Our Democratic opponents, however, challenge the right of the Republican
party to a renewal of public confidence. And on what grounds? Read their
platform, and you will see that the first and principal plank is a
general and very bitter denunciation of “all sumptuary laws, State or
National,” and an emphatic demand for a return to the license system.
They are opposed, the platform declares, “to the principle of
constitutional prohibition.” They regard it as an invasion of “the
individual liberty and manhood of the citizen.” And they favor, “instead
of constitutional or statutory prohibition, a well-regulated and just
license system.”
The Republican platform, on the other hand, declares that “the people of
Kansas have adopted prohibition as the settled policy of the State, and
have declared that the saloon, with its corrupt and demoralizing
influences, must go.” The Republicans are, therefore, the platform
declares, “in favor of carrying out this verdict of the people, by
enacting laws to enforce it, and by faithfully executing those laws, so
that the sale of intoxicating liquors, except for the purposes specified
in the Constitution, may be made impossible.”
On this question, as you will see, the two parties radically disagree.
The Republicans take their stand fairly on the Constitution of the
State—on the action of the sovereign people of the State, who by their
votes have placed the liquor traffic and the saloon under the ban of
their organic law. The Democrats denounce the Constitution and laws of
the State, and favor a return to the license system.
Prohibition, it should be remembered, was not originally a party or
partisan policy. Neither the Republican nor the Democratic party is
responsible for the fact that the prohibition amendment to the
Constitution was adopted. That was the act of the sovereign people of
Kansas, acting in their individual capacity, without partisan or party
indorsement or direction.