Wessington Springs herald. (Wessington Springs, Aurora County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1891, 1888-02-17
IMT0xICAN1S IN IOWA.
Prohibition Has Been a De-
cided Success in tia
Hawkeye State
So Declares the Rev. A. F. Frisbie, Who
Thinks Two Saloons Worse
Than One Drug Store.
Facts and Political lies-PrOhibitiOn
Seems to Prohibit Brew.
cries.
PROHIBITION A SUCCESS.

letter from Rev. A. L. Frisbie, of Des
Moines, to the Chicago Herald.
am asked to express nv views as to
the success of prohibitory legislation in
our STATE. speak as prohibitionist; it
Will therefore be natural for me to be-
lleve in its success. Still, if were the
most sanguine believer in the usefulness
and effectiveness of the law, candor would
obllge me to say that it is not yet an I'M
mixed success. 1t is too soon as yet, and
the circumstances under which its en-
forcement has been attempted have been
TOO untavorable to permit any one to say
either that it is pronounced success or
failure. The dividing line between those
who approve or disapproye it is too near
the middle of the aggregate of voters.
Any such law as this, If it is to have
thorough and general enforcement, needs
the overwhelming weight of public senti-
ment on its side. In the case of this par
ticulnr law, those who favor it are not all
radical in their support of it, thinking that
it may be better than license system;
that 1t may be best to try it. With this sort
of hesitating faith these will not work
with enthusiasm for prohibition. 1t is
true that there are large communities in
Iowa where the law is not enforced. In
several of our larger cities there is no at
tempt to enforce it. The county and mu-
nlcipal officers are strenuously opposed to
it, therefore statute of the State is defed.
But this fact is not to enter into the judg
ment which we now seek to form. It is
grievous reflection on the character of the
people who resist the law. It is also de-
pressing commentary on our method of
State government. We somehow seem to
lack that kind of force in the government
which can make o law enacted by an Iowa
legislature effective in all the territory of
Iowa. But, as to this question of success
or non-success, we can only look to those
towns and counties of the State where the
attempt has been made in good faith to
prove the law by using it. Has Prohibi-
ton been success where fairly tried? Or
has it SO nearly Appropriated success that
the people ought to be encouraged to con-
tinue it? 10 this question my answer has
to be in the affirmative, Des Moines is
our largest city, and for three years or SO it
has had no open saloon. Has this made
order of the city? Most assuredly it has.
There is liquor here, and drinking; but ar
rests for drunkenness are few, much fewer
than in the days of the saloon. Intoxi-
Gated men are not common about
the city. Stopping for few
hours in Davenport, last July, my two
young children, and IL years of age
respectively, without hint or encourage
ment in that direction, began to say, "Why,
how many drunken men there are here
ever so many more than there are in Des
Moines." The difference was surely very
marked. Here is another bit of testimony
relative to the roads leading out of Des
Moines, under the present regime. Two
1ols ee-tr ,tol fr<,, 90
evening in October last to drive three
miles into the country. To the question
if they felt any fear Of danger, the answer
was: Not since we have had prohibition.
Before that there were drunken men driv-
ing out recklessly, hallooing and swearing.
We would not have undertaken it then;
now the streets are quiet" Another intel
igent lady, living two miles from the city
in another direction, bears the same testi-
mony as to the change on the road much
travelled, which passes her door. These
testimonies were not hunted up for the
sake of making point. They were given
in ordinary conversation, with no idea that
they would be used. And, inasmuch as
they fall little out of the line of the facts
that will be most commonly adduced to
use them the more freely. They furnish
direct and reliable evidence that the law
is successful as promoter of good order.
Statistics are now being gathered-are
largely in, in fact-from county AID city
officers all over the State. Questions have
been asked of these officers as TO the effect
of the statute on taxation, the number of
arrests and prosecutions, the amount of
fines imposed and collected for the benefit
of the school fund, the effect of the en-
forcement of the law, beneficial or other
wise. The incoming answers are not yet
tabulated. From any place in the tables
must, in fairness, be excluded the answers
coming from those points where prohibition
has not been made real. The answers from
Dubuque County, for instance, would nat
But what of it? Dubuque County does
not prove the law by using it. The returns
from places where the officers are doing the
work which the law provides show dimn-
ishing rate of taxation, a lessening amount
of crime, and an acknowledged benefit
from the law. The perfecting of these
statistics from official sources will go for to
demonstrate what the Prohibitionists have
always claimed, that, Notwithstanding the
loss of money from licenses, putting the
matter on the money basis alone, Iowa can
better afford to abolish the saloon than to
perpetuate it. On the basis of every con-
SlloraLlOu Nlbuor luuu Iuat VI uOueS luo
State and the nation can afford to place the
liquor business under the ban of q prohib-
itory law.
A great deal of misleading talk is heard
on the subject of drug stores. 1t is charged
by anti-prohibition men that there is no
difference practically in the amount of LID
uor drunk in the State now and the amount
drunk in the days Of license: that the trade
is merely transferred to the backside of the
prescription case or the back-room of the
druggist. There is no doubt some ground
for complaint of the conduct of some drug
glsts under the pharmacy law. They do
evade the provisions of the statute and sell
liquors recklessly; there is too much evil
dence of that. But it must remembered
also that of the druggists large num-
Der are law-abiding men - temperance
men-who handle liquors with care.
The President of the State Pharma-
ceutical Association, an honored druggist
of Des Moines, in his annual address last
year, advocated the dropping of liquors
from the shelves of the pharmacist, SO that
the chief occasion of the evasion Of law
by the druggist and the chief reason why
the profession of druggist is brought nndel
suspicion might be removed.
So, then, what with the smaller number OF
drug stores, as compared with saloons