Denver labor bulletin., 1916-09-09
432 CHARLES BUILDING
Denver, Colo, August 2s, 1916.

His EXcellency, George A carson, Gov-
ernor OF the State of Colorado, State
Capitol Building, Denver, Colorado.
Dear Sir: The daily press reports
that you denounced the proposed beer
amendment and said it puts lie in the
constitution, but you did not tell your
audiences of the lying and absurd pro-
vision of your prohibition statute which
made the declaration necessary. Section
80. of the law of 1915, entitled @Intoxi-
eating Liquors." reads as follows:
SEC. 80. Construction.-This act shall
be construed literally to include within
its provisions intoxicating liquors OF
every kind and character, which now are
in use or which in the future may come
into use as a beverage, no matter by
what name they may be known or called
and no matter how small the percentage
of alcohol they may contain, and no
matter what other ingredients may be in
them"
The United States government consid-
ers beer, containing less than one-half of
one per cent alcohol a non-intoxicating
liquor The state of North Dakota con-
siders beer, containing less than two
| per cent of alcohol, nom n-intoxicating; the
other states have various provisions, but
you went to the ridiculous extreme above
stated To amend the constitution and
the statute so as to leave them intact
and effective as to all other liquors, it
was necessary to define beer as a non
intoxicating liquor and make it an ex-
ception and thus save the rest of the
liquor article and the thirty-two sections
of the statute.
The proposed amendment reads as fol-
lows:
"Sec 3.-Beer is hereby declared to be
non Intoxicating liquor within the
| meaning of this article of the constitu-
| tion, and the manufacture and sale of
il, beer is hereby made lawful, provided.
however. that all beer shall be sold in
unbroken packages and delivered direct
ly to the consumer at his residence
The state treasurer shall charge and col
lect a tax of ten l0) cents per barrel
for each and every barrel of beer man
ufactured This section shall be self
executing"
1t is noteworthy that you. by the
trick of partial quotation. only mention
the first nine words of the proposed
amendment. You do not add the words,
within the meaning of this article,
which shows that it is meant as a dec
laration or definition. You do not men,
tion the proviso which says, provided.
however. all beer shall be sold in un-
broken packages and delivered directly
to the consumer at his residence You
know as a lawyer that this proviso. be-
ing limitation and appearing later in
the article. restricts any definition or
declaration in the earlier part of the ar
ticle, which may be broader. You also
know when the constitution says it shall
only be sold in unbroken packages at
ones residence it cannot be sold in any
other form or at any other place. no
matter how many people may handle it.
You know a direction in a constitution
as to how a thing should be done ex-
cludes the doing of it in any other man
nef.
You also declared that if the amend.
ment passes beer could be sold from a
beer wagon in front of every residence.
There is a federal law requiring a L.
cense costing twenty dollars year for
selling beer. Denver brewers, whose driv-
ers used to take orders for beer from the
saloons, were told to take out a license
for every saloon to whom they used to
sell beer under those conditions. And so
this practice stopped. and unless a brew
cry would be willing to pay twenty dol.
lars for every customer 50 served, such a
custom would not grow up
You are very lucky in having the beer
amendment as an issue. Your admins
tration is a series of blunders and fail
ures. Instead of reorganizing the militia
who We're to blame for the horrors OF