Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1884-1886, 1886-06-12
THE DRUG STORE LAW.

The saloon fight is on again al
Atchisor, in which city, even after so
long a time, the people have not
learned the real, genuine merits and
unexampled success of the drug store
law. We are surprised, amazed, TO
read an account of a meeting held in
that city at which were named one
hundred citizens to act as vigilance
committee to put down such agitators
as demand the enforcement OF the
drug store law. Such meeting re-
veals a strange if not a deplorable
state of immortality upon the part of
Atchison society, threatening and
dangerous condition. Any decent
drinker. any beer-lOving or whisky
infatuated citizen who could find fault
with the respectable and easy mode
prescribed by the laws of Kansas for
obtaining any of the popular drinks
kept on tap or confined by sealed
corks, ought to be exported or ban
ished to Missouri. There is not an
open saloon in Wichita and there is
no call for one. We haven't heard a
man, not even a bum, inquire the way
TO a saloon in months. The joints
and holes with private keys are even
at discount, while the growth of the
blank permit trade is not perceptably
increasing. 1t is our deliberate
and unqualified judgment that
that meeting at Atchison was
gotten up by and held in the interest
of uneasy saloon-keepers, and that
the willing members of such organiza-
ton arc subsidized toughs or other
dangerous elements. The druggists
of that city owe i; 10 respectable citi-
zenship, TO their good faith as law
abiding citizens, TO say nothing of an
increased trade. to combine with the
probate judge and with the printers
who furnish the blank permits, to not
only put down tina. vigilance commit
tee, organized for so reprehensible
purpose as the defiance of law, but TO
fill up the county Jail and also
the public treasury at the expense of
the men who don't know enough 10
run respectable drug store, but who
persist in the antedeIuvean idea of a
gilded saloon or a cnsse d doggcry.
If the law, enacted in pursuance of
an amendment to the constitution and
prescribing how n man in Kansas shall
proceed to get drink of the ardent,
is not satisfactory 10 the majority of
the people of Atcbison, that delecta-
bic city containing the homes of a
United States senator, governor and
a supreme judge, then permit an hum
BILE citizen, through his unpretentions
journal, printed in what is considered
mere. rough, wild, border town, to
say 10 them, that the organization of
a mob, misnamed a vigilance commit
tee, is not one of the steps necessary
to the repeal of such law. The bal
lot box in Kansas has not as yet failed
rs the supreme guaranty, the sole
arbiter and adjudicator for the deter
mination of all oppressive rule, in
Guiding the status of liquid poisons
and the mode of administering them,
whether over high counter in front
of bar in an open saloon, or from be-
hind an ornamental prescription case
at the tail end of a duly signed per-
nit, in the nearest drug store. And
we say further, that vigilance commit
tees are only organized to make good
the intent of moral and statutory laws
and not for the purpose of trampiing
them down. and that if one hundred
or five hundred men i'm Atchison
should band together for the purpose
of trampling beneath their feet any
law, however obnoxious. by physical
or other force, brought against law
officers OF citizens who propose 10 sus-
tain law officers and TO see that the
laws are enforced, that there are i'm
and about one million of people who
Will, when the overt shall have been
committed, see what can be done TO
put the members OF such vigilance
committee where even duly signed
permit will not procure "A drop of
anything more dangerous than a cup
of cold water.
The prohibitory law may be very
obnoxious law and one that infringes
on the personal license of the citizen,
but it can't be repealed by the overt |
act of any mob in Atchison or else
whe,c.
A NEW WORD OF MODESTY-