The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1903-07-11
DEFENDERS ACTIVE.
File an Elaborate Complaint
With Atty Gen. Coleman.

The Home Defenders this morning
filed another bill of complaint with At
torney General Coleman. The document
is filed with elaborate legal references
which would indicate that it had been
drawn up by the attorney for the Home
Defenders
The latest address covers six type
written pages, and is devoted entirely
to an attempt to prove that the action
of the Home Defenders in smashing up
drug stores and joints is justified by
law. The address is in part as 694lows:
Attorney General c.. C. Coleman
AS your time seems to be wholly oc-
cupied with your other numerous duties
allow us to call your attention to the
nagrant increasing and widespread vio-
lat1on of the state constitutional prohib-
ltary law by joints and drug stores. We
take it for granted that you are loyal
to all law, but, to refresh and strength
en- your patriotism we refer to a radical
ruling of the supreme court of the Uni
ted States, toWit:
9 No legislature can bargain away the
public health or the public morals. The
people themselves cannot do it, much
less their servants. Government is or
ganized with a view to their preserva-
ton and cannot divest itself of the pow
er to provide for them. '-101 u. s., SIG.
THAT is, no legislature can license or
legalize vice, immortality or wrong.
III CeHt lnG OIucldlS 90 not aDaIe
these liquor resorts it becomes the privi-
lege and the duty of public spirited in
dividualS to destroy or remove them.
Being treason and rebellion. joints and
drug stores violating the law have no
property rights as is clearly shown in
the following citations from unQuestion-
ed legal authority. Every illegal liquor
place in the state has been declared a
nuisance. Nor are they ordinary nui-
sances; they are overt notification and
iSl " in
Then follows a long list of quotations
from legal authorities to justify this
contention.
The document then goes on to say:
THE reading public should know
about this, as it explains the legal sta
tus of the Home Defenders. and the ut
terly outlawed position of every liquor
seller and landlord harboring the same.
We ask you to apply the plain jurispru-
dence on this matter. first in Shawnee
county and then to the remotest county.
If officials do not do their duty, better
suspend them pending custer proceed
ingS. Private individuals and especial
ly women should not be obliged to do
what officials are elected and paid to do.
Just one more word and we are
through.
THE Home Defenders cite the state
ment of Judge James Baker of Illinois
in which he says:
The women who destroyed such
property are NOT 1n0y nave
the same right to abate such common
nuisances as men have to defend their
persons or domiciles when unlawfully
assailed. AS the women of that state
are denied the right to vote or hold
office. 1 think they are fully justified,
morally and legally, in protecting their
homes, their families, and themselves
from the ravages of these demons of
vice in the summary manner which the
law permits
That being the case in Illinois and
Missouri how much more in this state
where all liquor premises are treason.
1.-The present chief executive of this
state has already shown that his SYM
pathy and the influence of his office and
administration will be with the whisky
rebels and we are looking to you to re-
deem our great commonwealth from
this odium and see that when men are
found violating the law they are not
turned loose to return and continue
but punished and put under bonds to
quit or leave Kansas
Thanking you for this nearing we
await anxiously your action
COMMITTEE HOME DEFENDERS