Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1889-05-19
A KANSAS EDITOR.
He Comes TO PItsburg to Fight Prohibition
He Brings Important Figures-whai


He Comes TO PIttsburg to Fight Prohibition
He Brings Important Figures-whar
He Tries to Prove.
William P. Tomlinson, the editor and
proprietor of the Topeka (Kan.) Daily
Democrat, is in this city. Mr.. Tomlinson,
who participated In the recent campaigns
in New Hampshire and Massachusetts,,
speaking and writing against the adoption
of the amendment in those States, declared
to DISPATCH reporter yesterday that it
was his interest in the question of Consti-
tutionsl prohibition that brought him to
Pennsylvania. He added:
"While opposed to prohibitory legisla-
ton, am teetotaller from principle. I
have been total abstainer from alcoholic
liquors all my life. 1 am opposed to the
farce of prohibition because it is not in the
interest of sobriety and good government.
voted for the adoption of the Constitu-
tional amendment in Kansas in 1880 in the
hope it would lessen the evil of intemper-
ance, not imagining the many injurious
effects that would follow its adoption; but
have for years been satisfied that prohibit
tory legislation is great injury alike to
the cause of temperance and the material
interests of the State.
81 had fresh illustration of the failure
of prohibition" said Mr.. Tomlinson, in my
recent visit to New Hampshire. Had 1
gone to the Granite State a Prohibitionist
what I saw there, 1 think, would have
changed my opinion as to the efficacy of
prohibitory legislation to remove the drink
evil. Prohibitory laws of the most sweep
ing character have prevailed in New Hamp-
shire for 29 years, yet it is reign of Stree
whisky" in every city of any size in the
Granite State.
"In Kansas" continued Mr.. Tomlinson,
''There is the same condition of things as in
New Hampshire. Prohibition is the same
failure in that State it has been in Massa-
chusetts, Maine, New Hampshire, and
wherever the unfortunate experiment has
been attempted. This statement ought not
to surprise anyone. Amy student of human
nature knows that you cannot suddenly
change the habits and appetites of men by
statutory enactments. Reform can only
come through the slow elevation of the
standard of public sentiment
Prohibition in Kansas has been an utter
failure, whether you consider it from the
moral, legal or financial standpoint. Nor
ally considered, prohibition in Kansas is q
failure because under so-called prohibition
the grand old agency of moral suasion Is
wholly lost sight of. A temperance meeting
OF the old-fashioned sort in Kansas would be
a novelty. There is no such thing. The |
order of Good Templ9rs, once so powerful |
in Kansas, is thing of the past. L am con-
fdent there is not as healthful temperance |
sentiment in Kansas to-day as there was ten |
years ago before the adoption of the amend |
ment. A false standard has been erected. |
Prohibition in Kansas does not mean so-
briefly or temperance. 1t means simply op-
position to the open saloon. A man in |
Kansas may be a model Prohibition |
iSt, yet be full of whisky from Monday |
morning till Saturday night. In fact, our
prohibitory laws in Kansas are made by |
men of notoriously Incorporate habits
"Yet," said Mr.. Tomlinson, while pro-
hibitory laws of the most sweeping charac-
ter are on the statute book, while the courts
are literally choked with liquor cases, heap
ing costs upon the taxpayers, making the
average tax levy as high as $40 and $50 for
every thousand dollars of valuation in the
larger cities of Kansas, the liquor traffic
goes on in the principal cities in that State
with scarcely any pretense of concealment.
Topeka is quoted by prohibition orators as a
city in which prohibition strictly prohib-
its;' yet 1 have evidence which shows that
the grand jury for the District Court of
Shawnee county only two or three weeks
ago found Is indictments against as many
jointists for violations of the prohibitory
law in Topeka alone; while for the month of
April last over 80 cases of drunkenness ap-
pear on the docket of the Police Court of
that city.
81 can show further, over the seal of the
United States Internal Revenue Collector
IN. F. Acers. Leavenworth, Kan.,) that
!, ,1oS more retail liquor permits were issued
from that Office during the past year, under
'o-called prohibition, than during 1881, the
ast year under the old license law. This
shows conclusively that there are thousand
more drinking places in Kansas at the pI es-
mt time than there were under the license
aw. I can show by unchallenged evidence
hat there are to-day between 200 and 300
thinking places in one city in Kansas"
1, ! |