The Conservative *
u
Imitating the
1H5VKNUK BY . . , .
5 ruKTKNCK pernicious practice
of congress the
legislature of the state of Missouri has
been making laws under false pretences ,
The federal law for taxing oleomargarine
was pretendedly for revenue but really
to help raise the price of cow-butter. It
was a false pretence. It domesticated
the protective tariff. It taxed one industry -
dustry to weaken it and to strengthen
another industry.
And now the state of Missouri pretending -
tending to provide for the inspection of
beer and to provide for the health of
those who drink beer seeks to tax beer
and browers.
At the October term of the supreme
court of that state for the year 1809 the
validity of this was argued.
Fred W. Lehuiann , who is remembered
*
bered by THE CONSERVATIVE as an industrious -
dustrious and very promising student of
law at Nebraska City in the office of
Chief Justice Mason , is a leading lawyer
in the case at bar. It is onr good
fortune to have a part of his argument
which we give herewith to the readers
of THE CONSERVATIVE with great pride
and satisfaction. Mr. Lehmann remarks -
marks :
"The inspection bill provides , in sec
tion four :
" 'No person , persons or corporation
engaged in the brewing or manufacture
of beer or other malt liquors , shall use
any substance , material or chemical in
the manufacture or brewing of beer or
other malt liquors , other than pure hops
or pure extract of hops , or of pure
barley , male or wholesome yeast , or
rice. '
"The comma between the words
'barley' and 'malt' may not have been
designedly employed , and if such be the
case the formula is 'pure hops or pure
extract of hops , or of pure barley malt
or wholesome yeast or rice. '
"So far as the act excludes the use of
chemicals and insists upon the purity of
the prescribed materials , we do not com-
piam or it.
"We do complain , however , that if the
law is complied with malt liquors cannot
be made at all , for it prohibits the most
important element in their composition ,
and that is water. Ninety per cent of
all malt liquor is water.
"Why was water prohibited ? Can it
be that the legislature did not deem it a
wholesome in-
-
AVater Prohibition. , . , .
„ T.
gredieut ? If so ,
the prohibition is too narrow and water
as a beverage should have been pro
hibited altogether. It may be answered
that the use of water in the brewing of
beer was taken for granted , but this is
to read into a formula which assumes to
be full and complete , something which
is plainly excluded , and which for the
ostensible purpose of the act should have
been taken into account as much as any-
/vthing else. It is essential to the purity
and excellence of , beer that the water
shall bo pure. Not all water is fit for
the purpose. If it is strongly im
pregnated with minerals it cannot well
bo used. If charged with organic mat
ter it ought not to bo used. There is no
better vehicle for convoying disease
germs than water. . If water may bo
used at all under the act , it may be
drawn from any source , from an in
fected well or from a tainted stream.
But having regard for the plain language
of the act , water may not be used at all.
And it will not serve to say that the
legislature 1 could not have intended so
absurd a thing as to exclude it , for evi
dently the legislature had in mind not
the public health , but the public revenue
and enacted an impracticable inspection
measure because no thought was given
to t the subject of inspection.
The formula for an additional reason
prohibits i the manufacture of weiss beor.
It prohibits the use
WoNfloor. . -1 , . . .
of wheat , which is
the 1 cereal employed in brewing weiss
beor. 1 They certainly did not consider
ately i condemn the use of the mildest of
all i malt liquors , for such weiss beer is
they I simply took no thought of it. They
had 1 in mind always and throughout the
great I lager beer breweries of the state as
sources of immense revenue. While the
weiss beer industry is a small one , aggre
gating only 5200 barrels per year , still it
is not to be arbitrarily nor even in
advertently crushed.
It is a matter of common kuo\vledg <
that in the brewing of lager beer corn i :
extensively used
Corn IJecr.
The government o
the United States , through the depart
ment of agriculture , has been engaged
for years in persistent endeavors to in
troduce corn as an article of food to th
people of Europe , and has especially and
not without success commended it fo
brewing purposes. In the year 180
three hundred millions of pounds of corn
were used by the brewers of the Unite
States , and from year to year it is beinj g
more extensively used bv the brewers o f
England and of Continental Europe.
"Why did the General Assembly pro
hibit its use to the brewers of Missouri 3i i ?
For the same reason that water was ex
cluded. Because nobody thought , no
body cared how to make beer , bat only
how to tax it. Surely they do not mean
to say that corn is not a 'wholesome
ingredient. '
"The use of corn as meat and drink
by our people is coeval with the settlement
oi
ment of the coun- :
Corn Gospel. . _ , . .
try. Corn bread
ida
was the daily nay , the three times a
day food which furnished the whole
some , albeit frugal , tables of our hardy
pioneers. And in their travels through
the forests and wildernesses , blazing the
paths of progress which we have but
broadened , their whole commissary was
the hunger-sating journey-cake , carried
in the capacious pockets of their coat-
tails. And today the utmost progress
of gastronomy has not carried our people
ple , unless it bo a few degenerate chil
dren of luxury , beyond an appreciation
of the roasting-ear cooked and served on
the cob , while oven the Sybarite revels
in the flapjack when it is browned by
the skill of the housewife into a tan like
that upon the brow of the husbandman ,
and made toothsome by the application
in ample quantity and judicious pro
portion of real , yellow , cow-butter and
syrup from our own lordly maple trees.
The Missouriau who
pronounces corn an
unwholesome food is false to all his
traditions and is unworthy the mother
who bore and reared him. The excom
munication of this chief staple of our
fields was not intelligently , was not
consciously , done. Our legislators were
thinking of gain , ungodly gain , of
revenues to bo illegitimately gotten , and
minds thus bent had no place for the
associations , the hallowed associations ,
that cluster around Indian corn.
And what is there in the alembic of
the brew-house to convert this whole
some minister to a toil-whetted appetite
into a potion of disease and death ?
"The gods of Greece drink nectar on
high Olympus ; Thor and Odin bout with
Missouri Ainlmisia. mighty mead in
Wai hall a ; Horace
sighs in verso over his Falernian , and
his degenerate son feebly dissipates in
Ohianti , but the beverage of the
Missourian , when he would kindle his
soul to thoughts of higli emprise , is
whisky. It be
may hand-made or ma
chine-made , it may be sour-mnsh or
sweet-mash , it may bo made in the hard
light of the '
revenue collector's
eye , erin
in the mountain vale that's illumined
only by the soft , shimmering shine of
the moon , it may be taken straight or
with
'Some sugary aid to mnlco it sweet ,
Some acid pmack to sour it , '
its attractions , by those who would gild
refined gold or paint the lily , may be
enhanced by the fragrance of the mint
with which our streams are redolent ,
but , however made , and whether or not
tax paid and whether taken with all the
borrowed charms which 'the obliging
mixer of life's elixir' can supply , or in
the beautiful simplicity in which it
gurgles from the jug , it is always
whisky , it is clept bourbon and it comes
from corn.
"And did onr sapient Solons bethink
themselves that this whisky , before it
was distilled must
,
Treason to Missouri.
be brewed , and
that when it was brewed ifc was beer ,
and the corn beer they have condemned
at that , and that the distillation which
follows the brewing is simply a means
of condensing the virtues of the beer ,
bundling its thousand delights into such
small compass that mortal lips can gar
ner them all in a single sip ? We are
forced to believe that they knew not
what they did ; they wore guilty of
deliberate treason if this fell act of theirs
was consciously done. "