TJie Liquor Question. 



placed, and was really, and in truth, a natural and healthy product 

 And yet, because the Legislature had decided that milk below thia 

 arbitrary standard was, in its judgment, injurious and detrimental to 

 the public health, therefore, the court declined to interfere, and by 

 sustaining the legislation, virtually upheld the proposition, as was 

 claimed by the parties in that case, that the Legislature had reversed 

 the experience of mankind in all past ages, and that it was an attempt 

 by legislative enactments to reverse the processes of nature. 



In the License Cases, 5 How. 504, Chief Justice Taney said : "If 

 any State deems the retail and internal traffic in ardent spirits inju- 

 rious to its citizens, and calculated to produce idleness, vice or 

 debauchery, I see nothing in the Constitution of the United States to 

 prevent it from regulating and restraining the traffic, or from prohib- 

 iting it altogether, if it thinks proper." In Beer Co. v. Massachusetts, 

 97 TJ. S. 33, it was said : " That as a measure of police regulation, 

 looking to the preservation of public morals, a State law prohibiting 

 the manufacture and sale of intoxicating liquors is not repugnant to 

 any clause of the Constitution of the United States." 



The most recent adjudication involving the right of the State to 

 prohibit the manufacture, sale or use of intoxicating liquors for other 

 than medicinal, scientific and mechanical purposes, was made by the 

 United States Supreme Court in Mugler v. Kansas, 123 U. S. 623. 

 This was one of several cases involving the validity of legislative 

 enactments under the State Constitution, which had the effect of 

 prohibiting the manufacture and sale within that State of intoxicat- 

 ing liquors, except for medical, scientific and mechanical purposes. 

 It appeared that some of the persons proceeded against had large 

 capital invested in establishments especially constructed for the manu- 

 facture of beer at the time these enactments took effect; and that 

 the buildings and machinery constituting these breweries would be 

 of little value if not used for the purpose of manufacturing beer, and 

 would, therefore, be a practical destruction of their property. The 

 general question in those cases being whether the statutes of Kansas 

 conflicted with that clause in the fourteenth amendment of the 

 Constitution of the United States, which provides that « no State shall 

 make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immu- 

 nities of citizens of the United States, nor shall any State deprive any 

 person of life, liberty or property, without due process of law." The 

 court held that such legislation was valid, and did not invade any 

 constitutional right. Mr. Justice Harlan, speaking for the court, 

 said: -That legislation by a State prohibiting the manufacture 



