Wheeling register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1878-1935, 1881-09-03
The Kansas Temperance Law.

hdISib has l'iC tohVh b"S SAfN'A
ment OF stamping out the liquor traffic,
and has resorted to the only logical
method OF doing it by prohibiting the
manufacture and sale OF liquor. The
law has not long been in operation and
is yet only partially enforced. 1t will
result, Just as all statutes Of the kind re.
suit, in a marked decrease OF the open
liquor traffic and an enormous, though
generally secret, violation OF law.
The majority OF the citizens OF Kansas
do not wish to use liquor, and they con-
spire to exercise their glorious con-
stitutional privilege and say that the
minority, who do wish TO use liquor, or
who at least wish to do as they please
about the matter 80 strictly personal,
shall not use it. The situation will not
be improved by the new law. The pro.
hibitiOnists would, as a rule, be abstain
ers without the law. The confirmed
drinkers will readily find dealers to sup
ply them in secret, or will consplre TO
evade the law themselves. The temper
ance people, who use without abusing
the various alcoholic beverages, will be
forced abstainers, or will be driven to
FREQUENT violations OF the sumptuary
law.
There will be in Kansas less drunken
ness but more crime, for already the
well-known i~ngenuities of a prohibited
people are at work to evade the law. II o
drug shops are quietly and unobtrusive-
ly putting in convenient back doors, the
eating houses have dark rooms amid
ship for the accommodation Of regular
customers and cold tea with a wink OF
| the left eve is supplied at all the first
class restaurants. In the larger towns
the law is defied and in the rural dis
| tricts there is a ceramic revival and the
old brown jug makes its regular trips to
town on market days. The business OF
the express companies is growing n
prominent citizens are observed carry
ing home mysterious packages in the
dusk Of the evening. There is a notice
able increase of private business in back
offices, and clubs for intellectual and
social culture are springing up all over
the State and meet with closed doors
every night. The lodge attracts much
more than usual attention and the
regular winter whist parties have begun
three months in advance OF the season.
"Ohio birch beer" is extensively adver-
tiSed andthe farmers are looking up their
old receipts for making peach brandy
and apple jack.
Kansas was almost a model OF modrra-
ton before she passed the prohibitory
law, but now the ingenuity OF about
one-third Of her population is devoted
to gettinga daily allowance of illicit run,
and we all know how much drunken a
man gets and how much oftener he
does it when he is compelled to make
a business OF it than he does when he
can stop at one or two drinks with the
full assurance that he can get some
more next day.. The States bordering
on Kansas are already gathering in the
business which she discards and are
helping her citizens to defy their own
laws. Immigration, it is claimed, is fall
ing of, and the German residents are
holding meetings for the purpose OF de-
vising some way to convince their friends
in the old country that beer can be had
in Kansas,
Such a statute cannot be enforced i'm.
partially in a modern State, and the re.
ports OF the operation Of the new law
show that whenever its violation pro
duces the worst results it is being violat-
ell in the most wholesale fashion. In
the rural districts, when the liquor
traffic is Insignificant, it is readily sup
pressed, and the change amounts IN
nothing. In the cities where saloons
are numerous public sentiment con-
dennis the enforcement OF the law, OF
if ostensibly enforced the demand for
LIQUOR is such as to make surreptitious
sales so profitable that man will take
the risk and continue in the business.
The Kansas law reduces itself to an
absurdity. The law-abiding citizen, toe
honest 10 its violation or
evasion, suffers inconvenience and pos
sible hardship, while the habitual drink
ers and dispensers of liquor conspire to
make it q dead letter for their own pur
poses. In short, it is a prohibitory law
for good citizens and is not a prohibitory
law for bed citizens, and an important
statute 30 administered as to discrimi
nate against the better elements o
society Is likely to cause more evil thar
it cures.-Philadelphia Times.