Prohibition in Kansas

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Oct 14, 1913

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 40, No. 40.

Read the full edition

Prohibition in Kansas

The Galena Times gives the following figures, as reported by Attorney-General Dawson:

“Five hundred and sixteen thousand children in the public schools of Kansas never saw an open saloon in the state.

“More than one half the county jails are empty.

“Sixty-five of the 105 counties of the state have no inmates of the state penal institutions.

“Many counties have not had a jury try a case in ten years.

“Eighty-seven counties have no insane.

“Fifty-four counties have no feeble-minded.

“Ninety-six counties have no inebriates.

“Twenty-nine counties have not a single inmate on their poor-farms.

“Kansas is the richest state in the Union. Its average wealth per capita is $1,700.

“Less than ten of 786 newspapers in the state accept liquor advertisements, one of them being in Atchison.

“Is it any wonder, then, that, Kansas being the driest dry state, prohibition is stronger than at any time in her history?”

The foregoing figures are well worthy of study and reflection. They show the great advantages of prohibition and of the absence of liquor from any community or state. The fact that there may be drinking done in the large cities of Kansas, and that men insist upon “bootlegging” and running “blind tigers,” contrary to the law, does not invalidate the beneficial results of prohibitory law.

There are some who argue that prohibition does no particular good, because it does not stop the drinking altogether; but anything that can be done to lessen the use of strong drinks helps just that much, even if it can not stop it entirely. We have laws against murder, but those laws do not stop murdering. And yet we do not find ourselves repealing the laws; we seek to have them enforced as completely as possible. Any man who is not financially interested in the drink traffic, or who is not under some kind of hypnotic influence of those who are thus interested, will be able to see that the liquor business is destructive of every social good. The facts show that it is at the foundation of a large part of the crime and vice that cause so much concern and anxiety in the world at the present time. But there are millions upon millions of dollars invested in the liquor traffic; and with these dollars before the eyes of men, they can not see the misery and the suffering that are caused by the drink evil, and they can not see the facts very clearly that are brought out by the report of the conditions in Kansas.

Those who are acquiring these dollars by the sale of alcoholic drinks, of course will tell us that in the large cities in Kansas, and possibly elsewhere through the state, they can buy all the whisky they want. That may all be true, but it does not in the least degree overthrow the facts set forth by Attorney-General Dawson. It merely serves to show the determined lawlessness of those who insist upon making their money through the sale of that which degrades, debauches, and impoverishes multitudes.