Early in the year 1886 the secretary of the Polk county alliance reported that the funds of the organization and the available subscriptions were exhausted, and that liabilities had been incurred that we were unable to meet. Several unsuccessful efforts to have the subscriptions to our funds renewed were made. Mr. Harvey, on account of other engagements, declined a re-election as president of the county alliance in June, 1886. It seemed impossible to get a responsible person to accept of the position. Under these circumstances I. E. Pearson succeeded to that office. Though a gentleman of elegant leisure, he has never, since his election, been able, by his influence or exertions, to put a dollar into the treasury of the alliance.
He has, however, been operating quite extensively on "his own hook," as he says. His principal enterprise, apart from his present suit against Mr. Kidd, has been to watch the incoming of the monthly reports that the law requires the druggist to make to the county auditor, and whenever, by any misadventure, their reports have been delayed a few days beyond the time fixed by the law, Pearson has brought suit against them for the one hundred dollars penalty provided by the statute, and then compromised for the largest amount he could get out of the defendant. In this way he has made hundreds of dollars for himself and has been able to support such an improved style of personal appearance that it has attracted public attention and newspaper comment.
In this new role of "affidavit maker" to the State Register he has already attained distinction. Whether this enterprise will prove a financial success I do not know, as I am not advised as to the terms of the new partnership. It is not yet known whether Pearson has taken the State Register into partnership, or whether the Register has taken in Pearson.
It has always been my fortune in life to antagonize men of this stamp. If I have not as many friends as some men of less positive opinions, I have the consolation to know that I have reason to be proud of the character of my enemies.
By what means he has induced eminent counsel, backed by the active influence of the Iowa State Register, to prosecute this case against Mr. Kidd, remains a mystery. To the oft-repeated inquiries of members of the alliance for information on this subject his answers have been evasive and entirely unsatisfactory. Judge Cole in his letter to Mr. Kidd mentions that certain members of the export association were being damaged "to the extent of thousands of dollars daily" by the course pursued by the International Distillery. "Thousands of dollars daily" is a large amount of money, and a very grave apprehension exists in the minds of many of the temperance men of this community that these "certain other individuals" are not idle spectators in this contest. When or how Judge Cole and Mr. Runnells or the Iowa State Register came into the case I do not know—I only know that they "got there."
"… he has no wings at all,
But he gets there all the same."
Judge Cole and Mr. Runnells are also defending Hurlbut, Hess & Co., and the six thousand dollars of intoxicating liquors condemned by the jury in that case. They are also attorneys for Rowe, the man who shot down Constable Logan. No one, I believe, has questioned their right to act as counsel for the defense in these matters or even suggested the impropriety of their employment. I certainly would not do so. The Iowa State Register has besought the public to suspend any judgment as to the guilt or innocence of Rowe, but to await the judicial investigation of the case. This is certainly commendable forbearance, but why the same spirit of fair play should not be manifested toward Mr. Kidd pending the judicial determination of his rights, I cannot understand. Does it make any difference because Mr. Runnells is defending in the one case and prosecuting in the other? Surely a man who has invested two hundred and fifty thousand dollars in manufacturing in our city, by the advice and encouragement of the Register, is entitled to as much consideration as the man who takes the life of a public officer whilst in the discharge of an official duty. The statement that the State Temperance Alliance has ever favored or endorsed the prosecution of Mr. Kidd is wholly without foundation.
I have now answered very fully all of the inquiries in your letter save, perhaps, the last, and that is as to the relation and effect of the present suit to the cause of prohibition in Iowa. Permit me to say to you, and through you to the true friends of prohibition in this state, that we have now upon our statute books a most excellent law, that is every day gaining favor with the people, and that has survived all open warfare upon it. In my humble judgment the most we now have to fear is not the open opposition of its enemies, but the follies and indiscretions of its friends. As I have already conclusively shown in this communication, we procured the enactment of this law by assuring the people of this state that we did not intend to interfere with the manufacture of alcohol or intoxicating liquors for medicinal or mechanical purposes, nor as an article of commerce for export. The question is, have we anything to gain by duplicity and insincerity, and by now claiming for this law what we did not claim for it when we procured its enactment by the general assembly? Above all things, have we, as prohibitionists, anything to gain by entering into an alliance with the distillers of other states who are making war upon a productive industry in our own state, for the sole purpose of promoting their own pecuniary interests in destroying competition in their business? Have we anything to gain by turning aside from the great work that we have undertaken of destroying the saloon as a place of resort where our young men are taught the habit of intoxication, and engaging in the Utopian scheme of regulating the supply of alcohol in the markets of the world, the use of which it is impossible for us to control after it passes beyond the jurisdiction of our laws?
There is another very grave and important question that the true friends of prohibition in Iowa should stop to consider. The courts of the United States have more than intimated that if the prohibitory law of Iowa does in fact destroy the value of property built for a use which was lawful at the time of its erection, that such a law is a violation of the constitution of the United States, unless it also makes provision for compensation to the owner.