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

became greater and the people more
virtuous.
Prohibition is the dictrine of self.
| Tense.
| Kansas is simply protecting it's peo-
| pie from the arch enemy of human
happiness. Kansas homes are protect
| ed from an Infinitely worse enemy to
| society than the burglar. Prohibition
| mas simply muzZled a brute that is ten
| thousand times more vicious than a
MAD Dog. II has only established a
quarantine against plague more de-
struct1ve than cholera. 1t has merely
cut out a useless expense that was
more burdensOme on the people than
All of the state and county taxes COM
bined
There is nothing radical or unreason-
aDle IN helping a weak man to carry
his weeks wages home to his wife on
saturday night; there is nothing fanati-
Cal In enabling her to send her children
to school with good clothes. good shoes
and a good dinner in the little basket.
prohibition serves the child as we'll as
the man. 1t is for the wife as well as
the husband It is for society as well
as for the individual. 1t is for the gov
ernment as well as for the governed. In
kansas it pays the doctor his bills, the
lawyer his fees, the pastor his salary.
1t helps the milkman, the farmer, the
baker, the butcher. the grocer, the
hewsboy. the dentist. the book store,
the photographer. the tailor, the dress
maker, the merchant and the manufac-
turer- This is why the people of our
state are so thoroughly committed to
Its support. Opposition to it has prac-
tically ceased in every quarter. Every
political party in the state has public
ly declared for the strict enforcement
Of the law.
But here i'll Chicago and throughout
the United States the brewers, distillers
and saloon keepers. their attorneys and
retainers are telling in posters, pamph-
let's and speeches that prohibition in
creaSeS crime in Kansas; that it is
making a large crop of perjurers and
EypocriteS: that it has ruined public
credit; caused intolerable taxation; de-
stroyed industries: discouraged devel-
opnent; efieninated the people and re-
duced them to pauperism; upset social
relations, and 50 on throughout long
list of statements equally false and
absurd.
These charges are true or they are
not true. They are based on facts or
they are utterly without foundation. On
NY honor as q man. and upon my word
as the chief executive of nearly two
million sovereign people I say to you
they ara UNANIMOUSLY conceived and ma
nciouSly false. The saloon men are in
desperate straits and are simply trying
to deceive people who are aroused by
their crimes that the system may be
kept up. The same devices were re-
sorted to by the friends of slavery in
this country. but Illinois produced a
citizen who brought out the truth and
proved to the world that the country
could get along better without the ma
tional curse Of servitude. I want to
tell you the truth about prohibition in
Kansas:
Drunkenness Is Reduced.
First assert that drunkenness i'll
Kansas has been reduced to such
point that I have not seen a drunken
man in the city of Topeka, place of
m Sr,t, hi TO- "a nG%
that 90 not have any recol-
lection of having seen a drunken man
in my home city of Lawrence, place
of 5000 people for several years; that
in making a campaign throughout the
entire state and delivering public adj
dresses in 80 counties / do not recall
seeing a drunken man during the year.
So long as our sister state Missouri
has saloons in st. Joseph and Kansas
City right on our border there will prob |
ably be drunkenness in the cities i'm |
nediately across the line with nothing
but a street to mark the difference be-
tween prohibition and open saloons and
so long as the federal government re-
gards shipments of liquor as interstate !
commerce and permits wagon loads OF |
peer to be peddled in the street of Leav- !
Kansas City. Atch1Son, Pitts |
burg aud other cities along our border |
me, there will be more or less drunken |
cess in these cities
I have here with me a number of
etterS and kilograms from mayors OF
titles, chiefs of police, judges of courts
md others on the subject.
Chief Hearn of Hutchinson, city of
5000 people, says: July. 1908.
drunks,' 1877; July, 1909. DRINKS 16."
James McLain, city marshal of Win
leId, says: "Since the policy of rigid
of the prohibition law
vas begun in Winfield, drunkenness
las diminished IS per cent and crime
rowing out of drunkenness mas oil
n1nished in like ratio
The report of the chief OF police of
oittsburg, near the Missouri border,
hows a decrease in her monthly re-
,ort of drunkenness from So in May,
9O8, to II in May, 1909. 1t went down
o in June and in July. This is
ity of more than $4,000 inhabitants.
Second-I assert that in the los
ounties of Kansas that do not know
ut of the prohibitory law.
George H. Barker. police judge at
lotion, county seat of Jackson county,
avs there were 46 'drunks'' in his
curt during the entire year of 1907,
My II in 1908 and s in 1909.
L. J. Mosher, police judge of Hia-
vatha, county seat of Brown county,
makes the remarkable report that he
as not had a drunk in his court for
s months.
I have these letters and you can see
hem.
Third assert that the prohibitory
aw is now as easily enforced as any
Their law on the statute book. I have
stters from 20 of the 38 district judges
f the state. These letters are sub
tantially of the same character and
lilly confirm my statements. I shall Ii
AXE the time to read only a few of II
hem to you.