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Show THE ' 4 OFFICIAL' ' LIQUOR BILL. Tho "official" or "earmark" liquor bill has finally appeared in the House, aud is known as 31'. B. 2;M. It came from I he committee on judiciary, and has at least the merit of not being unreasonably long. The Senate liquor bill requires some twenty thousand words to express itself. This new or "bunch"! liquor bill is less than one-tenth one-tenth of that length; but there its morit ceases, for it is fully as bad per word as any of the bills so far introduced, if not iworsc. Its most obnoxious feature is the bringing in of tho district court as an administrative power -in tho granting of liquor licenses. The cily recorder is required to forward to tho district court the application for liquor license, with bond attached, and thereupon tho court will make an "order" that the license shall issue. But, after all, the process of the court does not seem to be an order, as it is at first designated, desig-nated, nor is the city council obliged to obey it. for tho council "may" or "is authorized" to issue the license upon 'the order of the court. . The language lan-guage of the bill in its first mention clearly implies that the council may obey the court order or not, as it sees fit.' But, if the order of the court as to the issue of licenses approved by tho court is in fact an order, there arc no means provided in the bill whereby that order can bo enforced. If it is not aii' order, then what is the use of having it go through the court at all? The multiplying of work and expense is evident from the requirement that the application and bond shall be re tained -by the court and a copy sent, by the clerk of tho court to the city recorder, re-corder, fn the section whereby this matter is later treated, it; appoars to be mandatory upon the council lo issue the license, but in tho first paragraph of section 12-1 3 the wording is. that the council is "hereby authorized to grant licenses."' In one case the council coun-cil has discretion, even after the ordgr of the court issues whether it will grant the license or not; in the third paragraph para-graph it is provided that the city council coun-cil "shall cause tho license to issue." Here is a clear .conflict of two parts of the law, one against the other. But the chief objection is to the court having anything to do with tlm matter-at all; for it is entirely out of the accepted business of a court to enter en-ter upon the exercise of administrative functions. Tho judges can determine the law. It is not within the judicial function fo engage in administrative or executive- duties, and it is well always al-ways to keep separate tho functions of the different departments of our civil administration. The courts might "fust, as well be called upon to enact laws as to proceed with the administration of them in functions tlmt are not judicial. They might just as well be entrusted with all executive powers as with ordinary ordi-nary administrative and executive powers. pow-ers. The bill, thorcforc, is objectionable objection-able by reason of its mingling of different differ-ent governmental functions. The separation sep-aration of the powers of civil government govern-ment into legislative, executive, and ju-- ju-- dicial should never be done away with, niw ulimil1 mm ilnil'i rl mnnf ff flip frnv- eminent infringe upon the rights and proper functions of either of the others. oth-ers. And, as a practical proposition, the courts have no time to take on this administrative function. The court calendar cal-endar is clogged all the time with work properly judicial, and the judges have all their time taken without having hav-ing this new burden loaded upon them. In tho election provisions carried in this bill, the same being costly, unnecessary, unneces-sary, and irksome, two opposite rules ale applied. Tn the case of cities tlie vote, in ordor to have prohibition, there must be a- majority, of all the votes cast at the last general election; but in the country districts the voto, in order to nave saloons, must uc a majoritj' of the total vote cast at the last general election.- That, is, the law distinctly favors the saloon in the cities and prohibition in the country districts. This contrary rule as to the two classes of Voting units -on this question can hardly be sustained in the courts. Another objection to the bill is, that cities arc forbidden to reduce tho number num-ber of saloons by requiring a heavy -li? cense fee. The most, that can be cx;i.ct; ed from saloons is $ f .100 a year. That is the license 1'eo now in this city, and a good many are in favor of increasing this license charge in order to effect a reduction of tho number of saloons; Upwards of 13;. saloons in this city pay the i?lf00 a year license; but there is a strong public sentiment here in favor of increasing this licenso charge in order to effect a reduction of the number of saloons to a basis of one saloon sa-loon to every thousand of the population. popula-tion. That would give us, sny, 93 saloons sa-loons in this city. Dut it is desirable that the revenue froiu saloon licenses shall not bo reduced. The Jogic of the case, therefore, would requiro that, as the number of saloons is reduced, the license chnrge should be increased. That is, say, wc get a revenue of $192,500 from 1155 saloons. If tho number of saloons were reduced to 93, in order lo got tho same rovenuc wo would need "to have a license fee of $2000 a year; and inasmuch as the remaining 93 saloons would do quite as largo a business as the present 135, they could afford to pay as much license as the 135 saloons now pay. We seo no reason whatever v.'Vy the Stale should fix a limit of this kind and hold a city down so that it is obliged to have a larger number of saloons than it wants to have) in order Jo. get a stated amount of rcve-7 nuo from tho liquor traffic. This portion por-tion of tho law is directly in favor of the enlargement of the number of saloons sa-loons and the strengthening of the saloon sa-loon influence. On Iho whole, this now "earmark" .bill appoars to be about the most. ill-considered, ill-considered, objectionable bill of tho whole lot. It will be costly in forcing political liquor wrangles all over the State. Jt will bring the courts, into the liquor business, not only in an ob , noxious way, but iu a way violative of tho true principles of government. It will hamper the cities that seek to reduce re-duce the number of saloons within thoir borders, and will be the cause of irritating irri-tating legislation, which will Inst a long while. The liquor question in this State is thoroughly adjudicntcd, on lines that are, in fact, satisfactory to the majority of tho people. Any bill that would unsettle the settled principles that hnvc been thrashed out in the courts and ruled upon, will throw tho field of litigation wide open for an indefinite in-definite number of years to come. But if this bill should pass it will require the courts to take preliminary stops as an administrative power upon' the issue of licenses, and then requiro those same courts in matters of litigation to review as judges the acts that they had performed as administrators of the liquor law. All is well judicially with the liquor question in this Stuto as matters now are. All would be as far as possible from well if this .bill should pass, for it is only less provocative of litigation than the immensely long and involved liquor bill which the Senate Sen-ate is engaged upon, and which would throw tho State into a whirlwind of litigation liti-gation from the moment that it passed until after final court determination that might last many 3cars before its true legal meaning could be ascertained. Tt is a certain case that the best possible pos-sible thing that the legislature can do with the liquor question is to let; it alone." It is an equall- clear case that nothing worse could bo enacted than this supposed official liquor bill which is just introduced in the House, except the Senate bill on the same subject; and it is in fact about a toss-up botween them as to tho comparative viciousness of tho two measures. |
