What Governors of Various States Say
B. B. Comer, Alabama: "Before I entered upon my official duties as governor, while a strong temperance man, I was in no sense of the word a prohibitionist; but after a year as chief executive, I am an intense prohibitionist, having been made so by the mothers, wives, and children who have come to my office for the purpose of securing pardon or stay of execution for their sons, husbands, or fathers, who have been sentenced for murder, committed, in nearly all cases, while under the influence of whisky." Hoke Smith, Georgia: "It is absolutely impossible to have a permanent decent municipal government where the saloon dominates municipal politics. The elimination of the saloon will help municipal politics everywhere." John P. Altgeld, Illinois: "These saloons become lounging places where characters and habits of industry are destroyed, where habits of drinking and carousing are formed that pull down not only the individual, but his family; and every time the drunkard and his family sink a notch lower, the moral effect tends to blight the family of the saloon-keeper, the brewer, and the distiller, who created the condition from which this ruin proceeds." J. Frank Hanly, Indiana: "I bear no malice toward those engaged in the business, but I hate the traffic. I hate its every phase. I hate it for its utter disregard of law, its ruthless trampling of the solemn compacts of state constitutions, for the load it straps to labor's back, for the palsied hands it gives to toil, for its wounds to genius, for the tragedies of its might-have-beens. I hate it for the human wrecks it has caused, the almshouses it peoples, for the prisons it fills, for the insanity it begets, for its countless graves in potters' fields, the mental ruin it imposes upon its victims, for its spiritual blight, for its moral degradation, the crimes it has committed, the homes it has destroyed, the hearts it has broken, the malice it has planted in the hearts of men, for its poison, for its bitterness, for the dead sea fruit with which it starves their souls." A. B. Cummins, Iowa: "It can safely be said that the less liquor sold the better the morals." E. W. Hoch, Kansas: "The devil never invented a bigger lie than that the revenue from illegitimate sources is necessary to the financial success of any town or city." W. T. Cobb, Maine: "I intend to vote in September for the retention of the prohibitory amendment, and shall do this because I believe that a vote to that end is the best contribution I can13make to the moral, social, and economic welfare of Maine." Chase Salmon Osborn, Michigan: "The saloon of to-day is a social saprophyte. It has always been a breeding place of lawlessness and a culture ground for vice." E. F. Noel, Mississippi: "That our prohibition laws do immensely curtail the selling and use of intoxicating liquor is manifest to all intelligent and fair-minded men who have seen our laws tested, and is demonstrated by the immense expenditure of time, money, and work on the part of the brewery and liquor interests in their persistent endeavor to discredit and repeal prohibition legislation. The public sentiment of Mississippi is overwhelmingly in favor of the prohibition of the liquor traffic and the enforcement of the law." Joseph W. Folk, Missouri: "The saloon is a business the natural tendency of which is toward lawlessness, and the time has come when it will either run the politics of the state or be run out of the politics of the state." John Burke, North Dakota: "The merchant claims that under prohibition there is more money in the legitimate channels of trade, that collections are better, and people generally buy more. They are better fed, better clothed, better schooled, and are better citizens. Hence the business man becomes a prohibitionist, and prohibition becomes a settled policy in the state." W. W. Kitchen, North Carolina: "Prohibition has now been in force throughout the state for two years. . . . Morality, industry, and frugality have increased, and politics and government have been to a great extent relieved of one of their most corrupting influences." Lee Cruce, Oklahoma: "The people of Oklahoma are well satisfied with prohibition. . . . There is more money in the banks now than then. The stores are selling more goods now than then. Real estate is worth more now than then in both town and country. There are more miles of paving and sidewalks now than then, and all Oklahoma is more prosperous to-day than it was when it had open saloons." T. M. Campbell, Texas: "I believe that the saloon is a bad thing—a thing from which no good can come. Those who vote for a partnership with the saloon, vote for the crack of the pistol in the saloon, and for all the other crimes that follow in the wake of the liquor traffic. Vote for it if you will. I wash my hands of it. The widows and the orphans shall never in the Judgment-day stand up and charge me with the iniquities which overtook them through the saloon. More than $40,000,000 is paid over the bar in the saloons of Texas annually. That is enough money to build and equip four railroads across the state every year. Abolish the saloon and allow this money to enter the legitimate channels of trade. Wherever it has been tried, the community has blossomed like a rose." John Cutter, Utah: "The morals of a community are improved by a decreased sale of strong drink. The revenues of a state are increased, because temperance leads to frugality and thrift." William Hodges Mann, Virginia: "The records of our penitentiary show that the criminal age is below twenty-three. If I am to judge from the applications for pardon I am constantly receiving, from ninety to ninety-five per cent of the crimes for which convicts are confined were committed while under the influence of liquor. I believe that if this temptation could be gotten out of the way of our young men, it would result in the greatest benefit to the state from every point of view." W. M. O. Dawson, West Virginia: "Do men deplore the rule of corrupt political bosses? It is the saloon that rallies the mass of venal and unpatriotic voters, who constitute the phalanx of the bosses' power. Has crime become rampant on the streets? The saloon is the refuge of the criminals. Does vice seek protection? The saloon effects the arrangement with the policemen who are familiar with its dark secrets and comrades of its debased fraternity." Ex-Governor Patterson, Tennessee: "All my arguments and all my conclusions, so far as they excused or justified the moral right or policy of the state to legalize the sale of liquor, and thereby give sanction to its ravages on society, were only the empty and hopeless statements of propositions which had no verity or application to a thing wholly and essentially evil, and concerning which no principle of right or liberty should ever be evoked for its existence." Oswald West, Oregon: "I expect to see Oregon made 'dry' this coming election. The people are growing sick and tired of the effects of booze, and the everlasting attempts of the booze element to control the government, and thus use its machinery as a protection for organized vice. You may count on Oregon going 'dry,' and I earnestly hope California will be with us." H. D. Hatfield, West Virginia: "The people of West Virginia have spoken in an unmistakable voice that they desire the complete elimination of the licensed saloon and all traffic in liquor. A majority of little less than one hundred thousand in favor of state-wide prohibition is decisive and positive, and as chief executive I propose to see that the prohibition laws are rigidly enforced."