The commercial. (Union City, Tenn.) 190?-193?, 1912-10-25
The amendment reads:

Ihe manufacture ana sale OF lnto2
U eating liquors shall be forever prohibitt
n in this state, except for medical scientii
e and mechanical purposes
$ The new law took effect May I, 1873
t Notice was served upon the saloons
8 go, and not to stand upon the order
, their going. There were about 1900 s.
] looms in the state. Eight hundred {
/ these closed their doors never to reope
them. The others, located in about scor
of towns which were controlled by liquc
sympathizers, remained to fight the ne
law.
I But every distillery and all except tw
or three obscure, local breweries wen
out of business for good and all. Durin
the next few years there was constan
fight waged in politics, in the legislator
and in the courts, to recover the groun
which had been lost by the liquor inter
ests; but gradually and generally tn
law and it's enforcement triumphed. Tall
and agitation for the resubmission of
the prohibitory amendment died down,
and political parties dropped the subject
as political issue. Three-fourths of the
state was overwhelmingly in favor of the
new order of things, and the new counties
of the west gradually settled up with
people attracted to Kansas in no small
degree by the abolition of the liquor bust.
ness. The entire western section OF the
state has consistently supported the law
and strengthened it, from first to last.
Some of the counties in the east, contain
ing large cities, being out of sympathy
with the law and having no hope of its
repeal, gradually developed an anomalous
system of high license, which they were
able to do by eleeting judges, sheriffs,
county attorneys and city officers willing
to nullify the state law, by refusing to
enforce it.
The License Filming System.
This system was merely the imposition
of monthly fines for violating the law,
and was in vogue for many years in Atch-
ison, Leavenworth, Kansas City, Fort
Scott, Wichita, Coffeyville Independence
and Junction City. In a number of other
towns the wet and dry forces were alter
nately victorious. Such towns were some
times wet and sometimes dry-with all
the actual features of the conditions
where local option is sanctioned by state
law. Thus it happens that although we
have had the prohibitory law for thirty
years, we have also had, right at home,
the experiment of high license in fact
and thoroughly tried out side by side
with prohibition.
Compulsory Teaching of the Eff
fects of Alcohol Upon the HUI
man System.
But during these years there was an
other law on our statute books, OF which
scarcely anybody took cognizance, but
which was faithfully obeyed; and which
in time developed force and power to
sweep the last vestige of the licensed
saloon into the Missouri river. 1t was
only little statute, never printed with
the liquor laws, but which you must look
for in the laws relating to the regula-
ton of common schools. 1t was enacted {
in 1885 and requires that instruction
shall be given in every public school and
to every pupil, concerning the evil effects
of alcohol stimulants upon the human
system. Children take as readily to this
kind of instruction as they do to stories
of Blue Beard and Jack the Giant Killer.
Every man, woman and child in the
state under 40 years of age who has at
tended a public school in Kansas has re-
ceived such instruction.
And the procession of this class, pos
sessed of this instruction, keeps coming
into the social, business and political
life of the state, and it will abide with
us. And so it is that our prohibitory
law, like the moral law, homestead law,
and the law of marriage, will abide while
Kansas endures. It is, in my judgment,
in no more danger of repeal than the Ten
Commandments or the Sermon on the
Mount
End of the Filming System.
In 1906, my predecessor, Attorney
General Coleman, determined that the
lime had come to make an end of state
,oleration of the fining system in the wet
titles. He appointed brave and tai
,nted lawyer-Charles w. Trickett-as
special prosecutor for Kansas City, the
argest city in Kansas; and commenced
In custer suit to forfeit the office of the
mayor of that city for exacting licence
ines from the saloon keepers and failing
o enforce the law. Other suits were
brought to Dust other derelict officers
md to restrain and enioin the city gov
from exacting licenses for the
ale of liquor under the guise of the fin
ng system. The contest was waged with
ury and bitterness, but only one result
ould follow-the triumph of the law.
This was followed by brilliant and effect
We work on the part of Attorney General
Jackson, who followed Mr.. Coleman,
Whereby the wholesale brewing com.
anies which, through the long years of
aw defiance in the wet cities, had &C.
uired large holdings in Kansas, were
ustled out of the state in short order
y the supreme court and given stroke
f Kansas justice with plenty of fines
nd costs for good measure. They won't /
ONE back I
A Police Problem Now.
Since then the enforcement of the law ?
as been problem of police Localities t