In re Application of Carragher
| Decision Date | 16 November 1910 |
| Citation | 128 N.W. 352,149 Iowa 225 |
| Parties | In the Matter of the Application of MATYE S. CARRAGHER, Appellant, for Permit to Buy, Keep and Sell Intoxicating Liquors for Lawful Purposes |
| Court | Iowa Supreme Court |
Appeal from Floyd District Court.--HON. J. F. CLYDE, Judge.
Affirmed.
Frank Lingenfelder, for appellant.
No appearance for the State.
THE opinion states the case.--Affirmed.
The appellant, a woman and registered pharmacist resident of Floyd County and citizen of the United States and state of Iowa made application in due form to the district court for a permit to buy, keep and sell intoxicating liquors for lawful purposes under the laws of the state. To said application an appearance was entered by the county attorney, who raised the issue that by the provisions of section 1, chapter 143, of the Acts of the Thirty-Third General Assembly, the applicant was not qualified to receive a permit. The objection was sustained by the trial court, the application dismissed, and the applicant appeals.
The statute in question is entitled
Assuming the validity of this legislation, the primary question before us is whether the applicant, a woman, is or can be considered a qualified elector of the city of which she is a resident citizen. Stated otherwise, the inquiry is whether the applicant is by reason of her sex disqualified from receiving and holding a pharmacist's permit for the sale of liquors. That she is not an elector in the general sense that she is entitled to vote at all general and municipal elections is conceded; but it is said that she is qualified to vote at city, town, or school district elections upon the matter of proposed bond issues and other financial or tax measures, and she is therefore an elector, at least in a restricted meaning of the term, and, as the statute provides for no distinction between electors in prescribing the qualifications of an applicant, she is qualified to hold a permit. If it were within the constitutional power of the Legislature to prescribe the qualifications of an elector the argument on behalf of the appellant would be quite persuasive. But the essentials of a qualified elector are fixed by the Constitution of the state as follows: Article 2 section 1: "Every male citizen of the United States of the age of twenty-one years, who shall have been a resident of the state six months next preceding the election, and of the county in which he claims his vote sixty days, shall be entitled to vote at all elections which are now, or hereafter may be, authorized by law." The Legislature can not add to or take from these qualifications, and until the people shall have changed this feature of their fundamental law a woman can not be a qualified elector in the constitutional sense of the term. See Coggeshall v. Des Moines, 138 Iowa 730, 117 N.W. 309, where this subject is fully considered and many of the authorities collated. This is not inconsistent with legislative power to authorize women to vote on questions of public policy or administration submitted to the popular vote but not including the election or choice of officers. Coggeshall v. Des Moines, supra. Woman may be a voter upon questions of this nature, but without ignoring the constitutional restrictions she can not be made a qualified elector. But counsel say that, even conceding this point, keeping and dealing in intoxicating liquors for lawful purposes can not be said to be engaging in the sale of such liquors "at retail," and...
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