Do these figures prove the assertion of those “weeping Jeremiahs” who believed, or affected to believe, that the prosperity and growth of Kansas depended upon the saloons? Do they not, on the contrary, establish the fact that the growth of Kansas during the past six years—the six years of prohibition—has far exceeded any other period of the State’s marvelous development?
DOES PROHIBITION PROHIBIT?
Our opponents allege, again, that “prohibition does not prohibit;” that the saloons are simply transformed into drug stores, and keep on selling liquor as before; and that drinking and drunkenness have really increased since the prohibition law went into effect. If these assertions are true, what have they to complain of? If prohibition does not prohibit, why do the men who want to open saloons, and make a living by making their fellow-men drunk, oppose prohibition? If a saloon can be so easily transformed into a drug store, why don’t all the saloon-keepers adopt that course? If drinking and drunkenness have increased, why are those who profit by drinking and drunkenness, and all their allies and supporters, so bitterly opposed to prohibition?
The distress of the gentlemen who so vehemently argue that “prohibition does not prohibit,” recalls one of President Lincoln’s quaint stories. Gen. Grant was winning victories in the West, but his success inspired the usual jealousies and rivalries, and the President was frequently advised that Grant was a failure, and urged to remove him. This criticism and fault-finding continued even after the surrender of Vicksburg. The wiseacres insisted that Grant had made a fatal mistake in paroling Pemberton’s army, and argued that the paroled men would, in a brief time, swell the ranks of other Confederate armies. The President had been patient until then, but when this argument was made, he turned on the critics, and, with a sly twinkle, asked: “Did you ever hear about Bill Sykes’s yellow dog?” They said they hadn’t. “Well,” said Mr. Lincoln, “Sykes had a yellow dog he set great store by, but there was a lot of boys in town who didn’t share Sykes’s opinion. In fact, they regarded Sykes’s yellow dog as a nuisance. So they finally fixed up a cartridge with a long fuse, put the cartridge in a piece of meat, dropped the meat in the road near Sykes’s house, and then, having perched themselves on a fence near by, with the end of the fuse in their hands, whistled for the dog. When he came out he scented the meat, and bolted it, cartridge and all. The boys touched off the fuse, and in a moment there was an explosion. Sykes rushed out to see what was the matter, and found the ground covered with pieces of yellow dog. He picked up the biggest piece he could find, and after mournfully regarding it for a moment, sorrowfully said: ‘Well, I guess he’ll never be much account again—as a dog.’ And,” added the President, “I guess Pemberton’s army will never be of much account again—as an army.” Looking at the fragments of the whisky traffic scattered over the State, in jails, or seated on store-boxes swearing that “prohibition doesn’t prohibit,” or across the border in Missouri—looking at these scattered fragments, it may fairly be said that, like Sykes’s dog, the whisky business in Kansas will never be of much account again—as a business.
SALES OF LIQUOR BY DRUGGISTS.
It is unfortunate that the law does not require probate judges to make returns, to some State officer, of the sales of intoxicating liquor reported to them by the druggists of the State. In the absence of such returns accurate figures cannot of course be furnished. But it is possible to make up, from such official reports as are attainable, a reasonably accurate estimate of the liquor traffic in Kansas, and this I shall endeavor to do. In one of the oldest and most populous counties of this State—a county having nearly 25,000 inhabitants, and not a saloon within its borders—the official returns made to the probate judge, for the month of July last, show less than 1,500 sales. There are now ninety-three organized counties in the State. Seventy-nine of them have populations ranging from 2,500 to 25,000; and only fourteen have populations in excess of 25,000. In more than one-half of the counties of Kansas the sales of liquors by druggists will not reach 1,500 per month; in less than one-half the sales will probably exceed that number. Considering all the facts, however, it is fair to accept the official sales made in the county to which I have referred as an average for each other county. On this basis, with ninety-three counties, each averaging 1,500 sales per month, the aggregate for the entire State would be 139,500 sales per month, or 1,674,000 per year, or not much more than one sale per annum for each inhabitant.
It has been ascertained, also, by thoroughly competent and reliable investigation, that the sales of liquor by druggists do not average, in value, to exceed 40 cents for each sale. I will, however, make the estimate liberal, and call the money value of each sale 50 cents. And as the sales by druggists aggregate 1,674,000 per year, their pecuniary value, at 50 cents each, aggregates $837,200.
THE SALOON TRAFFIC IN LIQUORS.
Now, compare these figures with the saloon traffic in liquors. In this city, the capital of the State, there were, in January, 1885, seventy saloons. It has been ascertained, by the most careful and accurate investigation, that the expenses of saloons for rent, fuel, lights, city license, taxes, lawyers’ fees, help, liquors, etc., cannot average less than $20 per day. The expenses of some, of course, do not exceed $5 or $10 per day, but those of others reach $30 to $50 per day; so that $20 is a fair average. Hence, the seventy saloons open in Topeka until January, 1885, must have received an aggregate of $1,400 per day to cover their expenses, or, allowing 10 per cent. for profit, $1,540 per day. And as the saloon, where it exists, is open 365 days in the year, the seventy saloons of the city of Topeka, in order to meet their expenses and realize a profit of 10 per cent., must have received the enormous sum of $562,100 per annum. In other words, the 23,490 people of the city of Topeka then expended in the saloons more than two-thirds as much money for alcoholic liquors as all the people of the State of Kansas now expend in the drug stores for the same purpose.
Let me make the comparison still more plain. There were, in Topeka, seventy saloons, which would be one for every 335 of its then inhabitants. A like ratio for the State would give Kansas, with its 1,500,000 inhabitants, 4,477 saloons. The expenses of these, at $20 per day, and 10 per cent. profit, would aggregate the enormous sum of $35,950,310 per year. In other words, while the sales of liquor in Kansas by the druggists now aggregate only $837,200 per annum, if we had in Kansas as many saloons in proportion to population as had this city from 1881 to 1885, their sales, in order to meet their daily expenses, must aggregate $98,494 per day, or $35,950,310 per annum—$35,113,110 more than the sales by the druggists now aggregate.