The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1898-02-26
wv. GLEED ON SALOONS.
His Speech at Kansas City Made Last
Evening.

HIS speech at Kansas city maze Last
Evening.
]. w GIeed, of Topeka, lectured last
night before the Young Mems Christian
Association at Kansas City on THE Sa-
loon Problem" He took the position
that the only way to solve the saloon
| problem is to exterminate the saloon.
| Among other things he said:
THE liquor business means trouble,
whether you have free whisky, low or
| high license, local option, government
ownership or prohibition. There has
been more trouble in New York over
| the RaineS law than there ever was in
Kansas over the prOhibitory law; it has
been more bitterly denounced The IL
quor traffic means trouble in any event,
but it means on the whole less trouble
when you have it down than when it
has you down.
we may as well recognize first as
last that we are fighting enemy as
old as man, and perhaps destined to
live as long as man lives. We are also
fighting an enemy which is the very
embodiment of lawlessness- inherently
and in its very nature lawlesS. In the
whole course of history the liquor bus
mess never did voluntarily render ODE
dience to law. Lava biding saloon
keepers all die before they get into the
business. 1t makes no difference what
the law or what the restriction, you
can rest assured it will not voluntarily
be obeyed.
"They have moonshiners in the south;
they have joints and bOOtleggerS in
Philadelphia and New York. They have
the same old fight in Sioux City under
high license that they had under pro-
hfbition with the same array of forces
on either side.
However it be treated, the ginmill is
a sore. Whatever the law, the grOg-
shop breeds 1awlessness. However
mild the regulations prescribed for the
SalOOnkeeper, his natural disposition
is to destroy them. The liquor traffic
| holds no law, no custom, sacred; it sub
mits willingly to no restriction, however
| reasonable; it is essentially anarchistic.
Nowhere in this country is any law on
the subject of liquor selling strictly
obeyed Sales are made; they are
made to children; they are made to
| habitual drunkards; they are made af-
| ter midnight and on Sundays; moon
| sinners abound, and liquors are adulter-
| ated- There never can be peace be-
| tween decent people and the saloon.
THE only solution of the saloon prob
| lem is no saloon. Complete prohibition
! should be the ultimate aim. If you
can't get prohibition take local option.
| But local option always means cOntin-
| ua1 warfare. The whisky question is
| always unsettled. A community goes
| dry this year and wet the next, and then
| dry. An act which is criminal this year
/ is innocent next. A certain sort of trade
/ is diverted from the dry community to
! the wet. This creates an apparent loss.
| Local option creates perpetual friction.
| change and upheaval. It is much hard
! er to keep enforced than general con-
! stitutiOnal prohibition.
/ II you can get prOh1blt1On or local
option take high license, with as much
restriction as possible. But high license
/ laws will be disobeyed. High license
/ is much lauded because of a certain
| public income it yields.
| out in Kansas they are trying to tell
/ us that what we need to bring back
| prosperity is whisky, when we well
| know that all we need is water at the
| right time. They tell US that all our
! calamities are due to prohibition,
when we know that the prohibitory
| law went into effect in 1880 and the pc
7 riod following that, from 1880 to 1890,
| was the most prosperous, growing pc
| Rod we ever had. The population Of
| the state was increased by half a mil
! lion, and its wealth by the hundred
millions. They tell US that what we
! need to bring back prosperity is saloons
! the more saloons, the more prosperity.
/ Now it Is easy to understand how more
| food, more and better clothes more
| and better machinery, more and better
| buildings, more and better stock, more
! and better railroads, more and better
! facilities for exchange, will increase our
| wealth and add to our prosperity.
| Good food and good clothing and good
| tools and good houses and good spirits
work and more of it, and so increase the
! wealth and prosperity of our state and
adds to the wealth and happiness of our
| people. But have never yet heard
i resubmissiOnist who dared assert that
/ more whisky made men more inteIli-
! gent, more thrifty, more skiIlful, or ad-
J
! collective power On the other hand,
! every body knows that it makes men
| less industrious, less thrifty, less skill
| full, and instead of increasing constantly
/ diminishes their capacity to add to the
material wealth of mankind.
! But of all the pleas that are put
! forth in favor of the financial value of
| the saloon to the community, the most
! contemplate one, the one which makes
! the blood of any honest man boil when
he has considered it, and has discovered
! its true bearing, is the plea that the sa-
! looms tighten taxation. Tighten taxa
ton on whom? In the first place I de-
! ny that it Iightens taxation on anybody.
| While it brings in public revenue. it
| vastly increases public expenses. But
! lightens taxation on whom? Where does
/ all the money come from that is paid
} in to the city treasury by the licensed
! gin mills? It comes from the great
/ body of the weak the poor, the easily
! deluded, the easily tempted It is ia
! ken out of the mouths of poor children
! and off the backs of poor women. 1t
! is levied and exacted from that class
/ in every community who are the least
! able to bear it; from that great class
which the municipal laws should at
/ tempt to protect, not to plumber. It
lightens the tax, if it light
the tax on the rich and strong.
on the few who own houses and lots
and buildings and banks and stores.''