The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1914-01-15

stronger ana rlcner through extremes OF
climate which soon would decimate a
less fit lot.
These people have made good in a
zone once declared to be unquestionably
unproductlve. In the last twenty years
they've made this 'unproductive" soil
yield corn and wheat worth 81, ST, 902, =
$40. They've shown the nation the
worth of alfalfa as money maker, a
soil rejunivator and an ideal feed for
stock. The wheat crop, harvested be-
fore the last hot spell, is worth 1913. O0O,-
900 at current prices
And in 1907, when the panic was on,
Kansas forwarded $50, 900 to help
Wall street out of the hole-the same
Kansas which once was laughed at by
the islanders of Manhattan as dead
broke and done for.
She hasn't as many people as some of
the other states, but man for man, she
creates wealth faster than any other;
she keeps her own healthier and richer
than any other, and offers for the
worlds consideration record of moral
and material progress the like of which
has not been seen since the civilization
dawned in the valleys of the Nile and
the Euphrates.
Though forced to acknowledge this,
we cannot help thinking it strange The
people who settled Kansas were not diff
ferent, on the whole, from those who
pioneered in Illinois, Iowa and Nebras-
ka. Nor are the soil and climatic con-
ditions greatly unlike. Indeed. the odds
are unfavorable to Kansas, so far as
natural conditions are concerned. Yet
many of the facts here arrayed could
hot be spoken of these states.
So something would seem to be the
matter with Kansas.
Something is the matter with her
That something, we believe, can be
boiled down into these first fourteen
words constituting an amendment made
to her constitution in 1881:
The manufacture and sale of lntoxi-
eating liquor shall be forever prohibited
in this state.
1t is this fundamental provision,
fought and evaded IN some localities as
it was for a quarter century, and strict
ly enforced in all parts of the state only
within the last five years, that has help
/ ed Kansas to fiaunt two-hundred mil
lion bank account in the face of a par
tial crop failure; that relieves her of
spending much time. strength and a
large amount of money on paupers.
criminals, insane and feeble minded;
that gives her people the best of chances
for living and the fewest excuses for
dying
1t is this defiance of what other states
have legalized as a necessary" evil
that has helped to make her citizens
the richest per capita in the country
and the richest of any agricultural
folk in the world; that has given her a
permanent school fund of $4,000, 600
and has reduced her illiteracy to an
/ almost negligible quantity.
1t is this insistence upon what slaves
of custom always have sneered at as
impractical, if not impossible, that
has helped to give her balance of
more than million and a quarter in
her state treasury and no bonded debt
save 1870, 600 held by the permanent
! school fund; this alone that makes
possible the statement that SO per cent
Of her 400, 600 school children never
have seen a saloon.
( For even while the liquor interests
succeeded in evading the law in many
instances and boosted that prohibition
was failure IN Kansas, government
statistics showed that the average
annual consumption of Intoxicating
liquors in the state was 81. as per capita,
twhile in the neighboring state of
Missouri, where the whiskey ring
ruled, it was $24 per capita.
In other words, the average Kansan
has just 500. 81 more to spend on food,
clothing, education and entertainment
than his average neighbor across the
Kaw. And just about that much more
to save on doctors, nurses, fines, jails,
poorhouses and insane asylvms. And
now that the United States supreme
court has upheld the Webb law, pro-
hbiting liquor shipments into legally
dry territory, Kansas is enabled to en-
abled to enforce legislation that will
virtually eliminate intoxicants from
her borders.
Again and again it has been said
prohibition is a failure IN Kansas; that
when the older generation responsible
for its adoption passed over the reins of
government to its ons-and daughters.
for Kansas has recognized women
rights as full citizens-Kansas would
come back to her senses.
That this prophecy was without found
dation is best evidenced by the follow
ing statement from Attorney General
Dawson:
The last two session of the legislature
answered these false prophets by pass
ing the most drastic prohibition law in
the world, killing the drug store saloon,
making it impossible even to cure snake
bites by the liquor treatment and by
absolutely clapping down the lid"
and riveting it on.