Wichita eagle., 1889-11-28
THE JOINTISTRY AND ITS PENALTIES.

We would sooner undertake to close the
joint with a twenty-five or fifty dollar
fine than with the Murray law, or under
any other enactment which the average
jury might consider harsh and extreme.
Under minimum fine convictions and
con essions would be the rule, rather than
the exception. The only thing necessary
to close the joint, to wear out and disgust
illicit dealers, would be the continued rep
itition of such fines as would render con-
yictions probable. A man who was pulled
two or three or four times month would
quit of his own accord, and quit in dis
gust. By reasonable penalties and with
| officers having a proper regard for their
oaths and duties, much better results would
follow. It's the profits of the unlicensed
joint that renders it so persistent
in every town in Kansas, while
extreme measures not only antagonlZes
the violator but arouses a sympathy with
the public in his behalf and feeling that
the punishment is an outrage, which
| touches both courts and juries when the
| defendant is brought to trial. Everybody
consents that the jointist is in the wrong,
! that he has violated a law, and ought to
be punished, but the great majority pro-
test when the poor clerk of the jointist is
sent to Jail for quarter of century and
| fined fortune for selling two kegs OF
beer by the glass, which was done in this
city once. Jimmy Cairnes, or any other
marshal, determined on doing his duty,
could keep the joints mere nearly extinct
it only backed by a more reasonable pun
ishment, than they can pvssi ly under a
law whose extreme penalties forces the de-
fendant to appeal and causes juries to
disagree. The city council some time
ago talked of twenty-five or
fifty dollar ordinance, but they lacked the
back bone to pass it. They feared MIS-
| Interpretation of their motives. Had they
made the fine as 10 " as twenty-five dollars,
even. and then turned the city marshal
and his police force loose their would have
| been no work for the attorney general and
convictions would have followed in every
case, probably plea of guilty in most
cases. 1t is not lack of prosecutions, but
the failure of convictions which enables
the joint to florsh in the face of the Muir
raw law, the police commissioners, the as
sstant attorney generals, the city mar
shals, the sheriffs and the law and order
| leagues. The failure of convictions comes
not from the violation of official oaths, but
! from the enforcement of extreme penalties.
''Tne punishment must fit the crime" "
There is no trouble of convicting a man OF
beng drunk, for it is only five dollars for
the plain thing, but if it was 500 and
ninety days in the bastile, man would
have to be awfully full, indeed, before a
| jury could see it. Or to illustrate to those
| RI
| intoxicnts. in in jury to humanity, are the
narcotics, tobacco and coffee. Now
when legislation comes against these
evils in our progressive state.
a fine of one dollar and costs would
wear the habit of the coffee drinker and
the nasty tobacco chewer out where ex-
treme penalties would serve to protect
them in their crime against themselves;
for these classes of crimes are against the
individual himself. and not against his
neighbor or his fellow man. So with the
drinking. Society. of course, suffers at
| the hands of the man who sells liquors,
and tobacco and coffees, but it SO suffers
| from the free choice of the individuals
who patronize the seller, which buyers
themselves, are Il component part of the
society so injured. So when you have
gotten the jointistry to that point, then
it's only ques ion of how often you shall
pulp it to force it to cease entirely. and
from unproftabeness. In short. or i'll
other words we are of the opinion that the
Joint can be more easily and surely wolu
ou, by burJhens W 4icn can be successfully
heaped upon it than by seeming extortions
of unequal justice or by reasonable perse-
cutions rather than unreasonable prose
cutionS.