The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1910-01-17
POLITICAL GOSSIP.
Gov. Stubbs' Stern Rebuke to
the Government.
Again Finds Fault With Liquor
Situation.
POLITICS is IN 1T.
Prohibition Settled and No
Longer an Issue.
-
Kansas Has No Saloons and Will
Have None.

The stern rebuke administered to
the executive department at Washing
ton by the executive department OF
Kansas regarding the issuance OF
liquor licenses by the go ?ernment IS
apt to create the impression in WASH
ington that Kansas is afloat in a sea
of booze" In his communications TO
his own people Gov. Stubs points
with pride to the fact that there is not
one open saloon in the state; that the
sale of liquor here is reduced to
minimum; that only few stray boot
leggers eke out a precarious existence
by selling liquor in small quantities TO
few benighted citizens.
Yet in his stern rebuke to the fed
eral government in the matter OF Ii
quor licenses the governor intimates
that there is a crisis at hand. Ihe
correspondence in this case indicates
Il grave state of affairs. While Sc
cession from the union is not openly
threatened, yet the impression is left
in the governors stern rebuke to
President Taft that if the national
government has so far forgotten itself
as to countenance the Iale of liquor
by anybody to anybody for any pur-
poses whatever in any place under
any circumstances that Kansas will
not stand for it much longer. If that
be treason make the most of it.
The governor is not gong to call
out the militia to save the state from
the bootleggers, and in the meantime
Kansas does not want the national
government to extend aid and COM
fort to the enemies of the state.
The correspondence in this govern
ment license case reads like a mani
festo during a South American revolu
tion. 1t is so serious that it borders
on the ridiculous. An outsider read
ing these letters would imagine that
the Kansas governor was afloat in an
open boat in a sea of booze" and that
he was burning up the wireless in an
effort to get Washington to save him
Very few people in the state outside
of the governor and John Marshall
and Myra McHenry have taken the
washington correspondence over the
license question seriously. The state
laws appear to have stopped the sale
of liquor in the state to large ex-
tent, but no one is looking forward to
these state laws extending their juris-
diction to Washington.
The liquor question in Kansas has
reached a point where no more po-
litical capital can be made out of it.
Too bad tha' this is so, but it is fact,
nevertheless. The recent attempts to
revive the issue remind one of the
Puritans of England during Crom-
wells time. These Puritans had stop
ped the national pastime of bear-bait-
ing. not because the sport gave the
bear pain but because it afforded
pleasure to the multitude
The politician who tears his clothes
at this time in an effort to strengthen
the present drastic prohibition laws of
this state is posing for the gallery and
not engaged in the disinterested pro-
mott oE OF any needed moral reform
Prohibition is a dead issue in Kansas
1t has been settled for all time
Latest Stubbs Telegram.
Governor Stubbs' latest telegram to
President Taft on the subject is as fol-
lows:
while I deeply regret to annov YOU
with the very unsatisfactory conditions
in the internal revenue department in
this state, desire to make it perfectly
plain that the only thing 1 am asking
is the proper enforcement of the fed
eral laws in Kansas From the read
ing of Secretary MacVeagh's 'ssleiter. it
is evident that he does not know that
there are no saloons, joints or drug
stores in Kansas Where any kind of
Intoxicating liquor is sold; that the
only traffic in intoxicating liquors in
this state is carried on by bootleggers
and men who have no permanent
places of business. and if these offend
ers understood they would be prose
cuted by the federal government for
the violation of the federal law they
would cease selling. 1 am sure that
neither yourself nor Secretary Mac
Neagh would give any consideration
whatever to a proposition to favor
these 1awless characters, who are re-
sponsible for more crime than all the
other citizens in our state. If anyone
disputes these facts stated in NV LET
ters or kilograms to you, please give
me an opportunity to furnish proof.
l snail very greatly appreciate your
personal attention to this matter. and
I am sure the people of Kansas as a
whole will approve any stems Won take
to compel federal officers Droner1v 70
enforce the internal revenue laws in
Kansas. W. r. STUBBS."
The Garden City Telegram. edited
by Ralph Faxon of the O.! machine
faction, pays the following tribute to
r. ]. Hopkins of Finney county +he
square deal candidate for lieutenant
governor:
Dick HOPKINS is what is popularity
gram is what it is proud to call a ssta1-
wart.' But there is no line of cleavooa
III the Hopkins candidacy and the Teie-
gram wants to make that emphatic and
positive. This paper is for Mr.. Hon
kins from now until August; and after
that until he shall be elected uenren.
ant governor; and after that until his
TOUR years. or TWO Years. as the case
may be, of splendid service in that Of
fee shall have brought him better re-
ward, If any be needed. than the Gov
sciousness of himself and friends of q
duty we'll done. The Telegram onlv
wants DICK Hopkins to tell it where
and how and at what hour it can serve
him in his entirely proper ar~bition
And remember this: That WESTERN
Kansas, where Dick Hopkins is known
n every county seat and town and
hamlet. will not split hairs ahout
square deal and 'staIwart' So far as
HOPKINS is concerned 1t will stand
hehind him, proud of his ability and his
candidacy. and proud of having can
cIdate from the Incompatible west
SVaator Frank L. Travis of Allen