204 AGRICULTURE OF MAINE. 



infringed a provision of the United States Constitution. That 

 Court, in passing upon the question, held that it did not infringe 

 the provisions of the United States Constitution, and said in 

 brief that a statute 



"which is a legitimate exercise of the police power of the 

 state, for the protection of the health of the public, and for the 

 prevention of fraud, is not inconsistent with the 14th Amend- 

 ment to the Constitution. That amendment was not designed 

 to interfere with the exercise of the ix)lice power by the states." 



This decision was handed down in the case of Powell v. 

 Commonwealth of Penn="lvania, 127 U. S. 678, in 1888. 



Subsequent thereto, a case rose in the State of Iowa, in which 

 a citizen of the State of Illinois was prosecuted under the statute 

 of that state for taking into the state beer and disposing of it 

 there in violation of said statute. It was in original packages 

 and he was disposing of it in that form. The case ultimately 

 reached the Supreme Court of the United States and that Court 

 held that a citizen of one state had a right to import beer into 

 the state as it was interstate traffic and the right to sell it there 

 in the original packages. 



"Up to such sale, the state has no power to interfere by 

 seizure, or any other action, to prevent the importation and sale 

 by a foreign or non-resident importer. The right of transpor- 

 tation of an article of commerce from one state to another 

 includes the right of the consignee to sell it in unbroken pack- 

 ages at the place where the transportation terminates. A law 

 of a state which forbids the receipt of an imported commodity 

 or its sale before it has ceased to be an article of trade between 

 one state and another is a regulation of commerce between the 

 states, and void." Leisy & Co. v. Hardin, 135 U. S. 128. 



After this decision was handed down, a bill was introduced 

 in Congress, known as the Wilson bill — I think — providing that 

 whenever products of this kind were transported from one 

 state to another they should immediately, upon their entering 

 such state, become subject to the laws of the state to the same 

 extent and in the same manner as though they had been pro- 

 duced in that state, and should not be exempt therefrom by 

 virtue of the fact that they were in the importer's original 

 package. 



