第48章 CHAPTER X.(4)

Yet the law is so plain that he who runs may read. How many ever saw it in print. The revised statutes of Kansas, 1901, Article 14, Section 2462, reads: "It shall be the duty of all sheriffs, police officers, constables, mayors, marshals, police judges and police officers of any city or town, having notice or knowledge of any violation of the provisions of this act to notify the county attorney of the fact of such violation and to furnish him names of witnesses within his knowledge by which such violation can be proven. If any such officer shall fail to comply with the provisions of this section, he shall, upon conviction, be fined in any sum not less than $100 or more than $500, and such conviction shall be a forfeiture of the office held by such person, and the court before whom such conviction is had shall, in addition to the imposition fine aforesaid, order and adjudge the forfeiture of his said office. For a failure or neglect of official duty in the enforcement of this act, any of the city or county officers herein referred to may be removed by civil action."

Also Article 6, Section 2212, says: "Any officer of the state or of any county, city, district or township, after his election or appointment, and either before or after he shall have qualified or entered upon his official duties, who shall accept or receive any money or the loan of any money, or any real or personal property, or any pecuniary or other personal advantage, present or prospective, under the agreement or understanding that his vote, opinion, judgment or action shall be thereby influenced, or as a reward for having given or withheld any vote, opinion or judgment in any matter before him in his official capacity, or having wrongfully done or omitted to do any official act, shall be punished by a fine of not less than $200 nor more than $1,000, or by imprisonment for not less than one year nor more than seven years in the penitentiary at hard labor, or both such fine and imprisonment at the direction of the court."

Enforce the statute and thousands of officials in Kansas would soon be behind prison bars. When the officiary administrative of any government become corrupt, it is on the highway to disruption and ruin. Greece and Rome are notable examples. The sworn government report is that nearly eighteen gallons of liquor to every man, woman and child, is consumed by Uncle Sam's subjects every twelve months. This republic cannot long survive half sober and half drunk. The immortal Abraham Lincoln in a speech at Springfield, Ill., Feb. 22nd, 1842 said: "Turn now to the temperance revolution. In it we shall find a stronger bondage broken, a viler slavery manumitted, a greater tyrant deposed--in it, more of want supplied, more disease healed, more sorrow assuaged. By it, no orphans starving, no widows weeping; by it, none wounded in feeling, none injured in interest. And what a noble ally this to the cause of political freedom! With such an aid, its march cannot fail to be on and on, until every son of earth shall drink in rich fruition the sorrow-quenching draughts of perfect liberty! And when the victory shall be complete-- when there shall be neither a slave nor a drunkard on the earth--how proud the title of that LAND which may truly claim to be the birthplace of and the cradle of both those revolutions that shall have ended in that victory! How nobly distinguished that people who shall have planted and nurtured to maturity both the political and moral freedom of their species!

William Windom, when Secretary of the U. S. Treasury under the Arthur administration, said: "Considered socially, financially, politically or morally, the licensed liquor traffic is, or ought to be, the overshadowing issue in American politics, and the destruction of this iniquity stands first on the calendar of the world's progress."

By Bible authority and by the common law of our land I have proved to the satisfaction of all who will see the right, that I am a loyal American, a loving Home Defender, doing the will of Him whom I serve and whose I am.