Pine Bluff daily graphic., 1917-06-28
LIQUOR
 LAWS EFFECTIVE
 STARTING SUNDAY
Thereafter Unlawful to Ad- vertise or Solicit Sales in
 Dry Territory.

Business aggregating millions of dollars a year in the form of liquor shipments from "wet" localities to neighboring "dry" states will be wip- ed out by the federal law, approved March 3, which on and after next Sum- day closes the United States mails to advertisements or solicitations for the purchase of alcoholic liquors.
 The new law will stop shipments of liquors in any form into Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Georgia, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Missis- sippi, Oklahoma, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oregon, South Caro- lima, Tennessee, Virginia, Washington and West Virginia.
 Utah will be added to the list one month hence; Indiana on April 3, 1918; Michigan on April 30, 1918; New Hampshire on May 1, 1918, and Mon tana on Dec. 31, 1918. Thus by the beginning of next year half of the states of the Union will be dry, and in half of them the law of March 3, 1917, will be generally affective.
 More than this, the law to come into effect next Sunday will be operative in numerous township, cities, counties, villages and districts of states that are not generally dry but in which under local option laws, local prohibition exists.
 The postoffice department has plac- ed broad construction upon the new act. Newspapers and other publica- tions of general circulation that con- tinue to accept liquor advertisements will be obliged to either perfect their machinery of circulation so as to make invasion of prohibited territory impossible, or run the risk of incur ring severe penalties.
 Section 5 of the law provides that no letter, postal card, pamphlet, or publication of any kind, containing any advertisement of spirituous, vinous, matted, fermented, or other intoxicat- ing liquors of any kind, or any of them, shall be deposited in or carried by the mails of the United States, ,or be delivered by any postmaster or letter carrier, when addressed or directed to any person, firm, corpor- ation, or association, or other address see, at any place or point in any state or territory of the United States, at which it is, by law in force in the state or territory on July 1, 1917, un- lawful to advertise or solicit for such liquors, or any of them, respectively The publisher who violates this act personally or through an agent, rem ders himself liable to fine of $10O0 and six months Imprisonment for the first offense, and to Imprisonment fol year for each subsequent offense trial of such cases to be held either ir the district in which the matter was mailed or in the district to which ii was carried by mail for delivery. The ruling of the postoffice depart ment that the new act applies to local ities where prohibition exists through local option, as we'll as to the states that are wholly dry, sustains the view point of the prohibition leaders that the law should be so interpreted as tc preevnt distillers, brewers and other iiquor interests from defeating local option laws by use of a federal agency over which the local law has no con- trol.
 Any drink containing alcohol has been defined by the postoffice depart ment as intoxicating liquor within tn! meaning of the new law. Nethyl
 wood and denatured alcohol are ex
 cepted. The department has rulet
 also that the prohibition against ad
 vertisements applies to liquor for sci
 entific, sacramental, medicinal anf
 mechanical purposes: Prohibitionists believe that the re
 suit of the new law will be virtual!
 to wipe out from the columns ot tn
 public press all liquor advertisements l This will be great victory for na tional temperance, it is declared.