Abandon All Hope, Ye Who Keep Saloons

Throughout the month of May, Henry Klausen had continued to sell soft drinks out of the former Newman & Klausen saloon, while he waited to hear from the Indiana supreme court on the state-wide prohibition case. But when June came with no word from the court, Henry gave up and closed his business. That left five former saloons still operating as soft-drink parlors (the Hobart House and the businesses of Fred and Buck Franzen, Lawrence Traeger, John Hillman, and George Watkins).

Now that four Hobart saloons had closed, the Gazette noted that for the first time in many years, some of the town's business rooms were standing vacant.

Those who still held out hope went on waiting for a favorable decision by the supreme court, but at present prohibition was the law. Out of Gary came a report that police raiding Jake Friedman's saloon — which supposedly sold near-beer and ginger ale — had discovered 200 gallons of "honest-to-goodness whisky," all of which they poured down the city's sewers.

Finally, on June 28, the Indiana supreme court spoke.

No provision of [Indiana's] Constitution … forbids the passage of laws to protect the health, morals, or welfare of the people in connection with the traffic in intoxicating liquor, even though such laws destroy previously recognized property without paying for it. That the liquor traffic is within the police power of the state no one denies. When this is admitted, there must follow the power to take such steps as are reasonably suitable to carry out this purpose.

The Indiana Anti-Saloon League's spokesman had correctly predicted that the court would point to the tested validity of the local-option law and conclude that what had been constitutional at the county level did not become unconstitutional at the state level. As for the venerable precedent cited by the brewers, the court contended that the reasoning behind the 1855 Beebe decision was too opaque to provide guidance, and furthermore, the principle of stare decisis could not "be invoked to shut off police power" or to "chain us to error."

In his lone dissenting opinion, Judge John Spencer focused on the question of prohibiting the manufacture of intoxicating liquor. He argued that the Beebe decision had unambiguously held such prohibition invalid, and that both the limits on police power and the rights of property owners (specifically, the brewers who had bought and greatly improved property in reliance on 50-year business charters granted them by the state) forbade such prohibition. Surely, he contended, brewers could at least manufacture liquor for export to states where it was still legal. But he was outvoted by his four fellow justices.

The majority opinion noted, "This court has nothing to do with the wisdom or unwisdom of the legislative act. A law may be repugnant to general principles of justice, liberty, and rights not expressed in the Constitution, and yet the courts have no power to strike it down."

And so, in Hobart, the five remaining former saloons could go on dispensing soft drinks if their owners chose, but all hope was gone that they might resume their regular business in the foreseeable future. Prohibition was now settled law, and the Gazette said, "The law is being enforced."


Sources:
♦ "Additional Local News." Hobart Gazette 21 June 1918.
♦ "Local and Personal." Hobart News 6 June 1918; 27 June 1918.
♦ "Local Drifts." Hobart Gazette 12 July 1918.
♦ "Prohibition Law Constitutional." Hobart Gazette 5 July 1918.
♦ "Prohibition Law Upheld by Indiana Supreme Court." Hobart News 4 July 1918.
♦ "Schmitt v. F.W. Cook Brewing Co." The Northeastern Reporter, Vol. 120. St. Paul: West Publishing Co., 1919. http://books.google.com/books?id=jfIKAAAAYAAJ (accessed 8 Apr. 2011).