Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1891-11-25
A Calamity Howl From KioMa.


The following is from the Kiowa
Journal. II is the thinnest attempt at
protecting violators OF law, and trying
to appear law-abiding, that We have
seen. The "high-handed enforcement
of law is GOOD, very good. If the Jour-
nal is for the law, let it say so; if it Is
for the whisky interest, let it stop sniYe-
ling when the law lays violent hands on
its friends. The county attorney is
hampered In the discharge of duty. He
| had to go to Sharon to get proper help
to enforce the law. Please remember
that the whisky-seller Was violating
the law; if the officers made mistakes,
all their mistakes were corrected by
finding the contraband goods. If the
people don't want such scenes to occur,
let them frown down the illegal: traffic;
and if those who profess to be iaw-abid-
ing, and opposed to the whisky inter-
ests, will come out squarely, and let it
be known that they will sustain every
honest attempt to close the joints, it
will not be six months till they will be
closed. In order to let our readers see
how the Journal attempts to stand in
with the joints and with the law and
order people, we copy Its article in full,
as follows:
The Roses of Sharon-An Outrageous
execution Of law by spoilers and others.
The punishment inflicted upon our
saloon men last Saturday for violation
of the prohibitory law is one of the
most stupendous acts OF pure cussed-
ness and Of excessive abuse Of authority
ever witnessed in the history of the sup
preston of crime and brings to light
the ridiculous and outrageous charac-
ter of those meddlesOme spoilers who
80 willingly assisted those roses from
Sharon In executing the laws in. Its
worst possible translation and who
have done more to bring that law in
disrepute, and establish a public senti-
ment in favor of wlping such a law
from our statnte books than the tenn
perance crusaders could overcome in a
year of hard lecturing. The Journal
rises at this stage of the crisis to de-
nOuce such high-handed enforcement
of law and to say that if the citizens of
Kiowa cannot control the agitated con-
dItion Of our city, it cannot exactly see
why the people of Sharon, living in a
little one-horse town at the base of the
Cedar hills, 25 miles away, should be so
suddenly interested. When kiowa
wants any of the citizens or officers of
Sharon to assist us in RELOCATING the sa-
looms to the rear, we will call upon them,
and until then we would politely remind
them that they must keep their rum
tinted noses out of other peoples bust
ness.
We denounce the confiscation and
conversion of property as trayesty on
justice. Kansas claims to be a chris
tian state; liberty loving, tempering
justice with mercy and to give equal
and exact justice to all. Christianity
was entirely eliminated from the exc
cutiOn of the law in our city. A spirit
directly antagonistic to the essence of
the iron-clad law in our city last Satur-
day. Members OF the alliance recall
with horror the extortions of shylock,
if chattel mortgage is foreclosed with
QUE cause, only for gain, and no one
but natural thief ever executes the
cut-throat clause, unless there is i'm
mediate danger of the property being
removed from the state, but without
a note Of warning, come men and teams
and load up the property of these men
and carried it away. Was there any
danger of the saloon men going away
themselves or had they ever threatened
to remove any property? Not at all.
But on the contrary they had been al
lowed to keep open all summer until af-
ter the election. Where has your prin-
ciple-your boasted principle-been all
this time? For six long months has
the grand banner of temperance been
trailing in the wallow and slime of a
political mud-hOle to allow a political
party to succeed at the last electionP
Is there any other reasonable coustruc-
ton that can be placed upon the con.
duct of these menP While we are in
favor of a proper and discreet enforce
ment of the law, yet we can see the
same spirit of cussedness and fanati-
cism that burnt witches in the early
days. and In this enhghtend age of the
world, the secret execution of the law
in our city by such outrageous proceed
lngs is but trif1e in advance of the
dark ages"