The national prohibitionist. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1907-1911, 1907-12-19
CUMMINS ON THE RUN
Iowas Stil1-Fed Governor Discovers the Com
ing Storm and Hunts the Cyclone
Cellar

respondence) 1.-The speech recently delivered by
Gov. A. B. Cummins before an audience of citi-
zens OF Davenport in the First Presbyterian
church Of this city, convcts Mr. Cumnins of
lnslncerity and treachery amounting to villainy
in the past, as clearly as it would be possible to
convict anyone any evidence
1t needs to be remembered that Davenport
always has been one of the rebel cities of Iowa
When the prohibitory law was enacted, it was
i'll Davenport that it most dehantly defed
When the Prohibition law was nulihed by the
enactment of mulct law, the saloon interests of
Davenport defied the restrictive features of that
measure. Recently, approaching that the rebel
lion being carried little too far and that
it was dangerous to tamper with the rising
public sentiment against the liquor traffic, the
saloonkeepers addressed petition to the mayor,
in which they suggested that the saloons be re-
qured to observe the provisions of the muct
law-with corrections and variations. For
ample they expressed willingness to close at
eleven o'clock at night although the law com
mands that they close at ten.
These things show the condition of public
sentiment in Davenport.
Hither comes Governor Cummins and before
the good people of the city in the First Pres
byterian church declares that he has fused the
power which God gave him" to create storm
against law-breaking, and that the people must
recognize that the law against the saloon must
be enforced. One of his paragraphs reads
MY voice is raised against the wrong doing
which recurs day after day, month after month,
with the assent of those whose duty it is to
arrest and convict the violators of the law We
have drifted into the belief that there is some
thing about the liquor law that cannot be en-
forced. [ appeal to the good people of Daven-
port to forever Danish that thought. There is no
reason justification for violating the
liquor law than any other mandate of society"
One needs only to turn back the pages of his
tory and read few facts to understand the
duplicity of all this. The Republican party en-
acted Prohibition law in Iowa, forced thereto
by the threatening increase of the, Prohibition
party's vote in that state. The adoption of Pro-
hibition in Iowa practically disbanded the Pro-
hibition party of the state. The law was fairly
well enforced in the greater part of the state
for several years, until prominent Republicans,
under the leadership of this same man, A. B.
Cummins, cloaking their treachery under the
assertion that the Prohibition law could not be
enforced, deserted their party and joined the
Democrats in an anti-Prohibton campaign,
which gave the state over to an authorization
Democratic administration for two terms. The
Republican party thereupon, by resolution in
its PLATFORM "ate crow" before the liquor power,
won back the liquor support, nulliied the Pro-
hibition law by the enactment of the mulct law,
welcomed back the liquor traffic to Iowa and then
took back to its bosom this same A. B. Cum
minis, and made him governor.
OF course, Cummins is now merely clamoring
for the enforcing of the restrictive features of
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