VOL. XXIII.

No. 3.

The American

One of the hardest of all lessons for Temperance the earnest reformer is the lesson of Movement. tolerance and patience. But harder still is the bitter experience of finding that he has been mistaken either in his point of view or in his methods. To most men and women of vigor and positive character, the standards of public morality are as fixed and absolute as those of private conduct. The great revolt against the evils of intemperance in this country came under circumstances which led toward the uncompromising extreme of total abstinence. Anybody who should deny that the conditions of American life half a century ago pointed inevitably to the total abstinence movement as both logical and necessary would fail to read correctly the history of civilization in the United States. We were certainly a whiskey.cursed race. In a period when our leading statesmen and professional men were frequently intoxicated in public, and when ministers of the gospel were at times incapacitated for their sacred offices through over indulgence, alcoholism had become a national disease. Total abstinence was the only scientific remedy for the over-stimulated nerves of a transplanted race that had to breathe a far sharper and more ozonic atmosphere than that of the British Islands. But it must be further remembered that long before the total abstinence movement had gained any headway, the drink traffic had been universally marked out as one requiring the especial oversight and restriction of the law and the public authorities. common pot-house, or drinking resort, had always in the history of our ancestors been to some extent associated with disorder and crime. When in this country the reaction against drunkenness had converted the great majority of moral and law-abiding people to habits of complete or ap. proximate abstinence, the common drinking place naturally lost such decency as it had possessed in earlier times, and became the resort of the least worthy classes, especially in country communities. As a rule, it became the center of

The

evil talk and all evil influences. Almost all forms of public misconduct and of vicious and criminal practices could be traced more or less directly to the common drinking place.

Rise of Prohibition.

It is not strange that there should have grown up so strong a feeling in the churches, and especially among women, against the public licensing of such a manifest center of demoralization as the average saloon of the American village. Thus, from the widespread success of the temperance movement, tinged as it undoubtedly was with a certain degree of fanaticism that mistook the means for the end, it was natural that the complete and effective prohibition by law of the drinking saloon should seem to many people a vital necessity. This demand for legal action took various forms. The one that most generally enlisted the practical support of prohibitionists was that of amendment to the constitutions of the several States. Such amendments were brought to vote in a number of important States, where they failed of passage, but gained a great support, nevertheless. In several other States, notably Kansas, Iowa, and the Dakotas, the plan of complete and radical prohibition was successful, as it also was in northern New England. In a number of more conservative States the plan of local option was adopted, -each community being allowed to decide for itself. In the South, the county was made the unit of local option, while elsewhere in the country the township or the incorporated village or city was the unit. In many States the movement to restrict saloons took the form of high license, on the theory that a few saloons in the hands of men able to pay a high fee would be less obnoxious to the community than a larger number in the hands of men of small pecuniary responsibility. Furthermore, many States adopted the plan of drawing a sharp line between permitting the sale of beer and light wines and the sale of whiskey. One State, South Carolina,

VOL. XXIII.

The American

One of the hardest of all lessons for Temperance the earnest reformer is the lesson of Movement. tolerance and patience. But harder still is the bitter experience of finding that he has been mistaken either in his point of view or in his methods. To most men and women of vigor and positive character, the standards of public morality are as fixed and absolute as those of private conduct. The great revolt against the evils of intemperance in this country came under circumstances which led toward the uncompromising extreme of total abstinence. Anybody who should deny that the conditions of American life half a century ago pointed inevitably to the total abstinence movement as both logical and necessary would fail to read correctly the history of civilization in the United States. We were certainly a whiskey-cursed race. In a period when our leading statesmen and professional men were frequently intoxicated in public, and when ministers of the gospel were at times incapacitated for their sacred offices through over indulgence, alcoholism had become a national disease. Total abstinence was the only scientific remedy for the over-stimulated nerves of a transplanted race that had to breathe a far sharper and more ozonic atmosphere than that of the British Islands. But it must be further remembered that long before the total abstinence movement had gained any headway, the drink traffic had been universally marked out as one requiring the especial oversight and restriction of the law and the public authorities. common pot-house, or drinking resort, had always in the history of our ancestors been to some extent associated with disorder and crime. When in this country the reaction against drunkenness had converted the great majority of moral and law-abiding people to habits of complete or approximate abstinence, the common drinking place naturally lost such decency as it had possessed in earlier times, and became the resort of the least worthy classes,--especially in country communities. As a rule, it became the center of

The

No. 3.

evil talk and all evil influences. Almost all forms of public misconduct and of vicious and criminal practices could be traced more or less directly to the common drinking.place.

Rise of Prohibition.

It is not strange that there should have grown up so strong a feeling in the churches, and especially among women, against the public licensing of such a manifest center of demoralization as the average saloon of the American village. Thus, from the widespread success of the temperance movement, tinged as it undoubtedly was with a certain degree of fanaticism that mistook the means for the end, it was natural that the complete and effective prohibition by law of the drinking saloon should seem to many people a vital necessity. This demand for legal action took various forms. The one that most generally enlisted the practical support of prohibitionists was that of amendment to the constitutions of the several States. Such amendments were brought to vote in a number of important States, where they failed of passage, but gained a great support, nevertheless. In several other States, notably Kansas, Iowa, and the Dakotas, the plan of complete and radical prohibition was successful, as it also was in northern New England. In a number of more conservative States the plan of local option was adopted, -each community being allowed to decide for itself. In the South, the county was made the unit of local option, while elsewhere in the country the township or the incorporated village or city was the unit. In many States the movement to restrict saloons took the form of high license, on the theory that a few saloons in the hands of men able to pay a high fee would be less obnoxious to the community than a larger number in the hands of men of small pecuniary responsibility. Furthermore, many States adopted the plan of drawing a sharp line between permitting the sale of beer and light wines and the sale of whiskey. One State, South Carolina,

acted upon the interesting new theory that much of the bad character of the liquor traffic could be removed by getting rid of the element of private profit and setting up a State monopoly.

Present Status

Subject.

In the decade from 1875 to 1885 this

of the whole question of legislation to promote temperance and restrict the liquor saloon held a place of absorbing importance in politics and social discussion. For the past ten years it has been far less conspicuous. The present moment is on many accounts a rather favorable one for a cursory survey of some of its aspects. In Iowa, we discover that there has come about a gradual change in predominant public opinion, followed by a change in the law by virtue of which saloons generally exist in the larger towns, where it had always been extremely difficult to enforce prohibition. In the smaller towns and in the rural districts, prohibition is fairly effective, and public opinion holds tenaciously to a position that has been established by abundant experience. Iowa, in short, has reversed the application of the local-option principle. "No saloons," is the general rule; the community that wants them must take affirmative action to that effect. In various other States, one finds saloons under high license in the towns, and quite generally excluded from the rural dis tricts by the working of the ordinary local-option plan. Maine and Kansas are the most important of the States that keep up the full and unqualified legal prohibition of the ordinary drink traffic. That there is a good deal of violation of the law in Maine is generally admitted; but much weight is to be attached to the fact that the people of Maine themselves show no disposition to change their system and legalize the drink traffic.

It is a very remarkable and sensaThe New Kansas Cru- tional movement in Kansas that has sade. called fresh attention to the working of the prohibition system in the largest State that now maintains it. The aggressive strength of all phases of the temperance movement in this country has been derived chiefly from women. The Woman's Christian Temperance Union led the original movement that gave Kansas its prohibitory laws. Lawmakers and politicians, as a rule, are lukewarm toward all radical manifestations of the temperance movement; but they also recognize the political power that determined women can exercise. Thus, in Kansas they have not had the courage to modify the prohibitory system, while on the other hand they have had neither the courage nor the zeal to enforce the laws. In this respect the situation has been growing worse rather than better for a

number of years. Saloons have been running openly on conspicuous streets in many towns and cities. The common practice has been to collect from such saloons by amicable arrangement a stated amount of money at periodical intervals, under the guise of a fine for violation of the law. Such payment is in obvious fact not a fine, but a license fee, the payment of which has carried with it the protection of the officers of the law and the municipal authorities. It ought not to be necessary to argue that such a plan of selling indulgence to lawbreakers makes a mockery of all law, and tends to destroy the dignity and prestige of government. When plain provisions of the statutes become a farce through the connivance of those who are sworn to enforce the law, it is not to be wondered at that legal processes should fall into contempt, and that an exasperated sense of justice should resort to violence in order to arouse the community at large to a sense of its own danger and degradation. A leader in this violent reaction has appeared in the person of Mrs. Carrie Nation, of the town of Medicine Lodge, on the southern border of Kansas.

afraid to prosecute her. On December 27 she wrecked the swell" saloon of Wichita, and was at once arrested and confined in jail until January 17. The charges against her were then dismissed, and this was considered a victory by the temperance people, who hold that the saloon men have no right in law, since their business is prohibited by the State. On January 21, Mrs. Nation and two other W. C. T. U. women wrecked two more of the leading saloons in Wichita. When called before the chief of police they were immediately discharged, the chief saying that he had no right to hold them. Two days later Mrs. Nation led a band of women in smashing the fixtures and contents of a saloon in the town of Enterprise. On January 28 she appeared before Governor Stanley, at Tope

ka, and demanded that he exercise his official power in enforcing the prohibition law of the State; but he refused to aid her in her form of campaign, protesting that her method was bad. A few days later a Topeka saloon was smashed by Mrs. Nation and other women. During all this time Mrs. Nation was making a great many temperance speeches, and while in Topeka she harangued both houses of the legislature. She also responded to some of the urgent calls for a lecture in other places, and for this purpose visited Des Moines and Chicago. She declares, however, that she does not propose to pursue her smashing tactics in other States until after all the saloons, or "joints," are destroyed in Kansas. Her example stimulated women in many towns throughout the State to adopt a similar course in their localities. One of these leaders, Mrs. Mary Sheriff, wrecked a saloon at her home, Danville, early in December, and led a raid at Anthony on January 30. In a saloon raid at Winfield, on February 13, one woman was probably fatally shot. During the following night one of the churches of the town was wrecked as a retaliatory step. There followed something like a reign of terror, the whole town taking up arms and joining the opposing forces in absolute disregard of legal processes. A suit has been brought against Mrs. Nation for malicious destruction of property in Wichita, and the trial has been set for March 10.

Mrs. Nation's "Outlaw" Doctrine.

Mrs. Nation holds the view that since the saloon is illegal it is permissible for anybody to force his way into it, and not only to destroy the alcoholic liquors that may not legally be sold in Kansas, but also the furniture and fixtures; to break mirrors and window-panes, and to inflict the largest possible amount of damage upon everything pertaining directly or indirectly to the carrying on of the business. Her experience, as related above, at various places where she has destroyed property with impunity, seems to have justified her broad assertion that under the Kansas law, as heretofore interpreted, property in any way associated with the conduct of a saloon has no rights that anybody is bound to respect, and indeed has no status at all. If the Kansas judges continue to hold Mrs. Nation and her Amazonian crusaders free from all punishment or harm in their work of destroying saloons with axes, it must of necessity follow that the courts will equally protect them when they resort to the more thorough method of applying the torch. In the eyes of the law, certainly, there can be no difference between burning a saloon to the ground and hacking it to pieces with axes. The people of Kansas have had time to consider Mrs. Nation's position carefully, and tens of thousands of them are indorsing it. Many churches have been used as meeting-places for women preparing them