The Washington herald., 1916-04-12
A New Reform In Kansas.

A new reform has been inaugurated in Kan
sas. "a woman who votes" announces in the
Emporia Gazette that men shall no longer smoke
at banquets in Kansas. The women, vote and
hold office in Kansas, and the Emporia Gazette
Is the official register of reform This declara-
ton must be official
The outlook is omnous for the men of Kan
sas. They have lost their appetite for quinine
because they have nothing in which to take it.
and now they are to be denied their one remain
ing stimulant which makes a banquet tolerable. If
they want to smoke they must return to early
practice and go out behind the barn and smoke in
secret where no woman can see them.
There is hope in the speech of Alfalfa Bill
Murray, delivered in the House of Representa-
tives not long ago, that this new Kansas reform
will not spread beyond State boundaries Mr..
Murray is from the neghboring reform State Of
Oklahoma, and says every people have their
stimulants, but tobacco is the most universal be-
cause it is the foundation of the home, religion,
prosperity and peace. 1t has been the single
standard of coinage, the support of the ministry,
the payment for wives brought over to the bache-
lors in jamestown, and the charm against deficits
in the Treasury Where tobacco smoke ascends,
it is pillar of promise pointing toward civiliza-
ton
Alfalfa Bill was no doubt little extravagant
Yand began the history of tobacco some centuries
too early, especially in the haunts of civilization
and Christianity. 1t was a favorite weed among
the savages of America long before Columbus
came, but it did not find its way to Europe and
the use of the world until the agents of Sir Wal
ter Raleigh carried the seeds to Europe 1t was
from heathendom it spread into the world, and
like most things associated with the devil its
popularity grew and spread in spite of prohibition
laws accommodations, the knout, and even capi-
| tai punishment.
| The women of Kansas have more historic
foundation for their opposition to tobacco as an
agent of sin and savagery than has Alfalfa Bill
for his eulogies on the weed; but who will deny,
outside of Kansas, that it is the foundation of
peace in the home as we'll as the solace for glut-
tonous feasts called banquets? In Kansas it NAV
be different, because Kansas is different They
love everything in Kansas which other people
hate; they even loved Populsm in the Sunflower
State and they now call it Progressiveism So
/ it would be unfair to the men in Kansas to
/ judge them by any ordinary tobacco standard.
They may be able to aid digestion by jumping
the rope initiating Billy Sunday, after dinner.
But, the of Kansas may have lost hope
since it was proposed that the suffragists of New
York. Pennsylvania and Massachusetts should
emigrate to Kansas so they could vote and hold
office. 1t was Mary Ellen Lease or some other
Kansas Populist who once proposed to abolish
man in Kansas; that may be- the ultimate aim of
this new reform inaugurated at Emporia.
The Kansas men may turn to Shylock as they
see their cigars pipes and smoking tobacco taken
from them and say: "You take my house when
you do take the prop that doth sustain my house;
you take my life when you do take the means
whereby I live" But what will become of Bill