The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1906-05-31
Sensible Measure Designed
to Promote Self Govern
ment Is Discarded By
Congress
WHlsKEy INTERESTS TRIUMPH
REPUBLICAN LEADERS HAVE
EITHER sUCCUMBED TO A BIG
BLUFF OR HAVE REALLY
WISHED TO YIELD


is always more or less a question of votes
with Congress, especially with the House.
Congress abolished the canteen, as tenn
perance measure, because the W. c.. T.
U. backed up their demands with
threat of political action, and the soldiers
have no votes. Now Congress has re-
fused to allow the temperance States to
enforce their own laws, because the dis
tillers and brewers objected, and the dis
tillers and brewers have votes.
The so-called Dolliver- Hepburn bill is
dead. 1t was the most logical and sensf-
be temperance proposition ever brought
into Congress. There wasn't an argu-
ment of any kind against it rnat woulG
hold water, except the threat of the dis
tillers and brewers, backed by a crowd
of so-called German-American associa-
tions, to defeat the Republican party if
it passed
If there was ever measure in Com
gress that was really designed to recog
nize and promote local self government
the Dolliver- Hepburn bill was the meas
ure. Its object was to prevent common
carriers and liquor dealers, by conspiring
under the interstate commerce laws, from
overriding local prohibitive laws. 1t has
been national scandal for years that
the prohibition States are unable to pre-
vent the sale of liquor because of the
bootleggers, blind tigers and other illicit
dealers, who have been enabled to defy
the local laws under protection of federal
statutes. Where a State OF town declares
for prohibition the express companies,
as common carriers, become the selling
agents for the distiliers and brewers. and
under cover of miserable pretense at
carrying original packages shipped G. O.
d. to consignees not named, has taken
the place of the saloons, with the effect
of making the prohibition laws shallow
mockery, and offering the whisky inter
ests a chance to show how prohibition
does not prohibit
For yeears the Republican party has
been promising to shut down on this il
licit liquor dealing by the express com
panies so that the States and towns that
want prohibition could enforce their laws.
This year it seemed, early in the session,
that the promise would be kept by the
passage of the Dolliver-Hepburn bill.
Then the brewers and distillers sent to
Washington big crowds or delegations
from different parts of the country, pur-
porting to represent the German-Ameri-
can vote, and headed by brewery and dis
tiIlery lobbyists. who threatened to turn
the German American vote Democrat tic
next fall if the bill was passed. And the
House leaders allowed themselves to be
bluffed, if they did not become parties to
the bluff, and accepted the demonstration
as an excuse for allowing the bill to die.
A bill intended for the same object, in
troduced by John Sharp Williams, prohib-
iting the sending of interstate G. o. d.
packages of spirituous liquors into pro-
hibitive or local option territory, is hung
up in the House Committee oA judiciary.
A slight sop to Cerebus has been of
fered the temperance cause by the
Houses passage of bill which viii put
stop to the partnership which has here
tofore existed between the government
and the liquor interests in the violation
of local excise laws. The government
Internal Revenue Department issues gov
ernment licenses to anybody, in any part
of the country, yho has the money to
pay for them. These licenses are issued
in prohibition States the same ais in any
other. Now and heretofore the names of
the persons to whom these licenses are
being that the government not only has
sold licenses for the sale of liquor in the
temperance States and territories, but
has aided in the violation Of the local
authorities know who in their districts
had such licenses. The House bill, pass
ed recently, provides for the government
officers issuing certificates to State author
tiles which may be used as evidence
against the illicit liquor dealers in the
temperance districts.
On the Hepburn-Dolliver bill, it looks
very much as if the Republican leaders
had either succumbed to gigantic bluff
or had been hard up for an excuse to
surrender to the liquor interests. 1t is
diiiicult to take seriously the statement
that many Germans would change their