United States v. First Nat. Bank of Anamoose

190 F. 336, 1911 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 162
CourtDistrict Court, D. North Dakota
DecidedSeptember 27, 1911
StatusPublished
Cited by9 cases

This text of 190 F. 336 (United States v. First Nat. Bank of Anamoose) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, D. North Dakota primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
United States v. First Nat. Bank of Anamoose, 190 F. 336, 1911 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 162 (D.N.D. 1911).

Opinion

r AMIDON, District Judge.

[1] The defendant, the First National -Bank of Anamoose, is charged in the indictment with a violation of section 239 of the Criminal Code of the United States, which reads as follows’:'

'• “Any ra-ilrdad-’company, express company, or other common carrier, or any other 'pétson who, in,connection with the transportation of any spirituous, vinous,-malted,-fermented, or other intoxicating liquor of any kind, from one statip, territory, or district of the United States, or place noncontiguous to but subject'to'the jurisdiction thereof, into any other state, territory or district of -the-' United States, or place noncontiguous to but subject to the jurisdiction thereof,’ ;or. from any foreign country into any state, territory, or district-of the United States, or place noncontiguous to but subject to the jurisdiction thereof, shall collect the purchase price or any part thereof, on or after delivery, ftfóm the consignee, or from any other person, or shall in any manner [337]*337act as the agent of the buyer or seller of any such liquor, for the purpose of buying or selling or completing the sale thereof, saving only in the actual transportation and delivery of the same, shall be lined not more than live thousand dollars."

The indictment charges the offense to have been committed in the following manner: One Dan Meyers, residing at Anamoose, sent an order to the Hamm Brewing Company, doing business. at St. Paul, Minn., for a case of beer. The brewing company in filling the order delivered the beer to the Minneapolis, St. Paul & Sault Ste. Marie Railroad Company, and received from it a bill of lading, with an agreement on the part of the company that it wmuld not deliver the beer to Meyers until he presented the bill of lading to its agent at Anamoose. Thereupon the brewing company attached a sight draft for the purchase price of the beer to the bill 'of lading, and sent the same to the First National Bank of Anamoose, which undertook and agreed with the brewing company to collect the draft from .Meyers and deliver to him the bill of lading, so that he could present the same to the railway and receive the beer, and thereby complete the sale and delivery of the same, and that the bank carried out this agreement with full knowledge of all the facts above stated.

The defendant appeared by its president while the court was engaged in a jury term, and entered a demurrer to the indictment on the ground that it did not state facts sufficient to constitute a public offense. The demurrer, was overruled, with the-understanding that the same question would be renewed by motion in arrest of judgment at a time when the court had more leisure for its consideration. The defendant accordingly entered a plea of guilty, and the case is now before the court upon a motion in arrest of judgment, and has been fully argued by counsel.

An understanding of section 239 requires a brief history of the conflict between liquor dealers claiming the protection of the commerce clause of the federal Constitution, and states prohibiting the sale of intoxicating liquors. That conflict arose as soon as the prohibition measures of Kansas and Iowa had been sustained in Mugler v. Kansas, 123 U. S. 623, 8 Sup. Ct. 273, 31 L. Ed. 205. The sale of intoxicating liquors in the usual method at retail then became illegal in those states. The liquor dealers at once attempted to carry on the traffic under the protection of the commerce clause of the federal Constitution. They shipped their goods into those states, and sold them in their original packages by means of resident agents, giving rise to what became known as “Original Package Saloons.” In Leisy v. Hardin, 135 U. S. 100, 10 Sup. Ct. 681, 34 L. Ed. 128, the Supreme Court sustained their right to do this. That decision led immediately to the passage of the Wilson act (Act Aug. 8, 1890, c. 728, 26 Stat. 313 [U. S. Comp. St. 1901, p. 3177]), which by its terms subjected liquors, wrhen shipped in interstate commerce, to the police power of the state “upon fheir arrival” within the state. This statute was assailed as an unconstitutional delegation to the states of power reposed exclusively in Congress. To meet that objection the court changed the point-, of. emphasis in its ruling. In the Reisy Case, following Brown [338]*338v. Maryland, 12 Wheat. 419, 6 L. Ed. 678, the court held that the right to sell articles shipped in interstate commerce in their original packages was an “essential incident” of such commerce, and therefore within the exclusive jurisdiction of Congress. In Re Rahrer, 140 U. S. 545, 11 Sup. Ct. 865, 35 L. Ed. 572, and Rhodes v. Iowa, 170 U. S. 412, 18 Sup. Ct. 664, 42 L. Ed. 1088, it was declared that interstate commerce in its “fundamental aspect” consists in the transportation and delivery of goods, and that, although the right to sell goods shipped in interstate commerce is an “essential incident” of that commerce, it is “but an incident,” and could be subjected to the police power of the state without violating the commerce clause of the federal Constitution. This distinction between interstate commerce in its “fundamental aspect” and the “incidents” of that commerce has since been an important feature of the decisions of the Supreme Court in liquor cases (Heyman v. Southern Ry. Co., 203 U. S. 270, 27 Sup. Ct. 104, 51 L. Ed. 178), and had an important bearing upon the statute involved in the present case. ■ .

The Wilson law, as thus sustained, put an end to the sale of liquor in original packages by means of resident agents. Liquor dealers then sought to accomplish the same result by means of C. O- D. shipments. This was carried on in two forms: Eirst, the usual form which made the carrier an agent of the shipper for the collection of the purchase price of the liquor at or before its delivery; second, by means of bills. of lading with drafts attached for the purchase price of the liquor. In the latter case a dual agency was employed. The carrier transported and delivered the liquor, while a bank or some other agency collected the purchase price and delivered the bill of lading by means of which the purchaser obtained the liquor from the carrier. The states assailed these practices by numerous criminal prosecutions, claiming that they amounted to a sale of liquor within the state, so as to subject the transaction to the local police power under the Wilson act. The defendants based their defense upon the claim' that under the Wilson act liquors were not subjected to the police power of the state until after their delivery to the consignee, and that a C. O. D. shipment, including the collection of the purchase price, was under the protection of the commerce clause. Their contention was again sustained by the Supreme Court in the case of American Express Co. v. Iowa, 196 U. S. 139, 25 Sup. Ct. 182, 49 L. Ed. 417. In the meantime the territory in the United States in which the sale of intoxicating liquors was prohibited by state law.had greatly increased. The decision of the Supreme Court in the case last cited resulted immediately in the introduction of a multitude of bills in both houses of Congress having for their object the prevention of this new form of the old evil.

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Bluebook (online)
190 F. 336, 1911 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 162, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-v-first-nat-bank-of-anamoose-ndd-1911.