470 



KANSAS. 



reduction on wheat, flour, corn, oats, and other 

 grains of 82 per cent, from the former local- 

 distance tariff, and a reduction of 10 per cent, 

 on other merchandise, including cattle, coal, 

 lumber, and salt. ' 



lii'siihm issinii and the Original Package. 

 The year 1890 was a stormy one for the cause 

 of prohibition in Kansas. Trouble was first en- 

 countered from a small portion of the Repub- 

 lican party hostile to prohibition, whose mem- 

 bers had been active during 1889 in organizing 

 Resubmission Republican clubs in the cities and 

 larger towns. Their success had been such that 

 near the close of that year a call was issued for 

 a convention of delegates from these Resubmis- 

 sion clubs, to be held at Wichita on Jan. 15, for 

 the purpose of forming a State organization. At 

 this convention a State Resubmission Republi- 

 can League was formed, and resolutions were 

 adopted, declaring the prohibitory law a failure 

 and demanding that the Governor should call a 

 special session of the Legislature for the purpose 

 of resubmitting the prohibitory amendment to 

 the people. This action of the convention was laid 

 before Gov. Humphrey, who appointed May 23 as 

 a day on which he would hear any reasons for 

 an extra session. On that day the resubmission 

 Republicans gathered in convention at Topeka 

 (fully nine tenths of them being from Wichita, 

 the stronghold of this movement) and invited 

 the Governor to appear before them. This he 

 refused to do, deeming that they, as petitioners, 

 should come to him. But he expressed his will- 

 ingness to hear at his office anything that the 

 convention or its committee might decide to lay 

 before him. This action so exasperated the con- 

 vention that it decided to ignore the Governor and 

 to submit to the people the long memorial whicn 

 it had adopted. After listening to a series of 

 speeches abusive of the Governor, the convention 

 adjourned. Later in the year the league de- 

 veloped into an independent political organiza- 

 tion. It held a State convention at Wichita on 

 Sept. 9, formed an alliance with the Democratic 

 party, and joined with it in supporting a fusion 

 ticket for State officers. 



Late in April, while the resubmission move- 

 ment was developing, the decision of the United 

 States Supreme Court was announced in the case 

 of Leisy vs. Hardin, known as the Iowa " orig- 

 inal-package " case. It required but a short 

 time for the brewers and liquor dealers of Kan- 

 sas City and other Missouri cities to understand 

 and take advantage of the principles therein es- 

 tablished. Their agents were sent into all the 

 larger communities in the State to open "orig- 

 inal-package " shops, and in a few weeks these 

 were in full operation. The friends of prohibi- 

 tion were thoroughly indignant, and in some in- 

 stances they went so far as to drive the dealers 

 out of town and to destroy or send the packages 

 of liquor back to Missouri. The State and county 

 prosecuting officers everywhere were urged to 

 use every possible legal resource against the in- 

 truders. Numerous arrests were made and pros- 

 ecutions begun, but in all cases the United States 

 courts were obliged to release the dealers, when 

 they were brought before them on habeas corpus. 

 Popular sentiment upheld the prosecuting offi- 

 cers in arresting the dealers again and again, in 

 order to harass them with litigation and cause 



them to abandon the business, or at least to pre- 

 vent them from selling until the passage of the 

 Wilson bill by Congress, which would nullify 

 the original-package decision and restore the 

 prohibitory law to its full effect. The dealers 

 retaliated by petitioning the United States Courts 

 to enjoin the prosecuting officers from interfering 

 with their business and from beginning further 

 prosecutions. These petitions were uniformly 

 granted (the first case being decided late in 

 June), and injunctions were issued against these 

 officers. Some of the Topeka dealers also brought 

 suits against the local prosecuting officers, the 

 sheriff, the police officers, and the editor of one 

 of the daily papers, all as co-defendants, alleging 

 that a conspiracy existed between them to der 

 stroy the plaintiff's business. Meanwhile, the 

 people, seeing the rapid increase of the " orig- 

 inal-package " shops in spite of all opposition, 

 grew impatient at the delay of Congress in 

 passing remedial legislation. A State conven- 

 tion was called to register the protest of the peo- 

 ple against the so-called " Missouri whisky in- 

 vasion." and to urge upon Congress the neces- 

 sity of immediate action. The convention met 

 at Topeka on June 23, and more than 3,000 dele- 

 gates, representing every county in the State, 

 were present. An address was issued and a se- 

 ries of resolutions adopted, both of which the 

 Kansas delegation in Congress was requested to 

 present to that body. 



On Aug. 8, the Wilson bill, having passed both 

 Houses of Congress, received the President's sig- 

 nature. The closing of nearly all of the obnox- 

 ious shops immediately followed, and it was 

 thought that the trouble had ended. But two 

 questions were raised by the liquor sellers first, 

 whether the Wilson act itself was constitutional ; 

 second, whether, after the decision of Leisy vs. 

 Hardin, a re-enactment of the Kansas prohibi- 

 tory law would not be necessary to give it effect 

 upon imported liquors. These points were 

 brought before Judges Foster and Phillips in the 

 United States Circuit Court for the District of 

 Kansas, in the case re Rahrer, which was de- 

 cided on Oct. 17. The court, without express- 

 ing any opinion on the first point, decided that 

 the effect of Leisy vs. Hardin was to nullify the 

 Kansas law so far as it related to imported 

 liquors, and that the Wilson law could not give 

 it any force that it did not previously have. It 

 followed that, as it was ineffectual to suppress 

 the " original-package " business before the Wil- 

 son law was passed, it was ineffectual thereafter 

 unless re-enacted. From this decision the State 

 appealed to the United States Supreme Court. 

 On the very day when this decision was an- 

 nounced, " original-package ' T shops were opened 

 in Topeka and other cities, and the business was 

 again in full blast. They had been in operation 

 scarcely a fortnight, when, on Oct. 31, Judge 

 Caldwell, of the United States Circuit Court for 

 the District of Iowa, in a similar case which 

 came up under the Iowa prohibitory law, ren- 

 dered a decision directly opposed to that of 

 Judges Foster and Phillips, holding that the 

 effect of the Wilson law was to re-establish in its 

 full force the Iowa prohibitory law. In view of 

 these conflicting decisions, many of the liquor 

 dealers decided to close their shops and await 

 the decision of the appeal to the United States 



