to consider the work that is undertaken by our Committees, for instance on Law Reform, with more seriousness.

I know this Conference is doing a great work, and I think we ought to treat these matters more seriously and not play football with the report of the Committee on Law Reform, as we apparently have done at times. I think we ought to sustain this motion by a unanimous vote.

(The motion was unanimously carried.)

THE PRESIDENT:

We will hear from the Committee to formulate a Resolution to the President of the United States.

SENATOR CARNEY: Your Committee wishes to present the following resolution:

RESOLUTION TO THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES

Resolved: That the Bar of Iowa does hereby pledge to the President its unqualified support of every act which may be done, and every measure which may be taken, to maintain the principles of democracy upon which our Government is founded, and to gain a victory for such principles in the war that has been forced upon this nation by the Imperial Government of Germany, that the liberty of the people of the world shall be preserved and a final and lasting peace established.

The resolution, upon motion duly made was unanimously adopted by a rising vote.

This resolution was telegraphed to the President, and in reply the following telegram was received:

My dear Sir:

The White House, Washington, June 29, 1917.

The President very deeply appreciates the reassuring message sent him in the name of the Iowa State Bar Association, and he asks me to convey to you and to everyone concerned an expression of his cordial thanks.

Mr. William McNett,

Sincerely yours,

J. P. TUMULTY,

Secretary to the President.

President, Iowa State Bar Ass'n,

Council Bluffs, Iowa.

MR. GEO. H. WOODSON: I want to say to you that I have been deeply impressed by the remarks of Judge Wade, and I think it not entirely out of place, that I, as the only member of the Association, representing about ten million people in this country, should at this time say a word concerning them to the other ninety some millions of people as to where we stand on this question. I know, because I have traveled about and am advis in detail, as much as any other person in this country, I think, concerning the sentiments and feeling of my people.

I want to say to you, that this Association and the citizens of the United States may count with absolute confidence upon every sacrifice and every service being made by the colored citizens of this country that could be expected of any other loyal patriotic class. In this matter I desire at this time to ask the aid of this Association and of all the lawyers and patriotic people of this country, to the end that we may have a full, fair chance to do what we want to do in this war. We want you to see to it, as long as we are going to have one hundred thousand colored soldiers, that we have the right to have an independent and separate Chapter of the Red Cross of our people who are taking training in the various schools and hospitals of our country.

Fifty lawyers, graduates from Harvard, Yale, and the other great institutions of this country, are in training in the greatest and best State in the Union to be officers of the colored soldiers who are expected to help save this Anglo-Saxon civilization, now trembling in the balance, and we are going to have a chance to settle the question once for all, and we, the men with black blood, are going to make good. We are not going to make good to the end that black folks may rule. We expect to stand throughout our lives in this world to see that the best man rules. We are not going to make a complaint as long as that best man proves to be a white man. These young fellows down here at the Fort in training are a fine looking lot of men. They are fit to fight, preach, or pray. If we don't land the persimmons I don't know what will.

I want to thank this Association; it is peculiarly fitting that I should thank you, because you and all other good men in the

Second District have been my daddies ever since I came here. There is one sad thought that comes to me to-day. There is a great man I miss here more than any other man, and that is the late Horace E. Deemer. When I came by Red Oak, it seemed to me that the train ought to give an extra sound of the whistle or something, as we were passing close by the grave of Justice Deemer.

And so, gentlemen, I thought it entirely proper that I should make these remarks, and in the language of the late lamented Fred Douglass who once said: "We has been wid you, we still am wid you, and we's gwine to be wid you to de end."

MR. L. T. CARNEY: If it is proper at this time, I would like to present several matters with reference to membership. Several of the members have enlisted in the war, and I therefore move you that those members who have enlisted in the service of the United States Government have their dues remitted by this Association during that period.

(The motion was duly seconded and carried.)

MR. L. T. CARNEY: I want to state further that at the present time there is a list of probably eighty who have not paid their dues for the last year.

I therefore move you that the Treasurer in his report give a list of those members by name, in accordance with the requirements of the By-Laws, and that the Treasurer be instructed to once more request payment of these dues from these members, and if the same are not paid within a reasonable time that the names of these members be dropped from the Association membership.

SENATOR C. G. SAUNDERS: That is a matter in which I do not believe we should go too fast. It seems to me that a member ought to be at least two years delinquent before he is dropped. I move you that the motion be amended by adding "provided that he has been delinquent for two years."

(The amendment was duly seconded and carried. The motion as amended was carried.)

MR. L. T. CARNEY: There are five or six of our members who have sent in written resignations in accordance with the ByLaws, who are fully paid up. Several of them have left the practice for good reasons. The names of these members are attached to the Report of the Treasurer, they having complied with the By-Laws in the presentation of their resignations, and I move you that their said resignation be accepted.

(The motion was duly seconded and carried.)

THE PRESIDENT: We will now take up our regular Program. The next paper is entitled "The Commerce Clause", by Dean D. O. McGovney of Iowa City.

THE COMMERCE CLAUSE

The State liquor laws which the Supreme Court of the United States has hitherto declared invalid have been held unconstitutional solely because in conflict with the Commerce Clause. No State liquor law has ever been held by the United States Supreme Court to violate the Fourteenth Amendment. There are some questions upon which the Court has not passed. It will be the object of this paper to inquire into these open questions. For the sake of bringing the issues squarely to the front I shall forecast my analysis by saying that it will raise three final and fundamental questions.

(1) Can the sources of supply be constitutionally cut off so that a man cannot legally have intoxicating liquor brought in or bring it in in any manner from outside the State? The extreme case will be carrying it in on one's own person afoot, or by one's own private vehicle, for his own personal and private consumption.

(2) Can a man be prohibited the private making of intoxicants for his own personal use?

(3) Is it constitutional to make it unlawful to take a drink, -in private and in moderation?

With the merits, the expediency, of drastic legislation and the query as to the limits of effective enforcement, this paper will not concern itself. It will deal solely with the question of legislative power under the Constitution.

I shall first discuss the legislative power to cut off the supply from outside the State. The Supreme Court of the United States determined in 1888 and 1890 that in the absence of a national statute to the contrary intoxicating liquor was a legitimate commodity of interstate commerce and that a State could not prohibit its introduction into the State nor its sale by the consignee in the original package. These results were reached in the familiar cases of Bowman v. Chicago, etc. Railway Co., (1888) 125 U. S. 465, and Leisy v. Hardin, (1890) 135 U. S. 100.

The holding that intoxicants were legitimate commodities of interstate commerce was rested upon the customary attitude of our people as shown in business and in legislation. The latter case also decided that it is not within the powers of the States to outlaw an established article of interstate commerce. In 1904 the Supreme Court said that the question in Leisy v. Hardin was whether a State had "authority to treat the goods as not the subject of interstate commerce", American Steel & Wire Co. v. Speed, 192 U. S. 500, 522. As Justice Catron pointed out in the License Cases, (1847) 5 How. 504, 600, to permit the States to determine what are the lawful articles of commerce is to make State power paramount over the power of Congress to regulate

commerce.

In accordance with intimations in these opinions it has since been settled that within limitations this power to determine what are and what are not lawful articles of interstate commerce is vested in Congress. Here was laid bare the ground of validity of the Wilson Act and the Webb-Kenyon Law. It lies within the power of Congress, and solely there, to deprive a customary article of commerce of its interstate commercial character. Here also is the explanation of what to some has seemed a paradox, that after the passage of those statutes the States have power to deal with intoxicants that they did not have before.

WEBB-KENYON LAW-VALIDITY AND MEANING

Let us pass at once to those statutes, taking the latter first. That Congress may directly and absolutely prohibit the interstate transportation of intoxicants is not disputed. Clark Dis