the shipment, and providing that any liquor transported into the state without such a certificate attached to the package shall be seized and confiscated, is in conflict with the constitution of the United States, and void, as being a substantial interfering with and hampering of interstate commerce by the state, and that such requirement cannot be sustained on the ground that it is merely an exercise of the right of inspection, and so a valid police regulation; since, if the right of the state to require inspection of goods not to be offered for sale within the state exists (which is not decided), no actual inspection of the liquors shipped is provided for.

Vance vs. Vanderhook, U. S. Sup. Ct., 1898.

INTERSTATE COMMERCE-DISPENSARY LAWS NOT UNLAWFUL

DISCRIMINATION.

The provision of the dispensary law of South Carolina giving to the state officers exclusive right to purchase all the liquor to be sold in the state, thereby vesting in them the power to restrict sales in the state to the products of one or more states, to the exclusion of the products of other states, does not create or authorize a discrimination which unlawfully interferes with interstate commerce, since every resident of the state has the right, which cannot be affected by state legislation, to purchase from a nonresident liquors which are the product of any state, and to have the same transported into the state for his own use.

Vance vs. Vanderhook, U. S. Sup. Ct., 1898.

INTERSTATE COMMERCE-STATE POLICE LAW.

Liquors imported by a common carrier from another state, for the personal use of the importer, are under the protection of the interstate commerce law only so long as such personal use continues, and such protection ceases if the liquors are given to another, and in such case they immediately become subject to the police laws of the state.

Donald vs. Scott, U. S. C. C., D. (S. C.), 76 Fed. Rep. 559.

LAW

INTERSTATE

VALID.

COMMERCE KANSAS

PROHIBITORY

Ferdinand Westheimer & Sons of St. Joseph, Mo., sued Weisman of Leavenworth, Kan., for the value of a barrel of whisky purchased by him. The order for the whisky was secured in 1893 by a traveling agent of the Westheimers, Weisman being at the time engaged unlawfully in selling liquors. Westheimers secured a judgment before a justice of the peace and Weisman appealed to Circuit Court, which set aside the justice's judgment, and Westheimers appealed to the Court of Appeals, claiming that the prohibitory law in Kansas was a violation of the interstate commerce law and an infringement of the federal constitution. The Court of Appeals decided in favor of Weisman and held that the law is a valid police regulation, and that wholesalers cannot recover for goods sold to any person in Kansas not authorized to sell liquors.

Westheimer vs. Weisman, Kansas Supreme Ct., 1898.

INTERSTATE COMMERCE-DOES NOT APPLY TO SELLING BY SAMPLE.

In 1892 the United States Supreme Court decided in the case of Ficklen vs. Taxing District of Shelby County, Tenn., that the interstate commerce law does not apply to a man selling by samples. Ficklin had an office in Tennessee where he sold entirely by sample on goods which he sold entirely outside of the state. The state, however, taxed him 24 per cent on all his commissions, and on Ficklen's refusal to pay, the state refused him a renewal of his license to trade. The Supreme Court decided against Ficklin.

INTERSTATE COMMERCE-LIQUORS NOT SEIZABLE IN TRANSIT.

Judge Conrad of Des Moines, Iowa, released a package of alcohol which was seized in the United States Express office in that city en route from Rock Island, Ill., to Runnells, Iowa. The package was not labeled or marked so as to show its contents, and the state law requires all shipments of liquor within the state to be so marked. The con

stables seized the alcohol, and claimed that after it once crossed the line and came inside the state it fell under the provision of the statute for the rest of the journey, and was therefore liable to seizure for being unmarked. The Court holds that this was an interstate shipment belonging to interstate commerce, and therefore not subject to state laws until the transit had ended and the liquor become a part of the mass of Iowa property. He therefore ordered that the gallon jug be sent on its way to Runnells undisturbed.

CHAPTER VI.

ORIGINAL PACKAGES.

ORIGINAL

PACKAGES-INTERSTATE COMMERCE-RIGHT TO

SHIP AND SELL.

Leisy, a beer manufacturer of Peoria, shipped beer to Keokuk, which was seized in the original packages by Hardin, a state official, as having been sent there in violation of Iowa law. The Supreme Court of Iowa held that the law under which the official acted was valid, and the case was appealed to the United States Supreme Court, which held:

(1) The states of the Union have an undoubted right to control their purely internal affairs, but whenever the law of the state amounts essentially to a regulation of commerce with foreign nations, or among the states, as it does when it inhibits, directly or indirectly, the receipt of an imported commodity, or its disposition, before it has ceased to become an article of trade between one state and another, or another country and this, it comes in conflict with a power which, in this particular, has been exclusively vested in the general government, and is therefore void.

(2) Citizens of one state have the right to import their

beer into another, and the right to sell it, and until it is sold the latter state has no right to interfere by seizure, or any other action, with the goods so imported.

Leisy vs. Hardin, 135 U. S. 100, 10 Sup. Ct., Rep. 681.

ORIGINAL PACKAGE UNITED STATES ORIGINAL PACKAGE LAW IS CONSTITUTIONAL.

Rahner, the original package agent at Topeka, Kan., of the firm of Maynard, Hopkins & Co. of Kansas City, Mo., was arrested the day after the original package law of Congress went into effect. He claimed that the law was unconstitutional. The case was appealed from the United States Circuit Court for the District of Kansas to the United States Supreme Court, which held:

(1) The power of the state to impose restraints and burdens upon persons and property in promotion of public health, good order and prosperity is a power always belonging to the states. The power of Congress to regulate commerce among the states, when the subjects are national in their character, is also exclusive, and the failure of Congress to exercise this power in any case is an expression of its will that the subject shall be free.

(2) Intoxicating liquors are subjects of commerce like any other commodity, but laws prohibiting the manufacture and sale of liquor within state limits do not necessarily infringe any constitutional privilege or immunity, this right being vested upon the acknowledged right of the states to control their internal affairs to protect the health, morals and safety of their people by regulations that do not interfere with the powers of the general government.

(3) So, when Congress acted, the result of its action must be to operate as a restraint upon that perfect freedom which its silence insured. Congress has now spoken and declared that imported liquors shall upon arrival in a state fall within the category of domestic articles of a similar nature. And that action is constitutional.

(4) The law of Congress simply removed an impediment

to the enforcement of the state laws in respect to imported packages in their original condition, created by the absence of a specific utterance on its part. A re-enactment of the state law is not required.

Wilkerson vs. Rahrer, U. S. Supreme Court.

ORIGINAL PACKAGE-TAXABLE WHEN MIXED WITH MASS OF PROPERTY IN THE STATE.

When the importer has so acted on the thing imported that it has become incorporated and mixed up with the mass of property in the state, such as the breaking of the original package, or the transfer to another person in the state, it has lost its distinctive character as an import and has become subject to the taxing power of the state.

Brown vs. Maryland, 12 Wheat., 419.

ORIGINAL PACKAGE-CARRIER CANNOT REFUSE TO TRANSPORT TO PROHIBITION STATE.—

The power to regulate or forbid the sale of a commodity after it has been brought into the state does not carry with it the right and power to prevent its transportation from another state. Therefore a carrier cannot refuse to carry liquor consigned to a point in a state, alleging as an excuse the prohibitory law of such state.

Bowman vs. C. & N. W. R. R., 125 U. S., 465, 1890.

ORIGINAL PACKAGE-DEFINITION.—

The United States Circuit Court has decided that an original package within the meaning of the law of interstate commerce is the package delivered by the importer to the carrier at the initial point of shipment, in the exact condition in which it was shipped. In the case of liquors in bottles, if the bottles are shipped singly, each is an original package, but if a number are fastened together and marked, or are packed in a box, barrel, crate or other receptacle, such bundle, box, barrel, crate or receptacle constitutes the original package.

Guckenheimer vs. Sellers, 81 Fed. 997.