p. 669 | Health and Temperance

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Nov 4, 1889

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 15, No. 42.

Health and Temperance.

By P. T. Rhodes, G. S. Dearborn, John D. Knox, S. E. Pendleton

RESULTS OF PROHIBITION IN KANSAS.

WE, the members of the Central Kansas Preachers’ Meeting, assembled in Topeka, July 29, 1889, knowing that false statements and gross misrepresentations have been and are now being circulated throughout the East and other sections of the country, relative to the operation and effect of the Prohibitory Amendment of our State upon immigration, business, and morals, and desiring to circulate among all friends of temperance and legal prohibition of the liquor traffic, the facts as they exist, do herein set forth the following:—

Since the law prohibiting the manufacture and sale of intoxicants (save for the excepted purposes of science and medicine) went into effect, though it was opposed for two years with vigor on the part of the liquor element, there is now a vigorous and successful enforcement of the law. There exist no open saloons. Instead of immigration being discouraged and suppressed, our vast country is filling up with a class of sober, frugal, moral, and industrious population. The business interests of our State were never more healthy and prosperous. Large capital from abroad is seeking investment among us. Our cities and towns show an absence of the drunken, idle, rabble class, and the presence of a noble, sober, and trustworthy people. That a low, lawless class clandestinely secrete in cellars and retired rooms small quantities of liquor for their own personal use, and fraudulent sale under the guise of medicine, we freely admit. So also do men with subtlety and secrecy enter the houses of our people and invade their premises for plunder. The officers of the law are with vigilance searching out and bringing to justice the violators of the law with such promptness as to discourage and deter offenders, and consequently the number of violators is very limited. The enforcement of the law has reduced in a remarkable degree the number of convicts in our State prison. It has reduced very largely the number of criminal cases in our courts. It has added greater security and safety to travel on our railroads. It has made it possible for large bodies of people to assemble for all lawful purposes without annoyance from intoxicated persons. It has reduced the number of our county dependents, and in that and other ways has reduced taxation.

The glory of prohibition in Kansas is that the open saloon is forever gone, and drunkard making of our sons and brothers, husbands and fathers, is at an end. A drunken man upon the streets of our capital city of 50,000 inhabitants is of rare occurrence. Our people throughout the State, with a very limited exception, are in perfect harmony with the law, and have no desire to return to the days and doings of the open saloon and free whisky. There are among us a small minority of men, and others upon our borders, whose appetites and business interests lie in the direction of the liquor traffic, who are clamorous for, and are agitating the question of, re-submission, but the great wall of legal prohibition sentiment stands abreast the feeble dashes of this foul spray.

We have tried local option, which worked good for a time in certain localities, but found it unsatisfactory, it being liable to frequent reversions and uncertainty as a measure for the suppression of the liquor traffic.

That high license would put a stronger and more universal check upon the liquor traffic in any State than legal prohibition, we scout as a trick, a deception, and a fraud upon temperance people, and wholly in the interests of the liquor dealers.

Our observation proves that our expenses for prosecutions, convictions, and confinement in jails and prisons, are far less than the expenses of courts, prisons, jails, asylums, poverty, and loss of time under the reign of the open saloon. Prohibition does verily prohibit in Kansas.

We desire to add a word of advice to States that are pushing the canvass for a prohibitory amendment. Our State stands in the front upon this question, and is appealed to by the friends and foes of prohibition. Select from each county some of your reliable and trustworthy men and send them into Kansas for the purpose of personal observation. You will thereby obtain the facts as they exist, for the encouragement of your people and the contradiction of false representation, and we feel assured that their observations will accord with the facts herein set forth.

P. T. RHODES, G. S. DEARBORN, JOHN D. KNOX, S. E. PENDLETON. } Committee.