The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1895-10-22
IS IT CONSISTENCY?

| We have always tried TO be homes. and
straightforward" and thank the Eagle
| for saying that we have succeeded AT
| the same time we have advocated Prohi-
bit.on and have upheld the law. believ-
| ing that SO long as il remains on the sta
| tute book, no good citizen has a right 10
violate 4 or undertake to nullify It any
more than he has TO attempt TO do the
same thing with any other law. That
the amendment 10 the constitution was
submitted as a joke. that it was passed
by q. misunderstanding or rather a lack
of understanding, by the voters cuts no
figure now. 1t is a part of the constitu-
ton, and as such is boistered up by the
most stringent laws, and is entitled TO
respect and obedience from every one
from the governor to the lowest officer.
That it is not enforced in any county or
in and city of the state, with possibly a
few exceptions, does not speak well for
the loyalty of Kansas. But its infrac-
ton is rot the least of the evils that re-
suit. AT state conventions men have been
known to leave their private rooms after
unguling their lips from bottle and walk
to the convention room and make eloquent
pleas in favor of the law. The men who
are really bitterly opposed to ii, pose as
its friend for the sake of a few votes
The Republican party has twice gone
down to defeat on account of it. 1t has
made hypocrites, perjurers and outlaws
These are facts which cannot be denied.
AT the same time it is law, and if ii
were enforced as other laws are, the peo-
pie of the state could decide in a year
whether 1t should stay or go. and as the
Journal has before remarked, were il in
the executive chair 1t would enforce the
law If it took every able-bodied man in
the state to do it.-Lawrence Journal.
This from a well-known Prohibition
paper come with peculiar force, vet
we must expose our ignorance, or pre-
judice, by acknowledging that we can't
understand it. We know of no way of
doing away with and unsatisfactory
law but by exposing it's failures. IT.
cannot be killed by coddling. No law
can be repealed however harmful its
provisions, in the absence of protest.
How the Journal can respect an en-
actment and call for it's Strictest ODE
dience TO its provisions. which law it
acknowledges was conceived as a joke
and born of a misunderstanding. we
cannot understand. In the enforce
ment Of any law possible which fails
TO command the respect and confidence
of majority of the people? 1t is not
sound reason and good morality to
fight for the repal of any or all laws
which, from their nature, cannot be en- |
forced, or the provisions of which are |
such. as to invite and incite continuous
and persistent violation? What would |
the editor of the Journal gain for good |
If he, as governor of Kansas, should |
bring all the powers of the state to en-
force law in community where no |
jury could be impanelled that would
find a violator or it guilty? Is it not
foOlishness to talk of the enforcement /
Of zone law" just as other laws are
enforced when the spirit of the zone !
law is openly, by club and other sub
terfuges, continually violated by its
leading advocates throughout the
state, and its violation by others wink
ed at by them and by the majority as
commmendable SmartnesS instead of
being denounced by them as crime?
Ii, after fourteen years of effort to en-
force the law in Lawrence, there is
as much liquor drank as ever. four
teen years of perjury and perfidy, of
felsehood and shutting in the state at
large, how much longer would the
Journal have the hypocritical role kept
up before it would consent that editors
cry out in protest against false gloss
which is tainting and poisoning public