The next section of the act provides for the circulation of a petition, and by obtaining a certain majority or percentage of the voters to sign a petition to that effect the penalties provided in the prohibitory liquor law shall not be enforced against the offender. Under this law the brewers of St. Louis and Milwaukee employed men to circulate petitions, paying them five dollars a day for their services in obtaining signatures to petitions in certain counties of the state, under which the parties who paid the required tax were secured against any prosecutions for violations of the law. I tried several cases in the district and supreme court of the state for the purpose of testing the constitutionality of this act of the legislature. It placed the pardoning power theretofore exercised by the Governor of the state in the hands of the brewers of Milwaukee and St. Louis and their employees, provided they could by such means as they might adopt, obtain the required number of signatures to such petitions. It clearly recognized that what was a crime under the law in one part of the state, might be committed provided the necessary amount was furnished and paid into the public treasury as a commutation for the offense, and that payment should be made in advance without reference to the number of offenses that might be committed. It was clearly not a law of uniform operations under the decisions of our supreme court as theretofore held, for it was a crime in one city or county in the state and not a crime in another city or county of the state; notwithstanding the law making it a crime was still left in full force and effect, except as it was abrogated in a particular locality by the signing of certain petitions. Strange to say the supreme court of Iowa, notwithstanding their former decisions to which I have heretofore referred, sustained this law and its constitutionality, and under it in all of the counties of the state where we had any considerable foreign population the legalized saloon has returned to do its deadly work and the only compensation for it is that men who call themselves republicans have been able to hold and enjoy the honors of public office. After the decision of our supreme court upon the question of the constitutionality of this act I received from the editors of a law publication east a communication requesting my views and opinions for publication in their law magazine, and I simply wrote upon the letter addressed to me the statement that the decision made by our supreme court under this law was a political necessity and that it was an old and true adage that necessity knew no law, and I had no further comments to make upon it.
Since the prominent part that I took in this canvass of 1893 my standing with the republican party has been rather impaired; nevertheless, subsequently in the campaigns of Mr. Wm. Jennings Bryan involving the national policy of the republican party, I have taken very active part. The free coinage of silver heresy of Mr. Bryan I regarded as a serious menace to the integrity and honor of the nation, and I spent very considerable time and my own private means in making public speeches condemning that wild and visionary scheme. In state politics I have taken no active part since 1894. I never belonged to or coöperated with what has been known as the "Third party" or the prohibition party as a national organization. When the prohibitionists of Iowa united with the national organization I strongly advised against it. I could not see any hope of accomplishing anything by such an organization. The states of Kansas, Iowa, and the Dakotas had become prohibition, and in my judgment the only effectual way of reaching the question of prohibiting the sale of intoxicating liquors as a beverage, or the establishment of places of resort for such sale, was by the exercise of the police power of the states in the management of their own domestic affairs. The congress of the United States had no control over the subject, except in the matter of revenue laws or the taxing of the manufacture or sale of liquors. Our courts and the supreme court of the United States had agreed that the payment of taxes under these revenue laws and the issuing of what has been called a license, was really no protection as against the state law and its penalties. The general government does not exercise police power within the state but it may enforce penalties for the violation of revenue laws or enact laws regulating commerce within the states, but it cannot prohibit the establishment of the saloon or the maintenance of such a place merely upon the ground of preserving public order and morality. I could not and never have been able, therefore, to see the propriety of a national organization based upon the idea of prohibiting the sale of intoxicating liquors as a beverage, or establishing places of resort for such sale.
Another objection to this third party, the national prohibition party, so-called, has been the adoption of a platform favoring universal suffrage without reference to sex. This also is a question over which the congress of the United States have not heretofore exercised any jurisdiction. The question of suffrage or the right to vote has been a matter peculiarly within the control of each state of the Union and its local constitution and laws, and is not and never has been a matter of national politics. I have always believed and still believe that if the prohibitionists had confined their efforts to the several states, capturing those in which they had some prospect of success, their cause would have grown and become stronger each year. The great centers of population such as New York City, Chicago, Cincinnati, and St. Louis, and such other cities filled as they are with foreign population, who have no sympathy with the manners and customs pertaining to these agricultural states, cannot in my judgment be brought under the control of prohibition at any time during the present or next generation of men, and I regard it as foolish to spend our time and our money in such quixotic efforts. My hope in inaugurating the movement that we made in 1893 was simply to teach the republicans of Iowa the lesson that success politically was not to be attained in this state by subservience to the saloon power, and that defeat in the election of that year might result in a return of the party to its better and higher purposes in maintaining that which was right and just and humane. That we were defeated in that effort at that time was most unfortunate, but the domination of the political power of the saloon, I still have faith to believe, will work its own destruction, and that the people of this state will return to their former convictions.
CHAPTER XX
Personal Incidents
In the spring of the year 1888 I sold my home, 707 Fourth street, and built a house for my residence on my farm. We left the old home with no little regret. It had been our place of residence since the fall of 1859, with the exception of two years in which we fitted up the property temporarily on the corner of Fifth and Center, while we built the new house on Fourth in the old location. We had planted the shade trees of hard and soft maple. Here our child had been born and had grown to manhood, here we had celebrated our silver wedding in 1878, and had enjoyed the society of many kind friends and persons of distinction and influence in the state. Bishop Andrews, the bishop of the Methodist Episcopal church, with his family, resided nearly opposite to our house, and Bishop Hearst and his family had lived on Third street nearby, and our excellent neighbors, A. Y. Rawson and his first wife, Thos. F. Withrow and his family, had been our kind friends through many years. Here we had entertained such men as Governor Grimes and Governor Kirkwood and his wife, Senator Harlan and his wife, Bishop Waldron, Bishop Simpson, and other distinguished men of the state and of the church.
The most difficult problem in my life that I had to solve was the care and education of my son. I felt that everything was at stake in his proper discipline and education. During his early childhood we sent him to school as already mentioned to Mrs. Winkley, afterwards for some years to the public school and still later to Callanan College, an institution taught by Dr. Pomeroy. When the time came for him to go from home and attend college my first thought was to send him to Iowa City to the State University, but I had grave fears in regard to the influence that prevailed in that city. The college campus was environed by saloons and public sentiment of that town was far from being what it ought to have been. Attorneys had been mobbed in the streets of the city for the offense of prosecuting the violators of the prohibitory law, and there had been no proper expression of public sentiment condemning the outrage. I consulted with a number of the best citizens of Iowa City in regard to the matter of sending my son there for his education, but I became satisfied that they knew but very little of what was transpiring in the city after bedtime. I thought it prudent to make an investigation on my own account. I accordingly took the train that left Des Moines at five o'clock in the afternoon, arriving at Iowa City about half past nine. I went to the St. James Hotel and quietly registered my name and engaged a room for the night, but did not go to bed. I waited until about half past ten or eleven o'clock, and took my hat and started out on a tour of inspection. I visited a number of the saloons on the public square and found them filled with young men, no doubt students of the college, and I met several crowds of these young gentlemen on the street headed by one of the trustees of the college in not a very sober condition. I returned to my hotel with my mind fully made up that my boy should go without an education before I would subject him to the risk of being educated in such a town. Subsequently I visited Ames in company with my wife and selected a proper room in the dormitory for my son's occupancy, and we sent him to Ames accordingly. He afterwards spent a year in California before settling down to business as an architect in Des Moines.
Rebecca A. McMeekin Nourse From Photograph by Edinger