The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1902-08-27

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the people had not voted at all, for that
question was not before the court for de-
cison. The sole inquiry was whether
Parker had violated a law Of the State
and, if the foregoing proceedings culmin-
ated in valid law, then the law was con-
sttutional and Parker was guilty Of vic
ating that law, and that was just what the
court decided
1t necessarily follows that any language
of Judge Redfeld going outside of or be-
yond the scope of inquiry involved in the
question at issue does not have the force
of legal precedent, and yet the opinion
of learned Judge, reached after thorough
research and mature deliberation and
rendered as a part of his judicial labor,
is much more Xix ly to be sound than
statements of neighborhood gossip and
hotel talk which may be unintentionally
misconsrued or at best mperfectly re-
produced,
And in this connection it may not be
out of place to refer to another case cited
by Judge Thompson in the Cotton and
More case.-that of Bancroft and Riker V,
Dumas, p VT, 456, a Washington county
case decided by Judges Isaac F. Redfeld,
Daniel Kellogg and Luke P. Poland in
1919, in which the license law of 1914 was
under consideration and its constitution
ality assailed Judge Kellogg for the
court, after promising that The Statute
provides that the sense of the freemen shall
be taken annually upon the subject, and if
a majority shall vote mo license then no
licenses are to be granted during the year,
and if a majority vote license, in that
event the several county courts are au
thorized to grant licenses" proceeds in his
opinion as follows:
at is objected to the validity of this
law, that its validity is made to depend
upon the will of the people, expressed at
the ballot box, and hence it is urged, that
it is not law enacted by the Legislature
Is the law subject to his objection? 1t
has all the forms of law,and was enacted
by the legislative department of the gov
eminent but whether it shall be a pro-
hibtion to, or an authority for, the grant
ing of licenses is made to depend upon the
expressed will of the people. Can this
feature of the statute invaldate the law?
Is a law to be judged invalid, because it is
conformable to the public will? 1t is in
accordance with the theory of our govern
ment, that all our laws should be made in
conformity to the wishes of the people.
Surely, then, it can be no objection to
law, that it is approved by the people"
"lf the Legislature could legally and
consttutionally submit the question,
whether licenses should be granted, to the
determination of a portion of the people,
could they not, with equal, if not greater
propriety, submit it to the decision of the
whole people?"
And after considering all that has been
said upon the subject, the fact remains
that the law of 1852, as enacted and voted
upon by the people, was decided to be
constitutional, and that means that a Ii
cense local-option law enacted and voted
upon in the same way, with like result,
would be constitutional; and if there is a
constitutional way Of handling the subject
it is unfair to the Republican party
to assume that its leaders and leg
islators, when assembled at the proper
time to frame bill embodying the
provisions of the party platform, .co
not mean to deal honestly with the
people and pass a reasonable license local
option bill and submit it to the people in
a constitutional way, as proposed by the
referendum plank Of the Republican pla--
form.
Edward H. Deavitt
August %, 1902.