Autobiography of Charles Clinton Nourse Part 6

The truth is, and all who have watched the progress of this contest know that it was never intended to make this amendment aim to do more than it was possible to do, namely, to exercise police power in its own state, and not aim to attempt to stop inter-state commerce, nor try and prohibit the use of liquor in other states.

(Appended is a letter from Hon. L. S. Coffin, supporting the _Register's_ view.)

THE AMENDMENT'S MEANING

(_Iowa State Register_, February 21, 1882)

We plainly told members of the convention before it met, in order that they might be warned in time, that thousands and thousands of voters were waiting for the true interpretation of the amendment before deciding as to their position toward it--_The Register_ as a paper, among them. When they adjourned, evading and ignoring a question on which probably hung, and still hangs, the fate of the amendment at the polls, we held that the legislature should take some action to ascertain the real meaning of the amendment before ratifying it. This we held could be done by asking the attorney general, the lawyer and adviser of the state, to give his views as to its actual meaning.

These stills, encouraged by the government laws and by the people of Iowa, have begun their manufacture in the state. If Iowa is ever to be anything of a manufacturing state, it can hope to be so mostly, and will be profited mostly by manufactures from its own staple crop. This can go into alcohol, and always be sold, and yet rarely if ever, be used as a beverage. For alcohol is used in thousands of mechanical ways. It is made into varnish by putting gums and resins with it. It is mixed with spirits of turpentine, and makes camphene and burning fluids in endless quant.i.ties, used all over South America and Europe. It is made into cologne and other perfumed spirits by flavoring it with different kinds of oil, and all over Europe, when fuel is scarce, it is used in vast quant.i.ties for cooking and heating stoves. Millions and millions of gallons of it are used for other mechanical purposes. Very little of it in this form is ever used for a beverage. To say that Iowa corn should be made into this form in Illinois, or in Cincinnati, or New York, or Liverpool, but not in Iowa, is to still leave it to be so converted, and with Iowa bearing the whole loss and reaping none of the gain.

So we say, let us have the amendment's real meaning, so that it may be fully understood by the people, and voted up or down as it shall deserve to be.

As a member of the committee appointed to prepare a bill for the action of the general a.s.sembly of 1884, I can say that there was at no time any thought by the majority of that committee of asking any legislation that would prohibit the manufacture of intoxicating liquors for medicinal and mechanical purposes or for export and sale beyond the jurisdiction of our laws. That committee was composed of lawyers who fully understood that any legislation that we could obtain must be based upon the police power of the state to regulate the sale of intoxicating liquors within its jurisdiction.

The Utopian idea that the legislature of Iowa could control the use to which intoxicating liquors, manufactured and sold as an article of commerce in the markets of the world, might be applied in another state, I do not think was at all entertained by the members of that committee, save perhaps one of them, Mr. Todhunter. The bill that was prepared by the committee and presented to the legislature was not enacted into a law in the form in which we originally presented it; but house file No. 516-1/2 was reported by the committee as a subst.i.tute for that and other bills that had been introduced on the subject and was pa.s.sed in both the house and the senate in the form in which it came from the committee, and const.i.tutes chapter 143 of the acts of the twentieth general a.s.sembly. And it is this law upon which Judge Conrad bases his opinion. That the friends of this law never intended or believed that it would prohibit the manufacture of alcohol in this state for export clearly appears from the record. Pending the vote upon the pa.s.sage of this bill in the house the friends of the bill indulged in very little speech-making, and Governor Carpenter and Mr. Kerr were the only members who undertook to reply to the a.s.saults of its opponents. The first effort of the opponents of the bill was to try and load it down with amendments and thereby secure its defeat. An amendment was offered by Mr. Bolter, of Harrison, making the bill an absolute prohibition of the manufacture of intoxicating liquors in this state, and this amendment came within one vote of being adopted. The vote stood fifty votes against the amendment and forty-nine for it. The entire fifty members that voted _against_ this amendment of Mr. Bolter, voted _for_ the pa.s.sage of the bill the next day, while of the forty-nine that voted for Mr. Bolter's amendment nearly all of them voted against the pa.s.sage of the bill.

The _Iowa State Register_ the morning after this vote was taken contained the following leading editorial giving an account of this attempt to kill the bill. I quote from the _State Register_ of February 29, 1884, as follows:

The house spent the day yesterday on the prohibition bill. Our report in detail shows how desperately the democrats are fighting the inevitable.

The spectacle of the democrats voting at one time yesterday, for dishonest purposes, for absolute prohibition, and next ranging themselves on the side of the low license or practically no temperance law at all, is a vivid ill.u.s.tration of the insincerity of that party on the temperance question.

Their att.i.tude is insincerity itself, and they are ready to do anything to defeat honest temperance measures. The only test vote had yesterday was on the Bolter absolute prohibition bill (amendment) which was defeated by forty-nine yeas to fifty nays; all the democrats and all the greenbackers and one republican, Mr. Schee, voting for the amendment. Fifty republicans voted in the negative.

During the pendency of the discussion the _Register_ of the same date contains a report of the speeches of Governor Carpenter and Mr. Kerr in favor of the bill. The following is the full text of Mr. Kerr's speech as reported in the _Register_ of February 28, 1884. Mr. Kerr said:

The opponents of the bill were wonderfully afraid it would not prohibit. There had never been any question as to the const.i.tutionality of the amendment pa.s.sed in 1882. It was only the manner of its enactment by the nineteenth general a.s.sembly that had rendered it invalid. He agreed with Mr. Dabney that the manufacture of liquors for any purpose was wrong. What was it the people of the state wanted to prohibit? The saloons; those hot-beds of infamy that were constantly bringing disgrace upon the state and misery upon the people. Any representative who fails to crystallize into form of law the will of the people fails to do his duty. How are we to know this sentiment, if not by the votes of the people? There is no better way. Mr.

Bolter was eloquent in his denunciations of the evils of intoxication and he agreed with that gentleman and hoped when the time came the man from Harrison would vote in accordance with that sentiment. There are no interests in the state, vested or otherwise, that are higher than the interests of the whole people of the state, and it was better for a few to lose a few dollars than to entail and fasten upon the state an industry that directly or indirectly injures every man in it.

It is best for all to have the business wiped out. Mr. Merrill asked Mr. Kerr if the bill permitted the manufacture of liquors for export. Mr. Kerr replied that the bill had been prepared by its friends and it was not intended to have it loaded down by its enemies. _The intention of the law was not to prohibit the manufacture for exportation, as there were some doubts as to whether that could be done._

This law as it pa.s.sed the house was published in full in the _Register_ of the 28th of February, and on the 29th of February wehave this leading editorial in the same paper:

The _Iowa City Press_ tries to prove the impossible thing that the proposed prohibitory law in Iowa will discriminate against Iowa brewers and in favor of Iowa distillers. The same stale cry of the democratic campaign. We have heretofore shown that the proposed interdiction treats distillery and brewery alike _and leaves both free to manufacture for export_.

As to the vineyards of Johnson and other Iowa counties, their products ought to be able to ship as far and sell as well as the product of the Iowa distillers, and it will do so if it is a good article; if it is not a good article it will find no buyer at home now or abroad hereafter.

I have quoted the above remarks of Mr. Kerr, for the reason that Mr. Kerr was one of the most staunch and extreme prohibitionists on that he was in favor of absolute prohibition; but at the same time he distinctly repudiates the idea that the legislation which he was then advocating was intended to accomplish any such end. The state temperance convention had simply demanded of the legislature that the will of the people of Iowa as expressed in the vote upon the const.i.tutional amendment should be embodied in a law of the state.

Or as Mr. Kerr very significantly remarks, should be "crystallized into law." It is well known as a part of the history of this temperance movement that the _Iowa State Register_, the leading journal of the state that advocated the const.i.tutional amendment, demanded of the nineteenth general a.s.sembly, as one of the conditions upon which it would support the amendment, that it should adopt a joint resolution defining the meaning and intent of that proposed amendment, and that it should declare that it was not intended to prevent the manufacture of intoxicating liquors for the purpose of export and sale beyond the state boundaries. That resolution, with the vote by which it was adopted, is on page 501 of the senate journal, 1882, and is as follows:

Whereas, doubts have been suggested as to the true intent and meaning of the joint resolution proposing to amend the const.i.tution of this state, etc.; therefore be it

_Resolved by the senate_, that said proposed amendment was and is designed and intended to prohibit the manufacture within this state _for sale within this state_ as a beverage, of all intoxicating liquors, including ale, wine and beer, and to prohibit the selling of such liquors _within this state_ for use as a beverage, and prohibit the keeping of such liquors, for sale as a beverage _within this state_; and was not designed to prohibit the manufacture, sale or keeping for sale of such liquors for any or all other purposes.

The yeas were: Senators Abraham, Arnold, Boling, Brown of Keokuk, CLARK OF PAGE, Cotton, Dashiel, Gillet, Greenlee, Huston, Hartshorn, HEMMINGWAY, Johnson, Kamrar, Logan, Marshall, Nichols of Benton, Nichols of Guthrie, NICHOLS OF MUSCATINE, Parker, Patrick, Poyneer, Prizer, Russell of Greene, Russell of Jones, Sudlow, Terrill, Wall, Whaley, Wilson, Wright--31.

All republicans and all _prohibitionists_, except Wall, who was a greenbacker. Those who think that it is disloyalty to the cause in me to advocate this same doctrine now should reflect that Clark of Page, and Hemmingway, and Pliney Nichols, are all in the same boat--to say nothing of the _Iowa State Register_, at whose special procurement this resolution was pa.s.sed. The next morning after this resolution was adopted, March 18, 1882, the _Register_ contained the following editorial:

The senate defined the meaning of the proposed prohibitory amendment and gave to it the beverage interpretation for which the _Register_ has so steadily and persistently contended. So that now the people of Iowa have the true definition of the amendment, which is, that it is to deal with liquors in manufacture and sale only as a beverage _in the state of Iowa_. It was this interpretation that the _Register_ asked for in order to support it.

But the meaning of this law is, in my judgment, clear, from the text of the act itself without reference to this legislative history. This law left in full force section 1542 of the code, which defines the offense of keeping intoxicating liquors with intent to sell the same in the following terms:

No person shall own and keep, or be in any way concerned, engaged or employed in owning or keeping intoxicating liquors _with intent to sell the same within this state_, or permit the same to be sold therein, in violation of the provisions hereof.

This is in entire harmony with two decisions of our supreme court rendered prior to 1884, declaring that alcohol was an article of commerce that might be lawfully held and owned and kept within this state and for sale and export beyond the state. The prohibition contained in this section, 1542, against keeping intoxicating liquors with intent to sell the same within the state, is a clear declaration of the legislature that to keep or own the same with intent to sell it beyond the bounds of the state is not a violation of the law. And the amendment of 1884 in regard to the transportation of liquors, an amendment which I prepared myself and which was incorporated in the law in the very language in which I wrote it, prohibits any railroad company or common carrier from knowingly "bringing into the state" or "transporting intoxicating liquors between points within the state" without first having been furnished with a certificate from the county auditor certifying that the consignee or person for whom the liquor is to be transported is authorized to sell the same within the state. It is very evident, that if this provision of law, which is section 1553, was intended to prohibit the export of intoxicating liquors, it would not have been so careful to limit the prohibition to importation and to transportation between points within the state.

The section was written with express reference to the theory that the manufacture of intoxicating liquors in this state for purposes of export was not prohibited by law.

After this law of 1884 took effect, it will be remembered, that we organized in Iowa county alliances for the purpose of prosecuting offenders and enforcing its penalties. Such an organization was effected in Polk county, and I had the honor of being nominated as the chairman of the judiciary committee of such organization, which committee was charged with the duty of employing attorneys and enrolling prosecutions under the law. In May, 1884, Judge C. C.

Cole, of this city, received from the Western Export a.s.sociation of Distillers in the United States a claim against the International Distillery for $17,499.68, which it was claimed Mr. Kidd owed the pool, on account of over-production. It will be necessary to give some explanation of the character of this claim. The Western Export a.s.sociation is an a.s.sociation of the alcohol distillers of the United States, chiefly located at Peoria, Illinois, whereby they undertake to control the manufacture of alcohol and limit its production in relation to the demand, and thus control and keep up the price of the article. The entire scheme is an unlawful one as against public policy, in that it establishes a monopoly and prevents compet.i.tion in the production of a legitimate article of commerce and sale. Judge Cole was too good a lawyer to go into court with a suit upon such a demand, and he conceived the idea of using the criminal processes of the law against Mr. Kidd for the purpose of extorting from him this demand of the whisky pool. In accordance with this purpose Mr. J. S. Clark, his partner and afterwards one of the plaintiffs in this present suit, Mr. S. J.

Loughran, was induced to appear before the county alliance and offer the services of Mr. Cole free of any charge to the alliance, for the purpose of prosecuting the International Distillery and hara.s.sing them with prosecutions upon alleged violation of the law, and asking that the secretary of our a.s.sociation, Mr. Littleton, give the use of his name for the purpose of filing complaints. The proposition was referred to the judiciary committee of the county alliance, of which I was chairman, and was duly presented to me by the secretary. It is hardly necessary for me to say that I refused to enter into such a conspiracy or to favor the use of the alliance for any such purpose. We had organized in good faith in this county for the purpose of enforcing the prohibitory law in the interest of the cause of temperance, and not for the purpose of collecting the illegal demands of the whisky pool and the distillers of Illinois.

The following is a literal copy of Judge Cole's letter to Mr. John S. Kidd, in relation to this claim:

DES MOINES, IOWA, MAY 24, 1884.

John S. Kidd, Esq., President International Distillery Company, Des Moines, Iowa.

Dear Sir: The Western Export a.s.sociation has placed in my hands for collection by immediate suit a claim of $17,499.68 against the International Distillery Company, and you as its president.

My pleasant personal a.s.sociations with you have prompted me to ask and obtain permission for my client to delay the actual bringing of the suit till noon of Monday next, May 26th. I could not obtain leave for further delay because certain members of the a.s.sociation, who also have retained me to bring suit if this is not settled, claim that they are being further damaged to the extent of thousands of dollars daily, by the course of your company. Hoping to see you and to receive payment of the claim before Monday noon, I remain as ever

Very truly yours,

C. C. Cole

To this very remarkable epistle Mr. Kidd made response of the same date as follows:

Permit me to suggest that you should not allow personal considerations to interfere with professional duties. This bit of advice is given gratis and by way of friendly return for the favor of your grace over Sabbath on the modest demand you make.

Yours truly,

John S. Kidd

It is unnecessary to say in this connection that Judge Cole never filed any pet.i.tion in court on this modest demand. After the county alliance refused the use of its name or influence for the purpose of extorting this money out of Mr. Kidd, a clerk in Judge Cole's law office filed complaint against Mr. Kidd and procured warrants for the seizure of alcohol manufactured and shipped for export beyond the bounds of the state. All of these prosecutions proved ignominious failures. The present suit against Mr. Kidd was commenced in December, 1885, Lewis Todhunter appearing of record as attorney for the plaintiff, and I. E. Pearson and S. J. Loughran as the nominal plaintiffs.

In October, 1885, Mr. Loughran, at a meeting of the county alliance, offered a resolution instructing its officers to commence suit against the International Distillery, _provided evidence could be found against it_. I was not present at the meeting, and on motion of Mr. Lee the resolution was referred to the judiciary committee.

Upon inquiry of Mr. Harvey, the then president, and Mr. Littleton, the secretary, I found that neither of those officers had any information upon which a suit could be predicated, and neither would advise a prosecution. Mr. Loughran nor any one else ever approached the committee on the subject, or furnished the alliance any evidence.

The statement has been made that I was at this time the attorney for Mr. Kidd. This is wholly untrue. It is true, however, that early in 1884 the firm of Nourse & Kauffman was called upon by Mr.

Kidd, for a consultation with the attorneys, Messrs. Lehmann & Park, in regard to his business affairs, and upon the matter of the construction of the act of 1884, Mr. Kidd advising us at that time that he desired strictly to observe the law in the manufacture of alcohol. We gave him our opinion at the time, and he paid our firm a fee of fifty dollars. I have had no business connection with Mr.

Kidd or the International Distillery since that time, until my employment in this case, after the decision of Judge Conrad a few weeks ago.

Early in the year 1886 the secretary of the Polk county alliance reported that the funds of the organization and the available subscriptions were exhausted, and that liabilities had been incurred that we were unable to meet. Several unsuccessful efforts to have the subscriptions to our funds renewed were made. Mr.

Harvey, on account of other engagements, declined a re-election as president of the county alliance in June, 1886. It seemed impossible to get a responsible person to accept of the position.

Under these circ.u.mstances I. E. Pearson succeeded to that office.

Though a gentleman of elegant leisure, he has never, since his election, been able, by his influence or exertions, to put a dollar into the treasury of the alliance.

He has, however, been operating quite extensively on "his own hook," as he says. His princ.i.p.al enterprise, apart from his present suit against Mr. Kidd, has been to watch the incoming of the monthly reports that the law requires the druggist to make to the county auditor, and whenever, by any misadventure, their reports have been delayed a few days beyond the time fixed by the law, Pearson has brought suit against them for the one hundred dollars penalty provided by the statute, and then compromised for the largest amount he could get out of the defendant. In this way he has made hundreds of dollars for himself and has been able to support such an improved style of personal appearance that it has attracted public attention and newspaper comment.

In this new _role_ of "affidavit maker" to the _State Register_ he has already attained distinction. Whether this enterprise will prove a financial success I do not know, as I am not advised as to the terms of the new partnership. It is not yet known whether Pearson has taken the _State Register_ into partnership, or whether the _Register_ has taken in Pearson.

It has always been my fortune in life to antagonize men of this stamp. If I have not as many friends as some men of less positive opinions, I have the consolation to know that I have reason to be proud of the character of my enemies.