The Liquor Question. 



161 



within her limits of intoxicating liquors, to be there sold or bartered 

 for general use as a beverage, does not necessarily infringe any right, 

 privilege or immunity secured by the Constitution of the United 

 States, is made clear by the decisions of this court. 



"Again, there is no justification for holding that the State, under 

 the guise merely of police regulations, is here aiming to deprive the 

 citizen of his constitutional rights ; for we cannot shut out of view 

 the fact, within the knowledge of all, that the public health, the 

 public morals and the public safety may be endangered by the general 

 use of intoxicating drinks; nor the fact, established by statistics 

 accessible to every one, that the idleness, disorder, pauperism and crime 

 existing in the country are, in some degree at least, traceable to this 

 evil. If, therefore, a State deems the absolute prohibition of the 

 manufacture and sale, within her limits, of intoxicating liquors for 

 other than medical, scientific and manufacturing purposes, to be 

 necessary to the peace and security of society, the courts cannot, with- 

 out usurping legislative functions, override the will of the people as 

 thus expressed by their chosen representatives. They have nothing 

 to do with the mere policy of legislation. Indeed, it is a fundamental 

 principle in our institutions, indispensable to the preservation of pub- 

 lic liberty, that one of the separate departments of government shall 

 not usurp powers committed by the Constitution to another depart- 

 ment. And so, if, in the judgment of the Legislature, the manufac- 

 ture of intoxicating liquors for the maker's own use, as a beverage, 

 would tend to cripple, if it did not defeat, the effort to guard the 

 community against the evils attending the excessive use of such 

 liquors, it is not for the courts, upon their views as to what is best 

 and safest for the community, to disregard the legislative determina- 

 tion of that question. So far from such a regulation having no rela- 

 tion to the general end sought to be accomplished, the entire scheme 

 °f prohibition, as embodied in the Constitution and laws of Kansas, 

 might fail, if the right of each citizen to manufacture intoxicating 

 liquors for his own use as a beverage were recognized. 



" Such a right does not inhere in citizenship. Nor can it be said 

 that government interferes with or impairs any one's constitutional 

 rights of liberty or of property when it determines that the manu- 

 facture and sale of intoxicating drinks, for general or individual use, 

 as a beverage, are, or may become, hurtful to society, and constitute, 

 therefore, a business in which no one may lawfully engage. Those 

 "ghts are best secured, in our government, by the observance upon 

 the part of all, of such regulations as are established by competent 

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