The Republican journal. [volume] (Belfast, Me.) 1829-current, 1911-08-10

who will not testify that prohibition
is the best business asset OF Kansas.
If you think it is not business ques-
ton, figure carefully on the annual
revenue derived from your saloons,
and see how far it will go to meet
your losses Of boys alone through the
criminal institutions which are los
tered under the wing of the grog shop;
for | assert that the brewery is orlgl-
nally, and the saloon is ultimately,
the spawning place for the gambler,
the prostitute, the robber, the WIFE,
beater, and, finally, the murderer.
The gambling house and the house
of prostitution are so closely allied
with the saloon that when the latter
is compelled to move out of COM
munity the others must go with it, as
they have done in our state.
Prohibition in Kansas is not the re-
suit of atmospheric conditions. The
climate had nothing to do with it.
Reason was at the bottom of it all.
1t was not brought about by fanatics,
but by sane, sober, patriotic folks
who had longer heads and more
common sense than the average of the
American people had at that time.
1t was not new theory. 1t was
as old as the abuse of liquor. Eleven
hundred years before Christ. an en-
peror of China decreed that all the
grape vines be pulled up by the roots
and burned to ashes. China has been
a sober nation ever since Centuries
before Christ. Lycurgus, the great
lawgiver Of his people, did precisely
the same thing in Greece The
Carthagenians prohibited drinking in
their army 300 years before the Chris
tian era. Draco, in his laws, made
drunkenness a capital offence. All
through history you will find it and
wherever it was observed the nations
became greater and the people more
virtuous.
Prohibition Helps the Farmer, the
Grocer, the Merchant.
Prohibition is the doctrine of self
defence.
Kansas is simply protecting it's peo-
pie from the arch enemy of human
happiness Kansas homes are pro-
tected from an infinitely worse enemy
to society than the burglar. Prohibi-
ton has simply muzzled brute that
is ten thousand times more vicious
than a mad dog. 1t has only estab-
lished quarantine against a plague
more destructive 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
combined.
There is nothing radical or unrea-
sonable in helping a weak man to
carry his weeks wages home to his
wife on Saturday night; there t.
nothing fanatical in enabling her to
send her children to school with good
clothes, good shoes and a good din
ner in the little basket.
Prohibition serves the child as we'll
as the man 1t is for the wife as
we'll as the husband 1t is for society
as we'll as for the individual.
1t is for the government 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 millman the farmer the baker,
the butcher, the grocer. the newsboy,
the dentist. the book store, the photng-
rapher the tailor, the dressmaker,
the merchant and the manufacturer.
Dhis 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
publicly declared for the strict en-
forcement CT the law.
But here in St. Louis and through
out the United States the brewers,
distilIers and saIoonkeepers, their at
torneys and retainers, are telling in
posters, pamphlets and speeches that
prohibition increases crime in Kan
sas: that it is making large crop of
perjurers and hyprocrites; that it has
ruined public credit; caused intoler-
able taxation; destroyed industries;
discouraged development; effeminated
the people and reduced them to
pauperism, upset social relations, ani
so on throughout long list Of state
ments 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 my honor as man, and upon my
word as the chief executive Of nearly
two million sovereign people, say to
you they are UNANIMOUSLY conceived
and maIiciousIy 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.
If the prohibition law has increased
drunkenness, crime and perjury, as
saloon men claim it has done, the
salconkeepers would all be support
ing the law instead of fighting it, for
it would increase their revenue
A license at $1,000 a year will mean
that the man who wants the profits
Of whiskev and cannot buy the H.
cense will still 'boot-leg" and
"kitchen-barroom" it in spite of fines
and Imprisonment.