The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1892-04-13
STATE RIGHTS REPUBLICANS.

The United States supreme court appears
to be having serious time in adjusting it.
self to different phases of the "original
package" case. In the Iowa prohibition
suit, which first came up. it was held that
when an article was sold in one state and
delivered in another the laws of interstate
commerce were superior to the police
powers of the state. Therefore, Congress
passed an act to enable the states to regu-
late interstate commerce in the matter of
spirituous and malt liquors. But the
O'NEILL case against the state of Vermont,
references 10 which have heretofore been.
made in TIE HERALD, contradicted both
the Iowa case and the law by which Con-
gress sought to rectify the interstate COM
merce practice. Yet the supreme court
has just held that the prohibition
in one state of the sale OF any article ap-
plies Independently of its having been
transferred from another state. Justices
FIELD, HARLAN and BREWER dissented
from this view. Still it seems to be cor
rect and constitutional as it accords to the
states the regulation of their own internal
affairs. The law of Vermont, Iowa and
Kansas, forbidding the importation of
liquors is police regulation intended for
the protection of the citizens from the eff
fects of a traffic declared to be injurious.
and, as such, was an excuse of the re-
served power of the states, and not
amenable to review by either the supreme
court or by Congress.
The ''original package" matter, if it re-
lated to spirits or beer only, would be
easily disposed of, in the public thought
at least; but it is hampered with other
questions. Liquor is not the only
article viewed with disfavor in some
localities and threatened with hostile
legislation. Dairymen, for instance, want
supreme control exercised over oleomar.
garine, and in the west there are many who
would outlaw cottonseed oil, whilst the
cotton states hold this product in the high
est esteem. II a northwestern state should
prohibit tho sale of cottonseed oil, which
the manufacturers insist is IS good as lard,
or better, and much cheaper, why may not
the southern states level a prohibition
against lard, and why may not many a
state borrow leaf from the protective tar
if policy, and on one pretext or another
forbid the sale of commodities that COM
pete with their own special prodpcts9
But what a spectacle it is to see Yer
mont, Iowa and Kansas resorting to the
United States supreme court for the en-
forcement Of their own laws The
Republicans of those states never be-
lieved in state rights in any shape or
form. 1t was rebel doctrine, spotted with
disloyalty and treason, and fit only to be
stamped out. They demand national
sovereignty of the strongest and basest
brand, to which all things of local char
acter should be made to succumb. Was
there not a profound humiliation and a
severe shock in the spectacle of Republi-
cans asking a Republican Congress TO an
mi the decision of Republican supreme
court by granting the states the power
which everybody supposed they possessed
before-ot prohibiting the sale of liquors
on their soil2 And is it not ludicrous in
! the extreme to see q Republican state like
Vermont, which has heretofore held that g
3 tate has no rights that either Congress OF
the supreme court is bound to respect, beg
ging the supreme court to enforce certain
moral and hygienic regulations that are OF
no concern to any but their own citizens!