Iowa Prohibition Undermined by Supreme Court Interstate Liquor Ruling
The experiment of promoting temperance by prohibition in Iowa, which has been in progress for many years, and has been a storm center in the great battle waged by temperance people against the forces of rum in this country, seems now to have reached its termination in a victory for the enemies of temperance reform. This unhappy result is due to a decision just rendered by the Iowa supreme court, holding that shipments of liquor into the State of Iowa from other States is sanctioned by the rules of interstate commerce. Of course, if liquor can be freely shipped into the State from without, a law prohibiting its manufacture within the State boundaries amounts to nothing as a preventive measure against its use. Concerning this decision a dispatch from the Iowa capital says:— The supreme court to-day [May 15] rendered an opinion which practically nullifies the prohibition law in the sixty counties in which it is in force in this State. Decision is in the case of Pat Hanaphy, agent of the Dallas City Transportation Company, who took orders for the shipment of liquor to certain parties in this State. It was held by the lower court that this was a violation of the prohibition law. The case was appealed to the supreme court, and the decision rendered in the case to-day opens up the whole question again. In the decision of the supreme court the following language is used: “These holdings, it is needless to observe, render the power of the State to prohibit the traffic in liquors to large extent nugatory, and leave the agents of nonresident dealers to ply their trade with resident violators of the law without effective hindrance, but we have only to declare the law as we find it. It is proper to add that all these cases under the authority of which this appeal is disposed of have been decided by a divided court.” The cause of temperance does not appear to be gaining ground, but rather the reverse, which is not strange in a world that is sinking ever deeper into the iniquities that were to mark the last days of its career. The hope of temperance, like every other hope pertaining to a righteous cause, is centered now in the second coming of Christ.