs as branch OF
the police power, to the Legislatures of the
several States, and can be judiciouslv and
effectively exercised by them alone, accord
ing to their views of public policy and local
needs, and cannot practically, if it can con-
stitutionally, be welded by Congress as
part of national and uniform system.
DEFINING THE IOWA STATUTES.
The statutes in question were enacted BY
the State OF Iowa in the exercise of it's un-
doubted power to protect its inhabitants
against the evils, physical, moral and social,
attending the free use of intoxicating
LIQUORS. They have no relation to the
movement of goods from one State to
another, but operate only on intoxicating
LIQUORS within the territorial limits OF the
State; they include all such liquors without
discrimination, and do not even mention
where they are made or whence they CO me.
If the statutes of State, restricting
or prohibiting the sale of intoxicating
liquors within the territory, are to
be held imperative and void as
applied to liquors sent or brought from
another State and sold by the importer in
what are called original packages, the con-
sequence must be that the inhabitant OF
any State may, under the pretext of inter-
State commerce and without license or
supervision of any public authority, carry
or send into, and sell in, any or all the
other States of >the Union, intoxicating
liquor Of whatever description, in cases or
kegs, or even in single bottles or TASKS, de-
spite any legislation Of those States on the
subject, end although mis- own State should
be the only one which had not enacted
similar laws
APPEAL TO CONGRESSIONAL WISDOM.
We would require affirmative and ex-