Mrs. Nation and Kansas Saloon Laws
It seems that Mrs. Nation’s crusade in Kansas in wrecking saloons is just what the authorities ought to have done. The law of Kansas, statutory and constitutional, has made the saloon an outlaw. Its existence in that State is by law declared a nuisance, and the public officials are directed by the statute to abate each such nuisance and to destroy “all intoxicating liquors found therein, together with all signs, screens, bars, bottles, glasses, and other property used in keeping and maintaining said nuisance.” This the officials have failed to do, and Mrs. Nation undertook the task. The saloon-keepers fear her, arrest her, use bulldogs to scare her away, but are afraid to prosecute her. The New Voice says: “In this state of affairs, all regular methods of enforcement having been exhausted, Mrs. Nation simply attempted to carry out the provisions of the statute and to abate a dangerous public nuisance, menacing the health, peace, and safety of the commonwealth of Kansas. In this act, whether it was wise or unwise, she had the support of common law as old as the history of Anglo-Saxon jurisprudence. The right of the citizen, in default of the regular processes of law, to forcibly prevent the commission of a crime or to abate a nuisance, vi et armis, can not be disputed; and the action of the prosecuting attorney in withdrawing the case against Mrs. Nation is a recognition of that fact.”