Newport daily independent., 1903-04-03

House bill No. 472 (Keel), having been made special order for Thurs day, came up for final reading before the House upon that date and after a lengthy argument in support of it's passage by the author, Hon. Jno. H. Keel, the measure was passed by vote of 42 to 23.
 Following is the reported address of the representative from Jackson county:
 "ln asking the passage of this meas ure, request no more than has been asked hundreds of times by members on the floor of this house. I want you, gentlemen, to give me the cour tesy that have always extended to you-the right to represent the peo- pie of my county. live in cosmo politan little city of more than 4,000 people, surrounded by as rich a coun try as the eye of man ever beheld; 8 city of schools and churches; of noble women and brave men; I live with a people who have three times honored me with seat in this legislature; a people whom I love and with whom expect to live and die. I want you, gentlemen, to relieve our citizens of situation that is now confronting us.
 "Two years ago, Mir. Speaker, whis- ky was petitioned out of our town by very questionable methods. Many good people were in the movement, yet it was not accomplished by the names of a majority of the property owners, but chiefly by the names of negroes, fioaters, and the riff -raff element. Hundreds of citizens state that their names were secured on the 'prohi' petition through misrepresen- tation. A large petition containing several hundred names of citizens who had previously signed the prohibition petition was filed with the court; said petition asking that the names of these citizens be removed from the prohibition petition. The court, oW- ing to some irregularities, decided | that these names should not be re- moved from the 'prohi' petition, un- jess sach person asking the removal of his signature would come before his honor and give a sufficient reason, in the judgment of the court, why said name should be removed As a result of this, many of our citizens were thought to be imposed upon, and to the great surprise of nearly every property owner in the city the court declared whisky petitioned out. It is unnecessary to state here that this judge was defeated for a second term, and you, gentlemen all know the re- suit of law that is forced upon a community. Such was this law. It was like mill dam made of sand. Blind tigers went wild. We had all l the evils attendant with the sale of whisky and we lost the revenue But you ask: "Why didn't your officers enforce the law?" We answer by saying that three -fourths of the sub- stantial people felt that they were outraged by the courts decision. They had nothing to do with putting license out, therefore these men fur nished little or no support to the off, ficers in their efforts to stop the blind tigers.
 "Our prosecuting attorney is not to blame. He is a good officer and has done everything in his power to stop this illicit traffic. He secured forty one convictions against one man at one term of our court, and to show how our pubic sentiment is, the very next grand jury unanimously joined hundreds of other citizens in signing a petition to have the governor pardon this man. Again, gentlemen, I ask you to pass the bill and forever make it impossible for our recent experi- ences to be repeated.
 "On last Thursday night our honor able temperance committee considered this bill and voted to recommend that it do pass. On Friday night the chair man of this committee called the com mittee together and listened to the evidence of three prohibition law yers, who admitted that they were being paid fees for their work, and who tes- tified that I, as representative, do not voice the sentiment of the voters and taxpayers of the city of Newport. Against the evidence of these attor- neys and MT. Wilmans and his son, we had the evidence of Messrs. Grubbs, mayor of the city; Johnson, cashier of the Bank of Newport; Meyer, mer- chant; Stayton, ex- prosecuting attor