The Lexington dispatch. [volume] (Lexington, South Carolina) 1870-1917, 1913-08-06
WHAT PROHIBITION
DID FOR KANSAS
Can Be Done in South Care
lima, Says Hon. John S. Daw.
son, Attorney General OF
Kansas, in an Address.
THE LAW IS ENFORCED
(Republished by request.)

The constitutional amendment pro-
hibiting the manufacture and sale III
the State of Intoxicating liquor ex-
cent for medical, scientific and me-
chanical purposes was the effects OF
Statewide prohibition. Mr. Dawson
acknowledges that ior quite nunoer
Of wears the law was openly deheo IN
MANY of the larger towns and cues.
1t took long and bitter fight for tne
people of Kansas to convince the law
defying liquor interest that they were
really in earnest about banishing the
Infamous traffic from their state. But
they are convinced at last and for
some time the prohibition laws cfthe
State have been as consistently en-
forced as those against other common
forms of criminal conduct. In estl-
mating the results of prohibition,
however, allowance must be made Tor
the delay occasioned by this protract-
ed battle against anarchy, and yet, IN
spite of this, these results, as summed
up by the attorney general, are con-
yincinp. Here are few Of the more
important of them:
/. Iliteracy has been reduced from
40 per cent to less than per cent and
this is confined almost entirely to the
foreign element in the southeastern
portion of the State.
2. Eighty-seven of the one hundred
and FIVE counties of the Stats have no
insane, fifty-four have no feeble-mind-
ed, and ninety-s six have no inebriates.
There is only one pauper in every
three thousand population. Thirty
eight poor farms have no inmates. In
July, 1911, fifty. three county jails
were empty and sixty-five counties
had no prisoners, serving sentence,
some counties have not called jury to
try criminal case in ten years, and
grand jury is SO uncommon that half
she people would not know what it is.
8. In 1880 the bank savings deposits
in Kansas were $50, 900, 600; today they
are 5000, 100000. The State is now
the richest per capita in the Union.
the average wealth being s1,7o0,
whereas the average for the nation is
only 81, 200. Missouri, which adjoins
Kansas and is rich in nature resources,
has an average of less than $500. Dur
ing the panic of 1907 Kansas sent
$50, ,o0o, 900 to New York to relieve the
money market, while Missouri sent
nothing.
4. In 1880 the death rate in Michi-
gan, Wisconsin, Iowa and Kansas was
practically the same, seventeen to
the thousand. Since then the death
rate of Kansas has gradually fallen I'LL
it is now only seven and one-hslf,
while that of the other States has
slightly increased.
5. The per capita cost of intoxicat-
ing liquors in Missouri is $24; in Kan
sas it is $1.4S.
s. 1t has been demonstrated that
the saloon is not a business but para
site on business.
Z. 1t has taken politics out of the
saloons and the saloons out of politics.
Every political party in Kansas now
stands for prohibition, and keeping
joints, dives, brothels out of cities is as
much the business policy of the aver
age city as keeping the street clean,
water pure, and the public parks at
tractive.
In answer to the question as to the
relative value of prohibition and high
license as a means of abolishing the
liquors, Mr.. Dawson says: There is
no relative value. High license is
not means of abolishing the evils of
liquors. The only solu-
ton of the liquor problem is its total
High license is first of
all confession that the liquor busi-
ness is q bad business. 1t is bad
business; and tax upon bad bust
ness, cruel, vicious and wicked busi-
ness, means that State says to rum
settlers: "You are corrupting the |
morals of my people, you are under
mining the manhood of my young |
men, you are robbing the cheeks of |
my young women of their bloom, you
re poisoning the blood of my babies,
you. are wrecking my homes, filing
ny 1ails, and furnishing a spawn for
he brothel. You are at the back of
III the villianies of the age, and are
turning my people into drunkards,
unatics and suicides, and you make a
7ery large amount of money out of
his infamous business, and 1 shall re-
,uire you to stand and deliver to me
,ery considerable portion OF this dirty
money which you are making in this
tillianous fashion,
nooe n-ohihition prohibit? OfcOurse |