The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1897-04-08
DEFENSE OF GOV. LEEDY
g. G. Clemens Seeks to Stem
the Tide
OF Censure Raised by PrOhibi-
ton Element in Kansas
Because Gov. Leedy Does Nothing to
Enforce the Prohibitory Law in
This State.

c. c. Clemens is quoted in a lengthy
interview in a Kansas City paper as
follows:
Il see some people are cordially in
viting Governor Leedy to make him
self, governor for life by giving the
boys a chance to have fun with him
while he fumes and frets and swears
through the usual gubernatorial spasm
of enforcing the non-enforcible prohibit
tory law. 1 think the law ought to be
enforced with extreme strictness at
Leavenworth and at Kansas iCty. The
election returns last fall showed with
startling clearness that the people of
those cities cannot be trusted with
open saloons. With Wichita and To-
peSa, however, it was different. The
race OF the returns showed InaI many
times ten righteous men live at Wlchl-
da-enough to spare old Lot the neces-
sity Of going to Oklahoma to escape
fire and birthstone; while Topeka show
ed more repentance than saved NineVah
of old I trust no one will suppose
craftsmanship has anything to do with
my views when 1 give 1t as my candid
opinion that no city so beSOtted as to
keep right on giving Republican ma
5Ortties can be trusted with saloons, and
that the free use of spurious and Ter
mented goods should be tolerated only
in Bopulist communities. If man is
so constituted that strong drink will
set him wild enough to vote the Repub-
1ican ticket in Kansas, how can it be
conjectured to what awful deeds the
continued use of spirits may yet drive
the unhappy Wretch2
Prohibition, like some other political
disturbances, has grown feeble because
a wider movement has engaged the en-
ergies of men. For ten years Kansas
has been the field of the first fierce bat
ties of a social revolution which in
wolves the world In presence of the
ruin with which plutocracy threatens
the sober and the industrious, warm
hearted people have had no inclination
to combat the enemy of the dissOlute
alone. The prohibition wardrobe has
become too small for the full-grOWn
reform movement, and the bOyish coat
shows evident signs of beginning to rip
up the back
Doubtless, railroad managers, trust
operators and grain manipulators would
be greatly pleased were the governs
to devote his attention to closing the
joints instead of trying to give sober
and industrious people some chance to
live; but farmers and WOrkingmen pre-
fer to have him attend to their con-
Germs, and leave exclusively to the Off
GERS appointed for the purpose the pro-
lection of the young cigarette idiots
raised up by the best families of the
cities.
Farmers and workingmen, who con-
Stttute in the main the constituency of
the present governor, are not worrying
over the temporal salvation of the
young bloods,' who make their pas
time the deception and ruin of the
farmers or 1abOrers' daughters obliged
sons of parents who would deem their
young hOpefuIs more disgraced by be-
coming Workingmen than by becoming
dFunkardS and rOgueS- In these days
IN which we are deciding the moment
Gus issues of a new world or no world
at all, real reformers have no energy
TO waste in rescuing the social pests
over whose danger prohibition sheds
tears; have not even time to enjoy the
recreation of helping damn them. When
Il shall have been made possible for So
Der and Industrious people to live by
their labor, it will be time enough to
worry about saving these precious Gig
arctic attachments from the whisky
they lack manhood enough to fool with.
We should enforce the law because
Ut is the lawi' exclaim the champions of
salvation, of the dissOlute at the ex-
pense of starvation for the decent and
industrious. 1t is a hellish sentiment.
# justifies every prosecuting fend in
history What of the fugitive slave
law? What of the law under which
Calvin burned SerVetus? What of the
law which put the poisoned cup to So
crates Hps-Of the law which sent
Christ to the cross? But no law re-
.quires the governor to enforce prohi-
ibition. His duty is to appoint the legal
instruments provided for it's enforce
ment; and when he has appointed his
commissioners, it is his legal duty to
treat them with precisely the same re-
iSpect and confidence as if thew had
been elected by the people. If they
are corrupt, let the fact be proved as it
must be in the case of any other officer,
anu he Gail remove Iu6Ins ana ne IS not
required to be chief of police sheriff,
county attorney and district judge for
every city and county in the state
Governor Leedy was not nominated
nor elected by men clamoring for some
one to enforce prohibition. His con-
Ftituents elected him to lead them to
battle against sterner and more dread
full foes; and he has no right to desert
the greater field, nor to divide his en-
orgies by engaging in this lesser con-
t1ct which must be forever hopeless
till the greater field be won. So far he
has been doing what he was elected to
do; he has been fighting the enemies of
the sober part of the population; and I
have not heard that he has yet begun
to pine for other worlds to conquer.
Let him stay at his post and finish
what he was put there to do.
But what means it that the churches
are the loudest, almost the only, clam
DrerS for the enforcement of prohibi-
@ion? They have been in full operation
IN Kansas for some 40 years they are
quite numerous in every city-What
shave they been doing? Is the Gospel
such a failure that it can operate sue
cessfully only when given the use of
police courts and jails as additional
means of grace? Has prayer become