The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1890-06-13
THE RESTORATION.
kansas City stal


restored to Kansas through the action
of the Supreme Court of the United
States, i'm obedience to what Mr.. AS
sociate Justice Miller describes as the
solemn mandate of the constitution
there is considerable interest felt as tt
what the "ransomed and disenthrall
ed" are going to do with the liberty
conferred upon them by the organic
law.
From seven to nine years is a long
time between DRINKS, to slightly
change the gubernatorial dispatch be.
tween Raleigh and Columbia. 1t is q
matter of importance, when I'm State
where children have attained the age
of years without ever having seen a
saloon, the curtain Is rolled up and
the youth behold the long-lost institu.
ton, supported by the constitution
and the interstate commerce law.
Whiskey having come to his own
again in Kansas, thousands who knew
him when he was i'm the State before,
are, as has been said, curious to know
how he will be received,
The opening chorus is not very glee-
full or uprOarious. I was at a "shOw"
the other night, and the silence with
which the gags about "original pack
ages' were received was depressing.
All the old chestnuts about poker
went off as well as ever, but the new
Joke was a failure from the jump. Not
even the sleepy-eyed and limber-leg-
ged gentlemen present who hsd been
taking constitutional snifter seemed
elated. Possibly the solemn circum-
stances under which liquor is restored,
by long winded decision of one of the
greatest judicial tribunals on earth,
forbade innocent merriment."
This seems trifiing matter, but it
is ominous; it means that there is not
much good in the restored traffic, and
that the old fun of the old-fashioned
Kansas is not to be restored even
through the lawful operation of the
interstate commerce law. There was
a time i'm Kansas when bright men, the
leaders of the State in some directions,
drank. There is court room in Kan
sas where hang, I will not say how
many portraits, placed on the walls by
friends of bright and brave men who
were killed by drink. They were low
able, kindly men and esteemed in
spite of their faults. But it is doubt
full, from present indications, whether
that style of man will take kindly to
this Original package" subterfuge.
The man who gets drunk by the gallon
is usually chump.
There were in the elder age several
kinds of drunk which, if not absolutely
peculiar to Kansas, were considered
"Kansas things" There was the cow
boy raid, when the "bad man" gallop-
ed, and screamed, and whooped, and
fired his pistols into houses, and shot
at the silk hat of the man who it was
certain had no "gunr to return the
compliment. This animal has been
pretty well civilized off the face of the
Kansas earth. The murderous brute
who, filled with whisky, or full enough
to nerve him to any cowardly and
cruel deed, shot to death poor, wretch
ed helpless women, Is not Kansas now.
He became, through the kindly offices
of the city marshal or sheriff, an orig
inal package of lead some years ago.
The original package decision won't
do him any good.
Then there was the great Kansas
Senatorial drunk, once an honored
institution. The election of a United
States Senator was the provocation
and signal for a banquet" at which
"our honored guests" and the equally
honored entertainers passed the gates,
from friendly to vociferous, and so on
to the stage when a man has SO little
respect for himself and family that he
will sing "The Sword of Bunker Hill'
in a voice, as Bill Nye says, unfit for
publication" and the rest was silent.
1t would be impossible to repeat one
of these old-time orgies in Kansas now.
The commonalty the fetchers and
carriers and heelers and strikers, who
push into the thick of the senatorial
fray, might get together after the
victory and comfort their souls after
such fashion, but the chiefs, the CEN
turions, and even the captains of the
fifties would not grace with their
presence the festal board. There is,
and will be for long time, something
in the Kansas air to forbid it.
The Kansas man is friendly soul,
who dearly loves to talk. Bob Bur-
dette and all foreign humorists who
come to Kansas confess that their
sojourn Is season of refreshing. The
''social glass" has always had hold
in Kansas from the existence of the
social temperament, but no sociability
attends the operation of grabbing a
bottle, running out of doors with 1t
and pouring the contents down your
throat as one would drench horse.
The barrel house of the Supreme
Court will lot exactly take the place
of the old saloon. 1t will not attract
all of the same classes of persons. 1t
will not exert the same social and
political influence. 1t will simply in