The mirror. (Stillwater, Minn.) 1894-1925, 1914-10-08


find long corks for my fishing line in the
alley back of Jim Riley's saloon. Also
remember so much broken glass there that
it was dangerous to go barefooted in the al
ley, and there were other dangers
of running plump into some drunken man
either lying in stupor by the side of the
house or staggering aimlessly about the al
ley seeking trouble. We boys always knew
there was gambling room over the saloon,
and that across the alley there was a house,
with drawn shutters, which, when we were
| out at night, we could stone with impunity
if we could run fast enough to escape being
caught; but that was thirty-five years ago.
"From the time was twelve until today
| have never lived in a Kansas town where
whiskey was sold from an open saloon. In
Emporia there are grand parents who have
no recollection of the saloon except when
they have seen it casually, as they have
giraffe or an elephant. The saloon has
been no part of the life of that town, even
| sporadically, for thirty-iv years. Young
people in their middle twenties know moth
ing of the whiskey drug store except what
they are told, as they know of the Civil War
and the grasshopper year of 1873 and the
great drouth of 1860.
eff my boy, aged fourteen, has ever seen
drunken man it was outside of Kansas.
He is as familiar with epilepsy or pellagra
or elephantiasis as he is with the actual eff
fects of the saloon on the social system; yet,
because the i'll effects of alcohol on the hu-
man body are taught in the school, he can
rattle off rigamarole about what whiskey
would do for man that would turn to stone
through terror the Old Horrible Example of
the seventies. The boy is afraid of whiskey.
So are all the children of Kansas.
From these crumbs one is con-
frcnted with the facts that if the
state government of Kansas should
pass into a despotism that would In
troduce the open saloon by imperial
degree, the Kansas people of the
generation now on earth would not
patronize it. Not only have they
been educated out of liking the taste
of whiskey and the habit of drinking
it but they have been taught to fear
it. This does not mean that every
man, woman and child in Kansas is a
teetotaler; thousands of people drink
and there are drunkards in that state.
though precious few of them. Liquor
is shipped into Kansas by those who
desire to use it and some old fash
Toned women put brandy in their
mince pies and sherry in their sauces.
Recently the governor of Kansas
who is not third party prohibition
list, and who received the liberal
vote in the five moist counties of the
state, sent an official query to all the
county clerks IN Kansas, who under
the Federal law are required to keep
record of all shipments of liquor
into Kansas. The query demanded
to know how mnch liquor was being
shipped into Kansas for all purposes.
The answers received indicate that
Kansas consumes per capita, per an
mum, one dollar and twenty-five
cents worth of liquor for all purpos-
es, as against the average American
consumption of liquor of twenty-one
dollars head. And it must be re-
membered that among the counties
included in the governors question
naire were the five humid counties
mentioned above. If they had been
excluded probably the Kansas aver
age would have gone under one dol
lar. This is reducing the consump.
ton of liquor to a negligible mini
mum. For Kansas has quit and quit
good and hard.
Now, let us see what Constitution
al Prohibition, has done in Kansas,
and to sift this matter little, it will
pay us, therefore, to look at the phys.
ical effects of this abstinence. And
naturally one must go at it backward
to get the perspective on it. The
effects of alcohol on a person pro-
duce loosening of the restraints
which hold him to conventions. A
few drinks makes a man talk more,
sing more. dance more, swagger
more, laugh more. swear more, spend
more, firt more, and generally de-
port himself on moral plane rather
lower than the average. He is lit
tie crazy. little lazy, little weak
willed, little vicious, a little prodi-
gala little thriftless, little devilish
under the infunce of liquor. And if
he is adequately stewed as to his
nerve cells and brain Arrears most of
the time, there is wide areas of his
mind that act abnormally more or
less of the time. So he loses his
judgment. his money, his good name,
his talents, his general poise and bal
ance.
A state is like man. Given the
excessive use of liquor in state, and
the state insane asylums fill up. That
state is losing something of it's fun