The granting of liquor licenses in Ohio has been in the hands of three different boards within the past three years. Prior to 1912 they were granted by the county commissioners in each county. In 1912 the General Assembly passed an act creating a board of two liquor commissioners in each county. They were to be appointed by the liquor-licensing commission of the state, by and with the consent of the governor. The statute further provided that the appointees were to be of opposite political faith and to have a salary fixed by the county commissioners. Horace G. Jones (Republican) and William D. Morrisey (Democrat) have filled the office in Madison county since the law went into effect. They receive ten dollars a month for their services. The county now has nine Saloons, Seven at London and two at West Jefferson.
However, this statute had but fairly got into operation before it was replaced by the McDermott law. (Laws of Ohio, 105-106, pp. 560 seq.) This law went into effect on September 5, 1915. This new act divided the state into thirty-four districts, Hamilton and Cuyahoga counties constituting separate districts, the remaining districts being composed of two or more counties. Madison county is in the seventh district, with Clark and Greene counties. The law provides that an appointive board in each district, consisting of the presidents of the boards of county commissioners, the clerks of the courts and the recorders of the several counties composing each district, shall select two liquor traffic supervisors of opposite political faith for the said district. This appointive board in the seventh district will, therefore, consist of nine men. The two men the board selects will choose a third man as secretary. The salary of the liquor traffic supervisors is to be fixed by the appointing board, subject to the approval of the state budget commissioners. The appointive board met for the first time five days after the law went into effect and will meet biennially thereafter to select the supervisors. Just how this law will operate, the future alone can tell; if Ohio votes this fall (1915) to prohibit the sale of liquor in the state, the law, of course, automatically ceases to operate. If prohibition is voted down, it is safe to say that new liquor legislation will soon be on the statute books of the state. Past history shows that no question is subject to such frequent statutory changes as the liquor question.