The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1915-04-24
PRIDE OF KANSAS IN PROHIBI-
TTON

TON.
| Under the above caption the Chris
| tan Science Monitor recently printed
an editorial that 1t would seem to be
permissible for the great bulk of Kan
sans to read with a pardonable graft
| fication. 1t is one of the few worth
while tributes that has been paid them
for the successful fight they have
waged to make prohibition the fact
that it generally is from one end of
the commonwealth to the other. The
editorial follows:
These days are days of triumph
for Kansas. Ridiculed, caricatured,
lampooned, misrepresented, scolded.
scorned, vilified for years because it
persisted in holding to the soundness
of the doctrine of prohibition, it now
finds a large part of the civilized
world on it's side. 1t was called mar
row, fanatical, contemplate by some
of it's sister states that are now either
observing prohibitory laws of it's de-
vising or are seeking to put them in
force. Because of it's stand on the
liquor question the name of Kansas
was long a byword and a sneer. Now
the Kansas idea of the liquor question
is taking root in France, in Russia, in
England, is actually finding hospitable
soil in many parts of Germany. Kan
sas not long ago had to bear almost
the full brunt of the concentrated at
tack of the liquor interests, because
while Maine was the first of the pro-
hibition states its attitude had become
one of defense rather than aggression.
AS the liquor interests viewed 1t,
Maine could be held by the rest of
New England, and the rest of New
England belonged to them, but moth
ing could hold Kansas. In fact, moth
ing did hold Kansas. That state
abolished even local option. 1t made
importation of liquor a penal offense.
AS a final blow it drove liquor out of
the drug stores. 1t made prohibition
tight. And Kansas prospered so won
derfully that it became an object les
son for all the other states and for all
the other countries
kansas may sit comfortably in it's
chair today, SO far as the prohibition
question is concerned, for it has been
relieved of the almost sole RESPONSE
bility of carrying on the crusade. 1t
does not need to hurl back the attacks
of the liquor trade any more. for that
trade is kept busy elsewhere, and by
distinguished volunteers, in the pro-
hibition service. Somebody speaking
recently in behalf of the liquor inter-
ests in England had repeated there
publicly such threadbare ISLANDERS as
that prohibition wherever tried in the
United States was proving to be in
furious to health and morals; that the
prohibition law was being constantly
and openly disregarded, and that its
enforcement had absolutely failed. Sir
William Ramsay, who had visited the
United States and had made observa-
lions for himself, promptly wrote to
the London Chronicle in reply, begin
ming his communication with this
terse sentence: When any one says
that prohibition in America is an abso-
lutte failure I am bound to meet his
statement with an absolute denial.
He could, he added, tell plenty of
stories about the blind tiger and
other ways of evading prohibition, but
the fact remains that evasion proves
the law, and the law is binding upon
the vast majority of citizens Amer
leans he added, are an educated and
therefore a. lawabiding people. OF
their own free will the law stands
and the overwhelming majority obey
it, as any one who stays long enough
to know the country is aware
ut was the plan of campaign of the
liquor interests in Kansas for years,
as it had been previously, and to a
certain extent is yet, in Maine, to pro-
mote evasion of the prohibition law
and to do everything that might bring
it into disfavor and disrepute among
unthinking people. Kansas had to
stand practically alone through all
these years in defense of the integrity
of the law. 1t had to contend against
the unsleeping enemies of prohibition
across its borders and, which was
more difficult against the Indifferent,
the ignorant and the disloyal among
its own people. But it is relieved of
much of this burden now, for prohi-
bition has champions, and able and
even eminent champions, everywhere.
OF its triumph Kansas is proud, and
it has reason for qualification"