The Lakeland evening telegram. (Lakeland, Fla.) 1911-1922, 1916-01-03
TWO NON-PARTISIAN
ISSUES FOR 1916
(By Arthur Capper, Governor
of Kansas

Next year Will be a year of cleo
tions, a year of partisan strife;
party lines will be drawn on the
question of tariff. the monetary
situation, the domestic and foreign
policy of the present administra-
ton and many other problems of
nation wide import.
There are two issues, however,
that will enter into the campaign
which will not draw their support
ers nor their opponents from the
ranks Of any one political organiza-
ton They are both nonpartisian
in character and national in scope.
One is the national prohibition of
the traffic in intoxicating liquors.
The other is the question of
mothers pensions, the enactment by
all states of laws authorizing the ex-
tension of state aid to needy widows
and mothers Both Of these issues
or movements are based upon the
same principle-the broad, humani-
tartan principle of the strengthen
ing and preservation as a unit of
that greatest of American institu-
tions-the home And both are
equally deserving of support.
Prohibition seeks to remove from
society-.from the hOme-the damn
able influences of the saloon. 1t
hopes to put forever from the youth
of the land the temptations and pit
! falls which surround the grogshop
and t. drive alcoholism from the
home, which without such baneful
influence would be happy and pros
child the right to be born free from
faint of alcoholism.
The mothers pension is the life
saver OF the poor widow and mother,
the straw at which she grasps when,
through death or other cause, she
is deprived of the support of the
husband and father in providing for
the family She may be left in des-
titute circumstances to cope with a
situation which in her ineXperience
she cannot hope to meet success
fully. 1t is then that the horror of
the almshouse looms big before her;
she sees the yawning doors of the
poorhouse; she sees her children
| torn from her and parolled out
among state institutions, there to
receive care at the hands of public
perfunctory. However kind and
tender the servants in our institu
tions may be in their ministrations,
they must fall far short of filling
the place of the mother. 1t has been
shown that mother can care for
! her own children cad rear them in
the midst of all the influences of
| home-training for less money, and
infinitely better, than the state can
/ perform the same service perfume
torily.
So | believe it is here, then, that
the state would step in, not wholly
from q spirit of humanitarianism
but from an economic standpoint as
we'll. believe the state has done
less than its full duty when it does
not provide every needy. destitute
mother. with the means and oppor-
tunity to rear her children under
the best possible home influences,
that she may in return reciprocate
by giving to the state true, upright,
patriotic citizens, acknowledging
their obligation to their state and
anxious to fulfill it.
Nineteen states now have prohi-
ton twenty-six states have pass
ed mothers pension legislation
Botn movements go hand in hand
aiming at the same goal, and | be-
lieve it is only question of a com
paratively short time when every
State in the Union, and the nation
as a whole, will recognize the justice
of their principles and the great
part they will play in the upbuildin
: of citizenship