The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-02-16
LEGAL ANOMALY
 IF PROHIBITION Georgia Soft Drink Makers
 Are Violating Law TOO MUCH ALCOHOL USED Beer Is Used By Some of the Manu- facturers as a Basis For Certain Drinks, and Law Prohibits
 Keeping of Beer.
TOO MUCH ALCOHOL USED

Atlanta, February 15.-(special) Under decision rendered in tho city court Of Atlanta this week, construns the state prohibition law, Georgia presents the pe- euliar anomaly of permitting the sale of thing which 1t is made unlawful to manufacture within the borders of the state.
 The sale of soft sdrinks-temperance drinks--is rather encouraged than handi- capped in the state But there are cer- tain soft drinks which, it is claimed, it is impossible to make without the use of a slight percentage of alcohol, or of l an alcoholic compound as a preserva- tive or other essential constituent
 But according to Judge Calhoun's con struction of the law it is Illegal for any person to keep in his manufacturing es- l tablishment or other place of business any
 intoxieant whatsovere. Therefore while 1 it is perfectly. legal to sell the product in the state, the law makes it practi- cally impossible to manufacture it. ] This decision was rendered in the case of Dr. E. M. Roberts, chemist for an Atlanta soft drink concern, which uses
 beer in the manufacture of it's product. 1 The product itself contains less than one
 fourth of per cent of alcohol and the legality of its sale is recognized by state
 and national governments
 | But under the prohibition law, as stated
 in the charge of Judge Calhoun to the
 jury, it is illegal to keep beer in the | warehouse of the manufacturing plant,
 the law prohibiting the keeping of in- toxicants by any person in his place of business, and Dr. Roberts was therefore
 convicted of violating the law. He has
 appealed, of course, to the supreme court,
 to ascertain if his business can be thus
 broken up and in the meantime sentence
 has been withheld.
 l It is stated that if this is the correct view of the law, 1t will mean the driving
 out of the state of large number of | soft drink manufacturing establishments which cannot make their product without 1 the use of a small percentage of alco- | hol, and to use 1t, they must of course l keep it at hand in the manufactory. AL ] cohol in small quantities, is said to be l the main preservative of these soft drink ! syrups, and should its use in their man.
 ufacture be prohibited, it is said the re-
 suit would be to make the manufactures
 go the way of the former whisky houses
 and seek asylum in other states. This
 would result in the loss of much cap
 ital to Atlanta and other cities of the state, as well as a healthy amount of 1 taxes which these concerns pay.
 The case is unquestionably the most
 important that has yet come up in con-
 nection with the prohibition law, and the
 final result will be awaited with no small i interest.
 1 criticising Courts.
 ! Severe criticism of the Atlanta courts
 was indulged In the other day in connec-
 ton with case which came up in the
 recorders court, in which the city de-
 tectives pleaded with the recorder to send
 q woman charged with the violation of n
 state law, to the city stockade, because
 if she were turned over to the state courts
 and let out on bond, there was no telling
 when she would be tried and sentenced.
 The detectives stated that they had worked up a number of state eases, In
 which the defendants had been allowed
 to give bond, and aJs a result they had
 never come to trial One case was men
 toned which 1t was stated was throe
 years old. and they declared ihe next
 step would be to drop it for lack of prose- cution. It was stated that continuance
 was secured from term to term on the
 ground that the defendant was sick
 
 of the city, and so it went.
 The recorder, however, declined to pass | sentence to the city stockade in this case,
 but fixed good bond and turned the de- fendant over to the state court. Smith Versus Watson. | Political circles are agog over the in- ! creasing cooness between Gov. HolSe Smith and Hon. Thomas D. Watson of
 Thomson, the populist leader who did l so much toward his election as governor The separation is becoming more ap- parent from week to week in the tenor of the editorial publications in Wat sons Weekly Jeffersonian. Last week, referring to the governors s senatorial am bitions, the Jeffersonian said that no Cleveland gold standard democrat could be elected United States senator from Georgia at this time. This week MT. Watson publishes a very pointed letter, which he wrote to the governor just be- fore the execution of Arthur P. Glover, in Augusta, for the murder of a cotton mill employe by the name of Maud Dean, with whom he had been infatuated. Back Mn 1892 when Watson was a can didate for Congress. and was engaged in joint debate in Augusta with Maj. J. c. C.. Black, he was attacked by a crowd of hoodlums, and Glover, it is said, led the crowd that saved him from per- sonal violence. This accounts for MT. Watson's interest in Glover, and his ef- fort to save him from the gallows by appeal to the governor whom he helped elect-an effort which proved futile.
 It was just before he signed the order refusing clemency to Glover that Goyer- nor Smith is said to have remarked to a friend that he and Watson were get ting further apart every day, While the general opinion appears to be everywhere that the governor was right in refusing clemency in this case it is interesting that it should have be- come. perhaps, the chief cause of the separation of the two political leaders.
 Mir. Watson's letter as published in the Jeffersonian this week, Is evidently in reply to one received from the governor declining to mitigate the sentence of death imposed upon Glover. It is dated Jan- uary 26,. the day following the governors final decision in the case. In the out set Mr. Watson says
 "As I have said to you before, there is , no office or appointment which l would l accept. My work on the two Jefferson iaps is congenial and exacting, and !, never. expect to hold another public posi- 1 tion"s
 MT. Watson then states that he is shocked to see what O construction the l governor put upon the report of the 1 lunacy commission appointed in Glover's 1 case. He contended that while the report | showed Glover to be sane in the sense | of knowing right from wrong, yet 1t '