Kansas and Prohibition

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jan 29, 1914

Kansas and Prohibition

ThE following quotation is from the speech of Senator Thompson. The facts showing the material benefit of temperance are worth repeating, and are given here so that all may have them:—

"As this is a question in which Kansas has had longer and better experience than any other State in the Union, I desire to say a few words in support of the resolution.

"We have had State-wide prohibition as a part of the Kansas State constitution longer than has existed in any other State in the Union. [The senator forgot that Maine passed its prohibitory law in 1854, and has never repealed it.—Ed.] The Kansas Legislature in 1879 voted by joint resolution to submit to a vote of the people an amendment to the State constitution forever prohibiting the manufacture and sale of intoxicating liquors, except for medicinal and scientific purposes. This amendment was adopted by the people at the general election in 1880. During the thirty-three years since that time the law has not been repealed, nor has the constitutional amendment on which it is based been resubmitted to the people for their affirmation or rejection.

If there is any one question which is permanently settled in the minds of the people of Kansas, it is the prohibition question. In my judgment, the question will never again be submitted to the people or seriously attempted to be resubmitted by any organization, political or otherwise. If it should be resubmitted, prohibition would carry by a larger vote than any other proposition that could be presented to the people of Kansas. It has been entirely eliminated from politics, and the people are practically a unit on the question of retaining it as the fundamental law of the State. After this long trial and experience with the law, fully ninety per cent of the people would vote for its continuance, and are favorable to its extension throughout the nation. Our firm stand for the law is proof of the strength of character of our citizens, and a constant example in practical reform to all the States of the nation.

"The closing of the saloons and joints in the State has had a most excellent effect upon the morals as well as the material interests of the people of the State, so much so that no one with the best interests of the people and the State at heart desires to go back to the old order of things under the saloon. Among the most beneficial results of the operation of the law are better homes, happier and wealthier families, higher standards of education and intelligence, and a large reduction in crime. These are the natural and inevitable results of prohibition wherever effectively enforced. But the best result of all is in the fact that of the half million boys and girls in Kansas, only a very small proportion have ever seen an open saloon. Children are growing to manhood and womanhood without the temptation or evil influence of the saloon.

"During the thirty-three years of prohibition the illiteracy of our people has been reduced from 49 per cent to 2 per cent, and this trifling amount is almost entirely among the foreign element in the mining section of the southeast. With 105 counties in the State, 87 of them have no insane, 54 have no feeble-minded, 96 have no inebriates, and what few there are come from the cities which defied the law until recent years. There is only 1 pauper to every 3,000 population, and there are 38 county poor farms which have no inmates. In July, 1911, 53 county jails were empty, and 65 counties had no prisoners serving sentence. Since the establishment of prohibition the population of Kansas has increased more than any of the surrounding States, and her wealth has increased until it has become the richest State in the Union per capita. Although we suffered one of the worst droughts in the history of the State last summer, recent statements from the banks show that in the 930 State banks there is on deposit belonging to the people of Kansas about $120,000,000, and on deposit in the 213 national banks about $90,000,000, making a total of $210,000,000, or about $123 for every man, woman, and child in the State.

"Until 1909 Kansas permitted drug stores to sell whisky and other intoxicating liquors for medicinal purposes. This privilege was grossly abused, and the State legislature, in 1909, passed a law prohibiting the sale of intoxicating liquor for any purpose whatever. The State bank deposits of the State, which

had theretofore been gaining gradually only about a million dollars a year, made a sudden increase of $14,000,000, or from $83,000,000 to $97,000,000 at that time. In addition to this, the increase in wealth within the past ten years has been at the rate of $120,000,000 a year. The assessed valuation of property for taxation is sufficient to give every man, woman, and child in the State $1,700, while the average wealth in the nation is only about $1,200. Is it not reasonable to believe and fair to say that thirty-three years of prohibition has had something to do with this grand result?"