Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1912-12-20

getting Uncle Sam out of the rum bus
mess.
Then we can begin the curtailmen
of the booze product.
Then we can stop the advertising ano
exploiting of the poison.
Then we shall understand that !
is not natural appetite that calls
for the constantly increasing output
of all kinds of booze.
Then we shall see that it is the
thousand and one ways known to the
rum traffic, of increasing the appe-
tite and the demand for their product
in which there is so much easy money
Which causes the demand.
Then we shall know that as the
manufacture and exploiting of booze Is
reduced the public thirst abates.
Then any law restraining this I'M
mitigated. everywhere-a admitted evil
WILL BE CONSTITUTIONAL.
Newspapers which largely adver-
tise the goods of the booze trade foi
the unconstitutionality of the Kenyon
Bill proposition: so are booze trust
LAWYERS and booze ust-eleeted sena
tors and representatives. The bill is
to be defeated, if money, and rum, and
saloon ward -heeler- political allegiance
have effect.
A dispatch from Washington telling
of the opening debate reads in part
as follows:
Denunciation of the mail order llq-
uor business" as an enemy of State
prohibition characterized the opening
of the debate in the Senate for the
passage of the Sheppard Kenyon bill,
to prohibit the shipment of liquor
across State lines into dry territory.
Consideration was devoted to address,
es in it's support by Senators Sanders
of Tennessee and McCumber of North
Dakota. both of whom had introduced
bills similar to the measure now
pending in the Senate. Legislative
rules threw the ,anti-liauor shipment
bill back to the regular calendar oil
the Senate when the short debate
was interrupted by the converting OF
the Archibald court of impeachment
Members will demand that it again be
taken up, however, and an effort
probably will be made within short
time to have it brought before the
Senate as the unfinished business,
insuring it's daily consideration until
it is finally disposed of. Interest in the
constitutionality of the proposed law
was manifest throughout the days
debate, and brought numerous senators
into the consideration of the measure.
Senator McCainber declared that et-
forts to give State governments the
power to seize liquor shipments as
soon as they crossed the State lines
must fail, because the Supreme Court
Invariably had held such legislation to
be unconstitutional. The Federal Gov
eminent has entire right, he declared
to prohibit the shipment of liquor In
to prohibition States
The measure now pending. WHICH
passed the House as the Sheppard bill
would prohibit the present mail order
and express order busine SIS, in LIQUOR II
States where local prohibition prevails
where shipped in quantities giving
Reasonable Indication of being for il
legal traffic.
Thus we see at the outset determi-
alton to interrupt and delay considera.
ton of this bill until it's friends are
worn out and disheartened. Mean
time it's opponents in the press and
elsewhere, will leave no stone unturn-
ed.
But to the lay mind the question Of
national right to interfere with inter
state traffic in poison for men, seems
stretched a bit when interstate traffic
in pest infested Christmas trees car
be so promptly halted; when disease
infected live stock can be stopped
anywhere.
Suppose the all-powerful rum trus
were behind the Christmas tree bust
| ness. then what :?