In pursuance of the encouragement thus given to Mr. Kidd, and prior to the taking effect of the prohibitory law of 1884, Mr. Kidd expended several hundred thousand dollars in the building of his plant for the manufacture of alcohol at the city of Des Moines, Iowa, and continued such manufacture without interruption until certain prosecutions were commenced against him at the instance of the Western Export Association, a whisky trust organized by the distillers of the United States to prevent an excess of alcohol being manufactured, and by this means to regulate and keep up the price of the article. After the decision of the principal suit undertaken in this behalf, in which I. E. Pearson and a man by the name of Loughran were nominal plaintiffs and the International Distillery and Mr. Kidd were defendants, a decision adverse to the distillery was obtained and the defendants took an appeal to the supreme court of the state. Mr. Kidd and his attorney called upon me and reminded me of the fact that our firm, consisting of B. F. Kauffman and myself, had given them a written opinion to the effect that the law of 1884 did not make it unlawful to manufacture alcohol in this state as an article of merchandise, to be shipped and disposed of beyond the limits of the state, and Mr. Kidd appealed to me to know if I was willing to accept of a retainer to argue that question in the supreme court of the state on his appeal, suggesting that he thought it my duty to do so as a lawyer, and asked if I was afraid to perform my duty in that behalf. I told him that I was not afraid and accepted of the employment.
As soon as this became known to the Des Moines Register, its editors commenced a series of abusive articles against me, containing misrepresentations and insinuations, and for some reasons best known to the editors of that paper and of which I am not advised, they became very active in trying to promote the success of this prosecution against the distillery and to destroy the same. These articles of the State Register created, of course, quite an inquiry among the friends of prohibition in the state, and they wrote a number of letters to Mrs. A. E. McMurray, secretary of the State Temperance League, making inquiry in regard to the matter of my employment. She accordingly wrote a letter to me upon the subject and I answered the same very fully, giving a history of the whole controversy, and particularly the motives of the men that were trying to destroy Kidd and his enterprise. Though the letter is somewhat in detail, yet, as it is a complete answer to all of the criticisms that have been made of my professional conduct in this matter, I give it here in full:
Des Moines, Iowa, March 19, 1887.
Mrs. E. A. McMurray,
Secretary of Iowa State Temperance Alliance:
I have your communication of the 17th inst., and appreciating the motives that have prompted it, I take pleasure in responding to your inquiries.
The case of I. E. Pearson and S. J. Loughran against John S. Kidd, now pending upon appeal in the supreme court of the state, and in which I have been retained for the defendant, involves only the question as to the right of the defendant to manufacture alcohol in this state, under the permit granted him by the board of supervisors of Polk county, for the purpose of export. There is no pretense that Mr. Kidd, since the taking effect of our present statute, has ever sold any intoxicating liquors, or alcohol, within the state of Iowa, for any purpose whatever. The only evidence offered to sustain the petition is contained in the official reports of Mr. Kidd to the auditor of the county, by which it appears that he has manufactured alcohol and shipped it out of the state. The article manufactured by Mr. Kidd and put upon the market is not itself a beverage, and is not and cannot be used as such in the form in which he has produced and sold it. The case was first tried in the circuit court of Polk county, before Judges Given and Henderson, upon an application for a preliminary injunction. In December last those two judges delivered an opinion in the case, deciding that Mr. Kidd had not in any manner violated the prohibitory law, and they refused an injunction. At the present term of the district court Judge Conrad, our newly-elected district judge, put a different construction upon the law and held, that by the amendment made to the prohibitory law by the legislation of 1884 it was unlawful to manufacture alcohol in the state for export; and this is the sole question to be determined by the supreme court upon the appeal. This answers the first inquiry in your letter, as to what is involved in the case.
Your next question is whether or not my employment in this case is consistent with my past record; and whether or not it is calculated to impair my influence and usefulness for the cause of prohibition in the future.
I was one of the committee appointed by the State Temperance Alliance to prepare a bill to be presented to the legislature for its consideration, in 1884, that should carry out the will of the people of Iowa, as expressed in the amendment to the constitution, which amendment the supreme court of the state had then decided was not operative, by reason of the failure of the eighteenth general assembly to properly enter the same upon their journals.
As early as the 31st of May, 1881, I prepared and delivered before the Methodist state convention that was held in Des Moines at that date an address on the legal phase of the prohibitory amendment. This address was afterwards printed in pamphlet form by the Prohibitionist, and was circulated during the amendment campaign as a campaign document, and seemed to meet with the views of the friends of prohibition at that time. In that address I took occasion to discuss the meaning and scope of the proposed amendment, and in it occurs the following passage, defining my view of the legislation that would be required by that amendment, if adopted. I quote:
We have, in regard to spirituous liquors, laws upon our statute books designed to prohibit their manufacture or sale, except for medicinal, mechanical, culinary and sacramental purposes. For these lawful purposes certain persons are authorized to sell. They must obtain a permit, give bonds, keep books, etc., and are subject to the supervision and control of the authorities. The manufacturer could be required to sell only to persons thus authorized to sell for lawful purposes; if sold within the state, otherwise than as permitted by the statute, the act could be punished by fine or confiscation.