Sequachee Valley news. (Sequachee [Sequatchie], Tenn.) 1896-1952, 1912-09-19
WHAT PROHIBITION HAS
DONE FOR KANSAS
And What 1t Will Do
for tennessee
Kansas City and How Its Business
Men Were Convinced That Pro-
hibition Helps Business.

| AAGAbAO@i 44OAHo DhSAASS5'
While l have always personally be
| heved in total abstinence and in the
| prOhibitory law, l never felt very strong
| ly about it, nor absolutely sure that
there was not some merit to the OtneI
side of this question, until Attorney Gen
! eral Coleman started to abolish the IL
cense-fning system in Kansas City. You
will understand that there are two cities
there-one on each side OF the state line
between Kansas and Missouri. And there
is considerable rivalry between the two
municipalities which comprise that great
metropolis.
In the Missouri town the liquor bust
ness has the sanction of law; in the Kan
sas town it had, until 1906, the sanction
Of The county and city governments and
the liberation of the state goVe.nme t..
High license was in ogue in both t WINS,
III the Missouri town by law, in tie Nan
sss town by the system of monthly fines.
IN 1906 Ii ere were III Kansas City, Kan
sa5, two hundred an1 fifty open saloons
v hen the law enforcement campaign
began.
Kansas City Business Men Pro
tested Against Enforcement of
Law.
Within few days, large dele
cation of Kansas City politicians came
to Topeka 10 persuade the attorney gen
eral to drop that project, because the
city could not live without the saloon
revenue. 1t was urged that the closing
of the saloons was driving AL sorts Of
business over to Kansas City, Missouri;
that store buildings, vacated by the sa-
looms, were standing empty, and that
his policy was running and would inevi-
tably ruin the town. Politically it would
bring defeat and disaster to the party in
November; and you must consider that
Kansas City and Wyandotte county bear
somewhat the same relation to Kansas
politics which Chicago and Cook county
do to Illinois. And there in the attor-
ney generals office were the most power
full and determined politicians in Kan
sas City-bankers, lawyers, real estate
dealers, merchants, manufacturers and
others. Their portrayal of the impend
ing ruin of their town made strong inn
preston on me. | wondered if we ought
not to have exceptions to our statewide
prohibitory law, and permit local condi-
tons to control. Attorney General Cole
man listened patiently to what they had
to say, expressed his sympathy with
their predicament, but firmly informed
them that there could be no retreat
the law would be enforced. An angrier
bunch of politicians and business men
you never saw. One year later, my fell
low assistant in the office, Mr.. Jackson,
succeeded Mr.. Coleman, and as the wish
is the father to the thought, the sympa-
thzers with the liquor traffic circulated
the idea that the new attorney general |
would not continue Mr.. Colemans Wig |
Drous policy of law enforcement in Kan
sas City.
After Twelve Months of Law En-
forcement Kansas City Business |
Men Protest Against the Return
of Saloons.
So industriously and persistently
vas this notion pushed that again
delegation of Kansas City politicians
'ame to Topeka to see Attorney General
same old bunch! But on
low different mssion They came to
ay to the Attorney General, For Gods
AXE, don't let the old rotten order of
Kings return to Kansas City! We have
rot away from it and are we'll rid of it,
md the town never was so prosperous as
low." There were Ben Schnerle and
byron A. Waterman, the leading bank
RS, who said that the closing of the sa-
oons had marvelously increased their
'ank deposits; that formerly the saloons
lad cashed the workingmen's pay checks,
nd that now the workngmen deposited
heir pay checks and kept accounts with
he banks. There were the real estate
callers who said that property values
ad increased enormously and that thou
ands of workingmen were buying lots
nd building homes on the installment
Ian. The school teachers had repre-
entatives there to say that the school
nrollment had likewise jumped, and
hat the children of the poor wore good
hoes, warm clothes, and carried lunches
0 school with them, and that the old
rder of things when the schools had
heir quota of starving, ragged, dirty
lildren from drunkards homes had abb
olutely disappeared. There were the
ROGERS and drygoods merchants and the
sople who sell furniture and such stuff
n the installment plan-all testifying
nat business was better and that people
ere paying their bills better than they
ad ever done before.
1t was a revelation to me. Those were
lo very men who had gone out of our
itice just year before with malelic-
ons upon the. prohibitory law, and upon
meddlesome, puritanicai attorney gen.
al, whom neither threats nor cajoling
'uld induce to lay down on the enforce
ent of the law. 1t was great lesson
II me. Since that day | have never
zen i'll doubt about the wisdom of the
W, nor the expediency of enforcing it;
,r does the temporary illwill of the pol
icians for enforcing the law amount TO
lything As to the influence of the
loonE aanar in nnlitics II ia yarv noXU-