The condition of affairs in many parts in 1893 was a disgrace to the whole State. At Council Bluffs, a town of slightly over 20,000 inhabitants, no attempt was made to secure enforcement, and about seventy saloons were wide open. The city had made regulations of its own to deal with this and similar evils. Drink shops were allowed to do business undisturbed on paying the City Treasury 52 dollars 10 cents a month; gambling hells were required to pay 100 dollars a month; houses of ill-fame 12 dollars 10 cents a month, and the inmates of such places 8 dollars 10 cents each.
In Carroll, a town of 3000 inhabitants, a similar plan was adopted, and seventeen saloons and four wholesale dealers were allowed to go free on paying 20 dollars each monthly, as a town licence. In the whole of Carroll county the law was ignored. At Des Moines, with a population of 50,000, the amount of drunkenness had been rapidly increasing ever since Boies took office. In 1890, out of 2441 total arrests, 940 were for drunkenness; in 1891, out of 2921 the number of drink cases was 1015; in 1892, 1113 out of a total of 3345 were for drunkenness. In Davenport, with 3000 inhabitants, largely Germans, there were beer gardens and saloons running open week days and Sundays, as free from concealment as though they were in the Fatherland. The houses of ill-fame have been licensed here, confined to a certain quarter of the city, and their inmates inspected weekly and given certificates of health. The keepers of such houses are made to pay monthly fees of 25 dollars, and the inmates 10 dollars. A fee of 200 dollars a year was required from saloon keepers, and those who refused to pay were subjected to all manner of annoyances from the municipality.[4]
It would be wearisome to go on further. Hardly a town in the State, besides many country parts, but had abandoned prohibition, not for licence and control, but for a lawless free trade, tempered by the levying of municipal blackmail.
It was manifest that this condition of affairs could not last; and the Republican party, that had for many years remained steadfast to the cause, at last determined to abandon it. A purposely vague clause was chosen for the party platform in 1893, stating that “prohibition is no test of Republicanism. The General Assembly has given to the State a prohibitory law as strong as any that has ever been enacted by any country. Like any other criminal statute, its retention, modification, or repeal must be determined by the General Assembly, elected by and in sympathy with the people; and to them is relegated the subject to take such action as they may deem just and best in the matter, maintaining the law in those portions of the State where it is now or can be made efficient, and giving the localities such methods of controlling and regulating the liquor traffic as will best serve the cause of temperance and morality.”
It was fully understood at this election that the Republicans would now advocate some modification of the law, and on this understanding their candidate for Governorship was returned to office by a large majority. The newly elected Governor, the Hon. F. D. Jackson, dealt with the question at some length in his inaugural address. “A trial of ten years has demonstrated,” he said, “that in many counties it (prohibition) has fully met the expectation of its friends, having successfully driven the saloon system out of existence in those counties. While this is true, there are other localities where open saloons have existed during this period of time in spite of the law, and in spite of the most determined efforts to close them. In such localities the open saloon exists without restraint or control, a constant menace to the peace and safety of the public. From these localities there is an earnest demand for relief—a demand not from the law-defying saloon sympathiser, but from the best business element—from the best moral sentiment of such communities—from the churches and from the pulpit. While the present prohibitive principle, which is so satisfactory to many counties and communities of our State, should remain in force, wisdom, justice and the interests of temperance and morality demand that a modification of this law should be made applicable to those communities where the saloon exists, to the end of reducing the evils of the liquor traffic to the minimum.”
A measure for the semi-legislation of saloons had been brought forward in 1893. The malcontents did not ask for the total repeal of the law, but they demanded that, in localities where prohibition had notoriously failed, some other measures should be tried. At the end of March, 1894, a “mulct-tax” Bill was carried in the House of Representatives, and sent on at once to the Senate, where it was “railroaded” through without debate. Early in April it received the sanction of the Governor and became law. This measure is not a licensing law, and does not (nominally) license the saloon; but it provides that, on the payment by a saloon-keeper of a special tax, and on the observance of certain conditions, he shall not be liable to punishment for breaking the prohibitory law. This sounds somewhat strange to those of us who still retain old-fashioned opinions about the necessity for enforcing all laws or repealing them. Clause 16 of the “mulct” Act is surely a curiosity among illogical compromises: “Nothing in this Act contained shall in any way be construed to mean that the business of the sale of intoxicating liquors is in any way legalised, nor is the same to be construed in any manner or form as a licence, nor shall the assessment or payment of any tax for the sale of liquors as aforesaid protect the wrong-doer from any penalties now provided by law, except that on conditions hereinafter provided certain penalties may be suspended”.
The tax required from liquor-sellers is 600 dollars a year, besides a bond for 3000 dollars. If, in a town of 5000 inhabitants, a majority of the electors who voted at the last poll sign a written statement consenting to the establishment of saloons; or if, in a place with less than 5000 inhabitants, sixty-five per cent. of the electors sign a similar statement, then, in such places the fact that a liquor-seller has paid his tax shall be a bar to any proceedings under the prohibitory Acts. Each saloon is to consist of a single room, with only one exit and entrance, with the bar in plain view from the street, and with no chairs or furniture except such as are necessary for the attendants. The attendants must all be males, and no liquor is to be sold to minors, drunkards, persons who have taken “drink cures,” or to any person “whose wife, husband, parent, child, brother, sister, guardian, ward over fourteen years of age, or employer shall by written notice forbid such sales”.
It is too early yet to say what the result of the “mulct” Act will be. The latest news from Iowa reports that the necessary proportion of signatures for the opening of saloons has been obtained in a number of moderate-sized towns, which were formerly thought to be favourably inclined to prohibition. In Des Moines 5500 signatures have been secured, and the drink-sellers boast that they can obtain one or two thousand more if required. It is yet a matter of doubt whether the saloon-keepers in several border towns will submit to the new law or will continue their old plan; but it seems certain, that for a large part of the State the days of even nominal prohibition are over. The State Legislature has agreed to re-submit to popular vote the prohibitory amendment to the Constitution; but this is done rather as a sop to the advocates of temperance than with the expectation that it will lead to any change.