Supreme Court of the United States in Crowley vs. Christenson, 137 U. S. 86: "By the general concurrence of opinion of every civilized and Christian community, there are few sources of crime and misery to society equal to the dram shop, where intoxicating liquors, in small quantities, to be drunk at the time, are sold indiscriminately to all parties applying. The statistics of every state show a greater amount of crime and misery attributable to the use of ardent spirits obtained at these retail liquor saloons than to any other source."

CONDEMNED BY LEGISLATIVE ENACTMENT

The legislature of Indiana has enacted its condemnation of the business by requiring that the nature of alcoholic drinks and their effects on the human system shall be included in the branches to be regularly taught in the common schools of the state. R. S. 1901, 5984 a.

FRUITS OF THE LIQUOR TRaffic

It is not making the case too strong, to say that it is within the knowledge of every private citizen, of average information as to current events, that the business kills many, makes widows and orphans, fills almshouses, jails, penitentiaries, orphanages and insane asylums; that it frenzies the brain and directs the murderer's hand to plunge the fatal knife and discharge the deadly weapon.

The last sentence of the quotation from Crowley vs. Christenson, 137 U. S. will bear repeating: "The statistics of every state show a greater amount of crime and misery attributable to the use of

ardent spirits obtained at these retail liquor saloons than to any other source."

If the proposition that any business, the inherent tendency and effect of which is to destroy the public health, the public morals or the public safety is immoral and unlawful, is sound, it must follow, as the day follows the night, that the business, which is the source of a greater amount of crime and misery in every state, than any other cause, is the most immoral and the most unlawful business that there is in any state.

This is an inevitable conclusion from the premise. Logic will lead to no other result. So that the question for determination may now be stated in another form. Can the state sell the privilege or indulgence of producing the greatest amount of crime and misery? The natural tendency and effect of the saloon business is dangerous and detrimental to public and private morals and to the peace and good order of society, and because of this fact it contravenes the fundamental principle of self preservation and because it does this, it is unlawful and does not have the inherent right to exist. It can not legally exist at all, unless the state can sell and delegate to it the right of existence. The state is organized for the self preservation of its citizens in health, morality and safety. It is organized to enforce the right and prohibit the wrong. This is the paramount duty of the state to its constituent members, and it can not surrender the execution of it for a price. It is the imperative duty of the state to exercise the police power for the promotion and preservation of the public health, the public safety,

the public and private morals and the general welfare.

Blue vs. Beach, 155 Ind. 121.

City of Frankfort vs. Irwin, 34 Ap. 280.

By section one of the Bill of Rights, it is declared that the state of Indiana was founded for the peace, safety and well-being of the people, and, by section one of article eight of the state constitution, it is made the duty of the General Assembly to encourage by all suitable means, the moral and intellectual improvement of the people.

STATE CANNOT SELL PRIVILEGE TO PRODUCE CRIME AND MISERY

It would seem to follow logically that this imperative duty can not be discharged by delegating, for a money consideration, to an inherently unlawful and immoral business the right to exist and subject the citizens of the state to its baneful influence. Logic and reason must certainly treat such a delegation of right as a suspension rather than an exercise of the police power. The exercise of the police power can not be suspended or surrendered lawfully.

Blue vs. Beach et al, 155 Ind. 129.

The logic of all this must lead to the conclusion that the state can not, for a license fee, give the saloon business a legal standing.

The Supreme Court of Indiana has, in effect, so held. In the case of the Columbia Club vs. the State, ex rel McMahan, 143 Ind. 110, that court declared that a statute which should attempt to authorize prize fighting would be void. The language of the court is: "A statute which should attempt to

authorize prize fighting, would, most certainly, be opposed to the spirit of the constitution and, indeed, to that of the law itself, long since defined to be "A rule of civil conduct, prescribed by the supreme power of a state, commanding what is right, and prohibiting what is wrong." While prize fighting is odious and degrading, its evil influences are insignificant when compared with the destructive results of the liquor traffic. The Supreme Court of the United States has held that the saloon business is the greatest source of crime and misery that there is in any state-more than that, the greatest source in each state.

HIGHEST AUTHORITY CONDEMNS LESS INJURIOUS BUSINESS

The

The position of this court then is this: highest judicial authority of the state has declared a less injurious business inherently unlawful, and beyond the power of the state to delegate to it a legal existence, and this court is now asked, in the face of this declaration, to hold that the business, which has been declared by the highest judicial authority in the nation to be the most unlawful business in any state, can be given a legal existence by the state, for a fixed consideration. This court will not walk into this dilemma. The law should be harmonious.

In the case of Commonwealth vs. Douglass, 100 Ky. 116, 24 S. W. Rep. 233; 66 Am. St. Rep. 328, the Court of Appeals of Kentucky, distinguished the exercise of the police power from contract obligations, holding that a license to conduct a lottery

was not a contract, but an attempted delegation of a right, which the state could not grant, because a lottery is vicious and demoralizing in the community. I quote from this opinion the following:

"The reason for this distinction must be apparent to all, for, when we consider that honesty, morality, religion, and education are the main pillars of the state, and for the protection and promotion of which government was instituted among men, it at once strikes the mind that the government, through its agents, can not throw off these trust duties by selling, bartering, or giving them away. The preservation of the trust is essential to the happiness and welfare of the beneficiaries, which the trustees have no power to sell or give away. If it be conceded that the state can give, sell and barter any one of them, it follows that it can thus surrender its control of all and convert the state into dens of bawdy houses, gambling shops and other places of vice and demoralization, provided the grantees paid for the privileges, and thus deprive the state of its power to repeal the grants and all control of the subjects as far as the grantees are concerned, and the trust duty of protecting and fostering the honesty, health, morals and good order of the state would be cast to the winds, and vice, and crime would triumph in their stead. Now it seems to us that the essential principles of self preservation forbid that the commonwealth should possess a power so revolting, because destructive of the main pillars of government.

The power of the state to grant a license to carry on any species of gambling, with the privilege of