Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

“ To that extent, but to that extent alone, favor is shown to a class. But this is not the class discrimination put forward and insisted upon. The attack is not mainly on the distinction between producers and other sellers of domestic wine, but upon that between those producers and the sellers of other wine. ”

“ The statutes regulate the doing of certain things, which, presumably, all liquor sellers would prefer to be free to do. Therefore, whatever other objections there may be to them, they do not deny the equal protection of the laws by forbidding, without justification, to one what they permit to another class.
There is one slight qualification necessary to what we have said. It is true that there is granted to the producers and manufacturers of wine from grapes grown in Texas an immunity in respect of that wine which is not granted to other sellers of the same wine. ”

“ Hence, although farmers and stock raisers equally with others were prohibited from forming trusts for other purposes, to permit then to form trusts in their regular business was practically, and in fact, to discriminate between two classes and others. The case was discussed throughout on the footing of classification. But, so far as we know, there is no natural distinction of classes among liquor sellers,-one class selling their own domestic wines alone, another selling all intoxicants except domestic wines. ”