New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1881-12-18
PROHIBITION IN KANSAS.

Kansas is the banner State, this year. in the
Prolibitory movement Her latest step Is a
proclamation by Governor ST. John saying that
in AtchisOn, Leavcnworth, Topeka, Wyan-
dOtte and Dodge City the new PrOhibitory
law is perssteDuy violated, and Offering "A re-
ward of 500 for arrest and conviction of the
guilty sellers, and-which will probably prove
more efficient-rcwards of $500 for securing
the conviction and removal from Office of any
city marshal or county attorney or sheriff, and
800 for conviction and removal Of any police
man or deputy sheriff, for failure TO perform
his official dutyin enforcing the law; also $500
for breaking up any distillery or brewery
This mode of holding prosecuting officers to
their duty is novel but if it works as well as it
looks there will be a demand for putting it in
practice in other States than Kansas.
IT is barely more than year since the people
of Kansas adopted all amendment to the State
Constitution directing that manufacture and
sale of Intoxicating liquors shall be forever pro-
hibited, except for medical, scientific and
mechanical purposes. The majority of the pop
ular vote was 1893 votes, which was not quite
per cent of the total vote cast on the ques-
ton. The Legislature, in February of this
year, p sSed a comprehensive law to carry the
prohibition into effect, prescribing stringent
regulations to prevent all selling except for the
three allowed purposes and imposing heavy
penalties for transgression. The fine for first
offence of selling without taking out the per
nit and giving the bond required by the law is
from 800 to $500, and the imprisonment
from thirty to ninety days; and these punish
mems are increased for repctitiOns of the
offence. Suits were brought to test the
law even the validity of the amendment itself
was questioned. And one or two of the lower
courts favored some OF the objections. The
Supreme Court of the State thought differ
emily. One objection urged was that the
amendment was not correctly carried through
the Legislature. A constitutional amendment
must be approved by a twO-thirds vote of all
the members elected to each House before it
eau be submitted to the people. The vote in
the Kansas Legislature was very close; indeed,
there is tradition that before the result was
announced ladies in the gallery who had kept Il
tally saw that one more 4" Yea was necessary
to secure approval, whereupOn one of them
whose husband, downstairs had voted mo"
hurried down, succeeded in gaining speech with
him, and pleaded with him to change his vote,
which at length he did whereby the amend
ment was carried. However this may have
been, the opponents of the law complained Of
sundry Irregularities and defects in maturing
the amendment before the Legislature and in
receiving and canvassing the votes of the peO-
pie. But the judges brushed these complaints
aside with the stOut-hearted declaration that
the single inquiry over Il constitutional amend
ment is whether it has received the sanction of
popular approval. "The substance of right is
~grander and more potent than methods and
forms. The important vital elements are the
"assent of two-thirds of the Legislature, and a
@majority of the popular vote. Other provisions
"are merely machinery and form" Another ob
lection was that prohibition conflicts with the
famous Fourteenth Amendment, for the latter
forbids a State to impair the right of property,
while the right to sell liquor is the very kernel,
so to speak, of an owners property in 1T. The
Kansas Court said that the Supreme Court