The Emporia weekly news. [volume] (Emporia, Kan.) 1881-1889, 1881-11-03
THE CAPITAL ON PROHIBIT.
TION

The new Capital at Topeka, in an
able leader on the question of prohibi
ton, thus puts itself squarely on record
in regard to the the enforcement of tenn
perance legislation in Kansas:
Those who fiatter themselves that pro-
hibition is a small shower and will soon
blow over are poor students of human
nature and the story of moral progress.
1t is the fashion in some quarters to
sheer at the old proverb that 'Revolu-
tiOns never go backward" but it is still
true, nevertheless-and all civilization
is proof of it-that revolutions which
are reforms, based upon the idea of max
ing men and society better, are never
known to retrograde. The public senti-
ment that decreed prohibition for Kan
sas is a vital and potent force, not to be
swerved by notions of expediency which
have already been weighed and dis
carded, and not TO be changed
or frightened by idle threats of
resistance to law by an element
which never obeys any law that it can
evade. It is too late now to talk of COM
promises; the time has not come, and
never will come, in this state when the
liquor traffic can be legalized, or the
prohibition policy curtailed or amended
to suit the saloon keepers and their short
sighted allies. This is Kansas, and Kan
sas takes no steps backward.
All this talk you hear from few un-
happy newspapers about a change of
popular sentiment is arrant nonsense.
If the question of prohibition were sub
mitted again tomorrow, the verdict of
last November would be repeated with
emphasis ola largely increased majority.
The conduct of those who have sought
to nullify the new law and bring it into
contempt has made thousands of con-
verts to prohibition among those who
hesitated to indorse it a year ago, when
the issue was yet an open one. A moral
reform like this prospers upon the sort
of opposition which would undermine
the stability of law and set decent
public opinion at defiance, inasmuch
as all good citizens are thus con-
strained to see that the side of abstract
and radical right is also the side of gen.
eral safety and of personal honor. This
prohibitOry doctrine of temperance is
the settled policy in Kansas, and it will
be enforced, never fear. We do not shut
up school houses or grow conservative
about church building because the ig-
norant and vicious are displeased or dis
commOded, and no more will we aban-
don prohibition because certain classes
of people, for evident reasons, do not
like 1t, and propose to compass its repeal
by standing in the way of its operation
as valid and approved part of our le-
gal system.
The position of the Capital upon this
question is easily defined. In changing
its appearance and ownership, it has not
changed its principles. What was right
in the old style of type continues to be
right in the new. The duties of consci-
entious and faithful journalism are not
to be altered or avoided by putting off
bourgeois and taking on BREWER. We
do not purpose sOiling our pretty new
clothes by turning any somersaults; such
antics are left to papers of a more agile
and less scrupulous order. Our
ample capital and patronage, to say
nothing of our selfrespect and sense of
duty, our ambitions and our preferences,
place us above reach of any temptation
to pander to law-breakers and conspirers
against the general peace and welfare of
society and its homes that we may pub
lish a newspaper. The standard which
the Capital has carried from its start
and so conspicueusly, through all man.
ner of vicissitudes, will not be lowered,
now that we seek larger field and still
SredtcH COuqucoS- II is OuE aim 10
make a journal that shall reflect the
very best moral and political sentiment
of the state, and be always foremost in
the promotion of every cause that has
for its object the correction of error, the
suppression of vice, the alienation of
misery and misfortune. We would, in
a word, make the best paper in Kansas
NOT in point of enterprise and interest,
only, but also in the broader and higher
meaning of its opinions and its in
fiuence. Watch US closely, and see if
we do not justify our faith by our works.