The National tribune. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1877-1917, 1908-08-13
MARKING OF WHISTLES.

AS we have apprehended all along,
the manufacturers of imitation WHISTLES
were not going to relinauish an inn
nc csely profitable business without a
fight to the finish carried to the SUI
preme Court The allied "distiIlers and
blenders" these men who are engaged
in making whisky out of Peoria al
cohcl, have secured two injunctions
against the internal revenue officers to
prevent their marking whisky in ac-
cordance with the regulations of the
Department as ordered by the Presi-
dent. One of these injunctions was
issued by Judge Humphrey, of the
Southern District of Illinois, and the
other by Judge Thompson, of Ohio.
These injunctions are only temporary,
and hold only until the case can be tried
before the courts and decision rem
dered. AS to their effect Attorney-Gen-
eral Honaparte says, in response to an
inquiry by Secretary of the Treasury
Cortelyou:
The effect of the courts action is to
prevent the marking of the cases of the
complainants in those particular di:s-
tilleries in accordance with the terms
of the-~rircular above mentioned 1t
does not in anywise affect the upDlica-
ton of the said circular with respect to
other distillcries in the same district
and still less does it alter thu duties and
powers of the officers and employees of
the Internal Revenue Bureau serving in
other districts. The situation, therefore,
is that there being only those regula-
tons properly in force, and the court
at the instance of these conlplainants
having prohibited the Collector Of IN
ternal Revenue from marking their
casks or packages in accordance with
these regulations, the marking or
branding of the casks \ or pack
ages of these two particular
distilleries cannot be done in ac-
cordance with said regulations, but in
all other cases the circular of May S
remains unaffected by the action of the
said two Circuit Courts, and viii so
continue until superseded or suspended
by the action of the same or other
courts or modified or rescinded by your
Department"
In other words, the case must go to
of what the name whisky" means. The
only doubt is whether the Supreme
Court may not, as the courts of this
country usually do, accept a word which
has come into common use. and decide
that the name whisky" can cover all
these various compounds; that is, the
courts of England and America have
usually accepted any word they found
in common use in the community and
given it legal force. For example, they
found truss of hay among the English
farmers to generally mean 56 pounds
of old or so pounds of new hay, while
truss of straw was SO pounds, and
the courts gave these weights legal
sanction. The question then before the
court will be whether the people have
become SO accustomed to calling "whis-
key" a mixture of Peoria alcohol, with
water, co)ored with burnt sugar, as to
give that rightful place in the bust
ness transactions of the country. Up
until within comparatively short time
whisky has meant the product of the
stills, ripened by age, dur
ing which it was stored in barrels Has
the imitation product of a colored mix
ture of alcohol and water, which forms
nine-tenths of the whisky sold to-day,
acquired a similar acceptance in BUSH
ness speech? This will be the issue
presented to the Supreme Court.