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Show THE BEER BILL AND PROTECTION PRO-TECTION OF DRY STATES. While the Collier Bill legalizes beer at 3.2 per cent by content or 4 per cent by volume, it also protects the dry states against the importation of beverages of such alcoholic specifi- I cations. In the opinion of the drys, ! this is an important provision. They point to thirty-three states within which 3.2 per cent beer can not be sold lawfully. Fifteen of these states, they say, have prohibition written in : their constitutions; nineteen have prohibition pro-hibition in their by-laws or statutes. Fifteen states have no general statutory statu-tory provisions against beer or other intoxicating beverages, they point out, but county local option privileges do prevail in about one-third of thes.e fifteen stales. The drys, while admitting the absurdity ab-surdity of defining 3.2 per cent as , non-intoxicating in one clause of the , Collier Bill and in another providing ; against shipment of 3.2 beer into dry ; sta'cs because it is intoxicating by i.ni lication, see some hope of preventing pre-venting nation-wide sale of beer un-! un-! der the repeal of the Volstead Act pending Supreme Court action, i The wets hold that a majority of ; the slates are destined to make short work in repealing their anti-prohibi-j tion laws. The drys claim that if the I Supieme Court does not uphold the i Collier Act they will be able to pre-j pre-j vent the repeal of the 18th Amend- mei!t by holding at least 13 states in ; the dry column. The fight, they say, I has just begun. |