The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1910-03-28

distilleries are trying to deceive you b!
| showing the number of socalled Ii
| censes issued in Kansas last year.
A further explanation of the number
| of licenses issued in Kansas is found il
the method of handling violators of the
/ federal stamp law. When our state
| officers arrest man for selling liquor
| GERS, who come to him at once and
| collect a federal license tax, often
| times finding the man in jail. This man
| is then quoted by the brewerieS, diStil-
| lerieS and saloon men of otehr states
as a Saloonkceper in Kansas, when in
fact he is either in Jail, paroled during
good behavior, or under injunction
never to again engage in the liqour
selling in our state.
Under our state law the finding of a
federal license stamp in a place fitted
UP for the sale of intoxicating liquors
is prima facie evidence of violation of
the prohibitory law, and l challenge
the brewers md distiliers to show one
internal revenue liquor stamp posted in
a saloon or joint in Kansas.
While am not an expert in the at
fairs of the local government of Chi
cago venture the assertion that con-
ditions which are due largely to the
saloon and kindred evils of society con-
stitute your most disturbing and dis
tracing problems. Usually cities hav-
ing an ambition to solve such problems
commission delegations of it's wisest
and best citizens to investigate the
treatment of these problems by other
communities. As chief executive of
my state it would give me great pleas
ure to welcome delegations from Chi
cago to Kansas for the purpose of
showing them the results of prohibit
ton. We have had commissioners
from Canada, New Zealand, England
and Australia and ever now the gov
ernmentS of Italy and Russia are in
vestigating our methods of dealing
governmental problem on the face of
the earth tOiay
If wisdom should cause you to send
such delegation to Kansas I will
guarantee they will no. find a business
man of standing in the state who will
not testify that prohibition is the best
business asset of Kansas.
Judged by Results.
Prohibition must be judged by results
1t must stand or fall upon it's merits.
Inc people OF Kansas are very pro-
gressive. very positive and intensely
practical in their ideas and habits. If
the prohibitory law had not given us a
better civilization and a higher type of
manhood and womanhood it would
nave been repealed years ago. If it has
increased drunkenness, crime and per-
jury, as saloon men claim it has done
the saloonkeepers would all be support
ing the law instead of fighting it, for it
would increase their revenue.
This is an age of conservation Pro-
hibiting the manufacture and sale of
whisky is more closely identified with
a sound conservation policy than are
the laws prohibiting the wanton de-
struction of the forests.
You may think that Frances E. Will
lard and Clifford Pinchot were far apart
in their line of effort, but they were
not-both were protecting the natural
resources of the American republic.
'Woodman, spare that tree" is fine
sentiment, indeed. but it is not finer
han Brewer, spare that YOUTH
Half a century ago slaves were
worth $1,000 in this country. From a |
purely economic point of view, and as |
| national resource, good, clean, |
healthy. well educated American bows
ought to be worth much more. If you |
will stop for a moment and think how |
many of them are annually ruined, and |
Utterly destroyed by the saloon and it's /
influences you will be so appalled, that |
1ou must at least begin to appreciate
he value of prohibition as an economic
policy.
If you think it is not a business
question figure carefully on the annual
lee how far 1t will go to meet your
osses of boys alone through the GRIM
nal institutions which are fostered I'M
Ter the wing of the grog shop; for /
lssert that the brewery is originally. |
nd the saloon is ultimately. the |
place for the gambler, the
'rostitute, the robber the wife-beater
nd, finally, the murderer The gam
ling house and the house of prostitu-
ion are SO closely allied with the sa-
Don that when the latter is compelled
o move out of a community the others
must go with it as they have done in
ur state
Reason at Bottom.
Prohibition in Kansas is not the re-
ult Of atmospheric conditions. The
Innate had nothing to do with it,
reason was at the bottom of it all. 1t
vas not brought about by fanatics but |
y sane, sober, patriotic folks who had
onger heads and more common sense
han the average Of the American peo-
lie had at that time.
1t was not a new theory. It was as
Id as the abuse of liquor. Eleven hun
red years before Christ an emperor of
nina decreed that all the grape vines
re pulled up by the roots and burned |
o ashes. China has been sober ma
ion ever since. Centuries before Christ
4ycurgus. the great law giver of his
eople, did precisely the same thing in
freece. The Carthegenians prohibited
rinking in their army 300 years before
he Christian era. Draco, in his laws,
made drunkenness a capital offense.
III through history you will find it and
Fherever it was observed the nations