The Mt. Sterling advocate. (Mt. Sterling, Ky.) 1890-current, 1915-05-05

the same right is given the county,
but if simultaneously with tie exer-
else of its right to vote or the ques-
tion, smaller and independent
subdivision of the county, upon
which is also conferred the right
Ito exercise its choice, does exercise
| it with different results, there is no
other way to uphold the law in its
entirety than to treat the territory
of the smaller subdivision as ex-
cepted from the domination Of the
hrger, if it chooses to act independ-
emily"
And the City of Winchester case
as follows: Section 81 Of the Con-
stitution makes it the duty Of the
General Assembly to provide by
general law a means whereby the
sense of the voters of any county,
city, town, district or precinct may
be taken as to whether or not spirit
uous, vinous and malt liquors shall
be sold, bartered or loaned therein,
or the sale thereof regulated. AS
required by that section, the General
Assembly passed a local option law
for the State. The General Assem-
bly, has left to the decision of each
local community under which of
two policies it shall live-the license
system. or prohibition-and author
lied the people to take a vote at
certain intervals and thus change
from one system to the other as they
see proper"
And in the Rains case as follows /:
'The citizens who are legal voters
in the territory alone can take the
initiative in the matter, and they
determine the extent of territory or
unit to be affected by the PROPOSE
ton; that is, whether it shall be- a
whole city or town, or merely one
or more precincts Of the county or
city. This follows the requirement
Of the Constitution, which gives
the right to a city or town as a
whole to allow or prohibit the liquor
traffic within its limits. In view Of
the language of section 81 of the
Constitution, it is not permitted to
the Legislature to deny town or
city the right to vote on this sub
ject as a whole. Nor has the
Legislature attempted to deny or
abridge the right"
That section 81 of the Constitu-
ton was reasonably open to the
construction placed on it in these
cases, the merest reading the Sec
ton shows.
! But in 1906 the Legislature enact
ed the first county unit law, and this
Legislation gave to the county as
the larger unit the right to control
the action Of the smaller units with
in the county such as the city, town,
district and precinct. The validity
of this legislation, which conficted
with the construction placed on Sec
ton 81 of the Constitution in the
Cole and other cases mentioned, has
been upheld in so many cases de-
cided since 1906 that we, might well
rest the opinion on this point with
out further elaboration on what we
conceive to be the controlling author
ity Of these cases decided since
1906. In view, however, of the
large number of persons and the
large interests affected by these ap-
peals, and the insistence of counsel
for the appellants that the proper
construction Of this section of the
Constitution should be again consid-
cred by the Court, we have thought
proper to briefly review what has
been said upon this subject both by
the legislative department of the
State and this court, for the pur-
pose Of determining whether the con-
struction favoring the validity of
the county unit legislation should be
adhered to or the construction first
adopted restored.
Following the adoption of the Con-
stitution, in 1894, the Legislature en-
acted law to take the sense of the
people of any county, city, town,
district or precinct as to whether
liquor should be sold therein. This
Legislation is contained in sections
1854 2568, inclusive of the 1894 ed
ition of the Kentucky Statutes.
Section 1854, of the 1894 edition of
the Kentucky Statutes, which was
the first section of this act, pro-
vided for the submission to the vot-
ers in any county, city, town, dis
trirt or precinct, of the question
whether they desired to permit or
prohibit the sale of liquor in the
county, city, town, district or pre-
cinct i'm which the nuastion wac