CHAPTER X

THE SALOON IS NOT AN INHERENT RIGHT

"There is no inherent right in a citizen to thus sell intoxicating liquor."

The United States Supreme Court has used this expression no less than twelve different times and almost every state supreme court of the Union has declared that no person has an inherent right to keep a saloon. The cases in which such declarations have been made are so numerous that it would be a test of time, eyes and digests to collect and cite all of them, and to do so would serve no useful purpose. It is sufficient to say that the declaration has been made by the Supreme Courts of the States of Indiana, Illinois, South Carolina, Idaho, Colorado, Michigan, Louisiana, Oregon, Missouri, Iowa, Virginia, Alabama, South Dakota, Arkansas, Delaware, Kansas, Georgia, Pennsylvania, New York, North Carolina, New Jersey, Maryland, District of Columbia, and perhaps others.

As illustrative of their import, the case of Harrison vs. People, 222 Ill. 150, is a good example. In this case the Supreme Court of Illinois said: "It must be conceded that the business of keeping a saloon or dramshop is one which no citizen has a natural or inherent right to pursue."

In the opinion of this court, it is so apparent that no one has an inherent right to keep a saloon, that the assertion is regarded as a conceded proposition. But, what is the meaning of the statement? If to

keep a saloon is not an inherent right, why not? What is meant by inherent rights of citizenship? Inhere is the key word, and it literally means to stick in, so that inherent rights of citizenship are the rights that stick in and are a part of the very essence of citizenship.

We have gone a long way toward solving the question, when we understand that government is solely a protective institution; that its function is to preserve and protect pre-existing rights, and not to create or grant rights. Citizenship was established and government instituted for the very purpose of promoting and guarding the safety, health, peace, good order and morals of the people, and how could it be possible for that which endangers safety, health, peace, good order and morals to be a part of the essence of citizenship?

Probably no clearer definition of inherent rights can be found anywhere than that embodied in the following statement of Justice Field, of the Supreme Court of the United States: "As in our intercourse with our fellow-men certain principles of morality are assumed to exist, without which society would be impossible, so certain inherent rights lie at the foundation of all governmental action, and upon a recognition of them alone can free institutions be maintained. These inherent rights have never been more happily expressed than in the Declaration of Independence, that new evangel of liberty to the people: 'We hold these truths to be self-evident,' that is, so plain that their truth is recognized upon. their mere statement, 'that all men are endowed'; not by edicts of Emperors or decrees of Parliament

or Acts of Congress, but 'by their Creator, with certain inalienable rights,' that is, rights which cannot be bartered away or given away or taken away except in punishment of crime; and that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and to secure these,' not grant them but secure them, 'governments are instituted among men.'

The Supreme Court of Arkansas says: "All men are created equally free and independent and have certain inherent rights, amongst which are those of enjoying and defending life and liberty, of acquiring, possessing and protecting property and reputation, and of pursuing their own happiness. The right to liberty, the right to acquire, possess and protect property and the right to pursue happiness all include the right to follow and pursue, for the support of life, any lawful trade or pursuit.

"Can there be any doubt that the right of a man to sell food, to purchase, lease and cultivate lands, or to perform honest labor for wages, with which to support himself and family is among those rights, declared in the constitution to be inherent in every man ?"

There is an inherent right in every man to follow a lawful business or calling. There is no inherent right, according to court decisions, in any man to keep a saloon. From these premises the conclusion that the saloon is unlawful is certainly. inevitable. No court, probably, has more often or more clearly defined inherent rights and inherent powers than has the Supreme Court of Indiana, which has declared, at least eight different times, that an inherent right or an inherent power is one

that exists independently of any statute and requires no legislative delegation to justify its exercise.

Then, those rights, which are not inherent, do not exist independently of any statute, and they do require legislative delegation to justify their exercise. The Supreme Court of Indiana has three times, if not oftener, said that no person has an inherent right to keep a saloon; so that, no man, independently of the license statute and its legislative delegation, has a right to keep a saloon. If so, then the saloon is a legalized institution.

Discussing this question editorially, the Indianapolis News says: “Men have the same inherent rights to keep saloons and sell liquor that they have to keep bake-shops and shoe-stores and sell bread and shoes."

The statement is to the effect that they have the same inherent right to do the one as the other. The Supreme Court of the United States and, at least, twenty-five different State Supreme Courts have affrmed that no man has an inherent right to keep a saloon. Then, if the bake-shop and shoe-store stand on the same legal footing, as the News asserts, no man has an inherent right to keep either a bake-shop and sell bread or a shoe-store and sell shoes. And then, to apply the holding of the Supreme Court of Indiana, that those rights, which are not inherent, are delegated by statutes, the next conclusion must be that there is some statute delegating the right to sell bread and shoes, as well as liquor.

The liquor statute is very easily found, but the man that undertakes to point out the bread statute