The Leon reporter. (Leon, Iowa) 1887-1930, 1911-02-16

, III SOHc udAAcI ylcIu " CuClA "1ouOo
l do not pretend to know the de-
tails of that compact, but l do know
! it's effect. Through it the republican
party was restored to unquestionec
predominating power in the state
and that was the sole purpose in view
when it was made. What followed
was the enactment of our present
mulct law.
, What is that law?
A hybrid in legislation without a
! parallel in the world. A law that de-
fies another law and brides the state
that made it, to condone the otfense
of it's law-breakers. A law that re-
quires another law for it's enforce
ment, which in turn violates a fun
damental principle of our govern
ment in state and nation alike, the
right of our people at all times and
under all circumstances to select by
majority vote their own officials and
be governed by them. A law that
withhOlds from the cities of the state
the right to control in their own way
' the most difficult problem with which
control of that problem over to the
rural voters of the state, who have
no interest in it and know little or
nothing about it. A law that has
done more. that is doing more to-
day to divide the people of our cit
les into warning factions, arraigning
neighbor against neighbor, and
friend against friend, than all the
other laws combined to be found in
the statutes Of our state; a law pur-
posely designed to prevent free and
fair expression of the will of the ma
jority in any city of the state upon q
subject most vital to it's welfare; and
worst of all, law aimed at the for
eign-born residents of the state, who
come to us with habits of their own,
so widely in conflict with the pro-
visions of such law that it could
not fail to meet their almost univer-
sal disapproval and consequent open
opposition.
With such laws openly violated in
some sections wherever that can be
done, secretly violated in all sections
as often as possible by great fac
ton Of the whole population of the
state, with our courts crowded with
prosecutions for their violation, is it
surprising that Iowa, the very garden
of this nation, in it's agricultural re-
sources, with a healthful climate,
with natural advantages in every par
ticular unsurpassed by any state of
this union, with schools and churches
of the best order on every hand, with
her great lines of railways, of tele-
graphs and telephones touching ev-
cry city and almost every village
within her borders, with a long, loud
cry for manual laborers from her
great farm and factories all over the
state, and wages as good as are found
anywhere in this union, should be
the only state in the whole sister
hood of states in this nation from
which more people have moved away
than all who have been born therein,
combined with all who have moved
into the state in the last ten years
Let no man misunderstood me. l
am not now and l never have been
an advocate of the non-enforcement
of law.
What l am trying to do, what I
have often tried to do before, is to
point out the folly, nay, more than
this. the absolute crime, of enacting
laws which everyone knows are in
of nearly half the people of the state,
and which for that reason are certain
to be violated as often and as openly
as possible by everyone who enter
tains that belief.
When Iowa is ready to recognize
by her laws the personal right of ev-
cry man to control his own habits as
long as such habits do not conflict
with the personal rights of another,
she will attract thousands to her
borders where now she drives as
many away.
When she abandons her efforts to
instil temperance into the hearts of
her people with fines and imprison-
ment and gets back to the old-fash-
Toned temperance society with its
pledge of total abstinence that ap-
pealed to the reason instead of to
the fears of man, she will save ten
from drunkards grave where now
she saves one. HORACE BOIES.