Some time before these events there had been organized in the state of
Iowa a temperance league, with its headquarters at Des Moines. Mr. J.
A. Harvey, before referred to, and myself, with Louis Todhunter of
Indianola, had been appointed by the Temperance League a committee to
draft a prohibitory law and secure its passage by the twentieth general
assembly. Another effect of the decision of the supreme court in the
Koehler & Lange case was the retirement of Judge Day from the supreme
bench of the state, and the election of Judge Read of Council Bluffs in
his stead. I was a delegate to the republican state convention from
Polk county. I did not sympathize with the idea of the defeat for
renomination of a judge of the court on the simple ground that his
decision or action as judge did not meet with the approval of the
people, but I could not, with my ideas of right and justice, approve
of the renomination of any judge of the court that had assumed the
prerogative attempted to be exercised by the majority of judges in the
Koehler & Lange case, and I cordially supported Judge Read for the
nomination. I had assisted Mr. Harvey in framing the prohibitory law
that was enacted by the twentieth general assembly, part of which was
written by myself. I did not entirely agree with the committee,
however, in providing as that statute does that the prosecuting witness
or party filing informations for a violation of the law should take to
his personal use any part of the fines or penalties provided for in the
statute. I disliked that feature of the law for the reason that I
anticipated that bad men, for the sake of personal profit and gain,
would bring the law into disrepute. The State Temperance League
undertook to provide, to a greater or less extent, for the prosecution
of offenders under this law of the twentieth general assembly. I was on
the committee appointed by the League and was chairman of the committee
that had advisory powers in regard to prosecutions undertaken or
promoted by the officers of the League, and as chairman of that
committee I had occasion, a number of times, to defeat the purposes and
plans of those who sought to use the authority of the League for some
ulterior purpose. The most serious case of this kind that arose during
my administration related to the effort of a certain whiskey trust to
use the prohibitory law as a means of destroying an industry
established in Des Moines by invitation of its business men just prior
to the taking effect of this prohibitory law of 1884. One of the chief
men in encouraging the establishment of the International Distillery in
Des Moines, so-called, was J. S. Clarkson, editor-in-chief then of the
Des Moines _Register_. This International Distillery was an alcohol
manufactory, established by a man by the name of Kidd. Before he
invested his money in the plant he had taken the precaution to consult
with a number of prominent citizens and prohibitionists of the city of
Des Moines, to know whether or not his enterprise would at all be
affected by the constitutional amendment or the statute that might be
passed in pursuance thereof. Pending the action of the general assembly
upon the constitutional amendment, the Des Moines _Register_ had
insisted upon some legislative interpretation of the meaning and effect
of the proposed amendment upon the question of the manufacture of
alcohol within the state as an article of commerce, for the purpose of
shipping the same to the markets abroad and not to be sold within the
state. In pursuance of the suggestion of the Des Moines _Register_, the
state senate of Iowa in 1882 adopted the following explanatory
resolution as to the meaning and intent of the amendment then pending,
and thereafter to be voted upon by the people, as follows: