Wichita eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1886-1890, 1888-03-25
BILL NYE ON PROHIBITION.
With Few Remarks on the "Sunfower
State"

From the New York World.
Kansas, as we all know, is making a
speciality of prohibition these days. From
bleeding Kansas, starving Kansas and
grasshopper Kansas she has grown to be
better known lately as thirsty Kansas;
but as matter of fact she is doing bet
ter with the matter than the outside
world is led to believe. The great curse
of rum, under its various aliases, is with
out doubt the public drinking and treat
ing, for in that way public trust be-
comes a public bust. The theory
in Kansas is that man who entertains
the pleasing collaboration of rum may
secure it in quantities, take its hand, in
sert it into his circulation, wrap a
slumber robe around himself and re-
main SO with impunity; but that the
saloon where the men go to sit in the
Sawdust and nurse their wrongs, and get
their courage up to where they are not
afraid to attack their wives when they
get home, is an unnecessary institution.
If Topeka may be taken as an illustra-
ton of the success of this theory it is no
longer an experiment. This is not the
statement of prohibitionists, for l was
not thrown among prohibitlonists very
much while in Kansas, but it Is the
opinion of liberal and broad-minded
men that people who want to use wine
or other liquors should use them at home
in a civilized manner, while those who
do not yearn for a stimulant may con-
tinue to squeeze along without it.
Bleeding Kansas has become booming
and beautiful Kansas. Crime has fallen
off. and the bloom and perfume of pros
perity mark her progress where once the
way was lined with the ruins of shat
tered commandments and the air rever-
berated ever and again as the song of the
six-shooter was heard in the land or the
hush of midday was broken by the low
squash of the Indictment.
A generation of young men Is spring
ing up there who believe in the great
success of the movement. Hundreds of
men live and thrive in Topeka alone,
who are ever ready to go before any tri-
bunal at moments warning and have
their breaths examined. Saloons are no
longer political factors In Kansas. Poll
tics there buds and blossoms in the pure
and health-giving ozone OF the caucus
and the unsullied atmosphere OF the en-
nobling primary. Elections are quiet
and orderly. and feel warranted in say
ing that Kansas today, politics, aside
from the election cigar, are pure. There
is strong Plymouth Rock element in
Kansas, and | cannot close this letter
in better way. perhaps than to give
paragraph from John j. ingalls, diSser-
tation from the Goldfish variety. ''Shang"
is the name Of representative Of the
former.
kansas is the child of Plymouth
Rock. 1t was once fashionable to sheer
at this historic boulder, but 1t Is the most
impressive spot on the face of the earth
save the summit of Calvary. The Puri-
tan idea rules the world. Like Aaron's
rod, when it appears ii swallows up all
the others. Shang and his friends would
have starved TO death on the sterile hills
of New England, but the Puritan ma
nured the stingy soil with his ideas, and
it has produced crop that is better than
corn or oil or wine. Ideas are more prof |
liable than hogs or beeves.
The Puritan idea is aggressive. IT
has an unconquerable vitality, Wherev- |
or it Is planted it becomes majority. !
A little of its leavens the whole lump. |
AsSailed, il grows stronger: wounded, IL |
revives; buried. if becomes the angel Of /
its own resurrection. BILL NYE.