West Branch Times, West Branch, Iowa, Thursday, March 26, 1931
Transcribed by Sharon Elijah, June 4, 2018

COMPULSORY T.B. TESTING QUESTION STILL UNSETTLED

    E. C. Mitchell of Tipton was placed under arrest a second time last Friday for refusing to allow his cattle to be tested, and the state took his case before B. G. Penningroth of Red Oak township and indefinitely continued the case against him, which had been taken to Justice William Burk’s court on a change of venue.

     J. C. France, attorney for the defense, filed a motion for a change of venue from Penningroth’s court and carried the case to the court of Justice W. M. Weddle in Fremont township. The case was heard Monday afternoon of this week in the assembly room of the Stanwood school building after the Stanwood town hall proved to be too small to accommodate the more than two hundred objectors who had gathered to hear the trial, and after a jury of six men had been empaneled. Evidently the state had failed to prove its contention that Mitchell had refused to allow his cattle to be tested, as the jury was dismissed about 8 o’clock Tuesday morning when they failed to come to an agreement after deliberating for thirteen hours.

     At the present time the state’s position appears to be no stronger than it was five weeks ago when compulsory testing tactics were first attempted, while the feeling of many of the farmers against the compulsory test has been intensified at a situation has arisen in the county that is most deplorable.—Tipton Conservative