The commonplace truth that, under representative Government, restrictive legislation can only succeed so far as it is backed up by the hearty support of the great majority of the people, has recently received a striking illustration in Iowa. Twelve years ago the people of this State voted, by a majority of 29,759 out of 280,000 votes, in favour of an amendment to the Constitution making the sale of intoxicants for ever illegal. Owing to some flaw in the method of taking the vote, the amendment was subsequently declared by the courts invalid; but in 1884 the State Legislature carried, and for a long time the authorities in most parts have tried to enforce, what is probably the most drastic measure of prohibition known. Everything possible has been done to make the conviction of liquor sellers sure; the law has been so drawn, even in the opinion of many in favour of restriction, as almost to refuse those suspected of trafficking in drink a fair trial; imprisonment, hard labour and disgrace have followed conviction; yet the one result of it all has been—failure!

Iowa is a thinly populated, somewhat newly settled State, almost in the centre of the Union, with about 2,000,000 inhabitants, of whom one-sixth are foreigners, chiefly Germans. It must be remembered, in attempting to form any true estimate of the causes of the failure of the law, that Iowa suffers from the usual weaknesses of youth, whether youth of nations or of individuals,—venturesomeness and fickleness. Its people are excitable, inclined to experimentalise, and apt to rush to extremes. The spirit of respect for the law because it is law, so universal in England, is very little known there. If the law suits the people of a city or a county they will observe it; if not, then so much the worse for the law! In one town the inhabitants will be endowed with remarkable virtue: boys caught smoking will be liable to have the stick of the policeman across their backs; the sale of cigarettes, even to adults, will be forbidden; ballet dancers, if permitted at all, will be ordered to wear long skirts; saloons will be unknown; men as well as women found in houses of ill-fame will be summarily arrested and punished; and, in short, the municipality will devise sumptuary laws about almost everything belonging to the public and private life of the people. In the next town, possibly only a few miles off, the other extreme will prevail: gambling dens and saloons, although both illegal by the laws of the State, will be allowed to carry on their business unmolested by the police, on the payment of regular monthly fines; there will be a quarter of legalised ill-fame, as in any Japanese city, and public women will be inspected and certificated as in Paris. The people of Iowa have not yet definitely made up their minds whether they shall make their State (by order of the Legislature and with the approval of the Governor) into a Paradise on earth, or whether they shall permit one another to go to the bad, and shall make the road that way as smooth as possible. Meanwhile they are experimenting both ways; and in course of time, when the disorderly elements have been controlled, and the effervescent stage of State life is passed, Iowa will probably settle down to a great and glorious future.

The prohibitory law here, as enacted in 1884 and revised in the following years, bears in its general regulations forbidding the sale of intoxicants as a beverage a family resemblance to those of Maine and Kansas already described. Necessary sales for medicinal purposes are made through duly licensed chemists; but a chemist is not allowed to sell to any one unless the applicant is known personally to him, or bears a letter of recommendation from some reliable person of his acquaintance. The would-be purchaser has to fill up the following form:—

“I hereby make request for the purchase of the following intoxicating liquors (quantity and kind). My true name is ... I am not a minor, and I reside in ... Township, in the County of ... State of ... The actual purpose for which this request is made is to obtain the liquor for (myself, wife, child, or name of the person it is intended for) for medicinal use, and neither myself nor the said (wife, child, etc.) habitually uses intoxicating liquors as a beverage.”If the applicant is not known to the chemist, the following form has to be filled in by some other person:—

“I hereby certify that I am acquainted with ... the applicant for the purchase of the foregoing described liquors, and that said ... is not a minor, and is not in the habit of using intoxicating liquors as beverage, and is worthy of credit as to the truthfulness of statements in the foregoing request, and my residence is ...”

At the end of each two months the chemist has to send in to the county auditor all application forms received by him, with a sworn statement attached, “that no liquors have been sold or dispensed under colour of my permit during said months, except as shown by the requests herewith returned, and that I have faithfully complied with the conditions of my oath”.

The penalties for selling liquor without a permit, or for keeping for the purpose of unlawful sale, are, for the first offence, 50 dollars to 100 dollars fine; for subsequent convictions, 300 dollars to 500 dollars fine, and imprisonment for not more than six months. But there is a more severe method of proceeding against offenders. An injunction may be obtained for the closing of any premises where liquors are unlawfully sold, on the plea of their being a nuisance. If they are again opened after this, the offender is liable to a fine of up to 1000 dollars, and imprisonment for six months or a year. Courts and juries are required to so construe the law as to prevent any evasion, and even the general repute of a house may be brought as evidence against it. When the injunction method is used, there is no trial by jury, and thus a conviction can be secured in localities where public opinion is most opposed to the law.

Police officers are bound to inform on offenders, under pain of loss of office and heavy fines. Drunken persons are liable to a month’s imprisonment, unless they give information as to who supplied them with liquor; any one who buys liquor unlawfully can compel the seller to return him the money paid for it; and when a person gets drunk the seller can not only be compelled to pay all costs incurred by any one in attending to his customer, but is also liable to an action for civil damages from any relative or connection of the drunken man who is injured in person, property or means of support by such intoxication. It will be noticed that the law directs its penalties against the seller rather than the purchaser.

The Act was carried by a Republican majority, and has been fiercely opposed by the Democrats. At first the new provisions were observed in about eighty-five out of ninety-nine counties in the State, the parts refusing obedience being mostly those along the banks of the Mississippi and most thickly populated. In these latter it was found impossible, in spite of the strictest provisions, to secure even an outward show of observance. Rum-sellers, police, justices, and the newspapers all combined to ignore the law. Temperance men sought to secure convictions, but in vain. When there seemed any likelihood of a specially active reformer making trouble, the saloon element did not hesitate to use force to put him down. The most notable case of this was that of Dr. G. C. Haddock, a warm prohibitionist, who lived at Sioux City, where the law was ignored. He spoke and wrote, started prosecutions, and used every means in his power against the drink interest. One night, as he was returning home, he was surrounded in the open street by a crowd of roughs, and one man deliberately shot him in the face, killing him immediately. A prominent liquor man was arrested for the offence, and it is said that the evidence against him was overwhelming. Nevertheless, the local authorities delayed bringing him to trial for as long as possible, and then he was acquitted. It was openly alleged that the jury had been specially selected to secure this result, and had been heavily bribed.

Yet, in spite of these serious drawbacks, the law at first had some measure of success. Governor Larrabee, in retiring from office in 1890, referred at some length to the results obtained from it, in his message to the Legislature. Though his words cannot be said to be free from prejudice, they yet must carry weight as being the official verdict of the leading officer of the State. “The benefits which have resulted,” he declared, “from the enforcement of this law are far-reaching indeed. It is a well-recognised fact that crime is on the increase in the United States, but Iowa does not contribute to that increase. While the number of convicts in the country at large rose from 1 in every 3442 of population in 1850 to 1 in every 860 in 1880, the ratio in Iowa at present is only 1 in every 3130. The gaols of many counties are now empty during a good portion of the year, and the number of convicts in our penitentiaries has been reduced from 750 in March, 1886, to 604 on 1st July, 1889. It is the testimony of the judges of our courts that criminal business has been reduced from 30 to 75 per cent., and that criminal expenses have diminished in like proportion.

“There is a remarkable decrease in the business and fees of sheriffs and criminal lawyers, as well as in the number of requisitions and extradition warrants issued. We have less paupers and less tramps in the State in proportion to our population than ever before. Breweries have been converted into oatmeal mills and canning factories, and are operated as such by their owners.... The poorer classes have better fare, better clothing, better schooling, and better houses.... It is safe to say that not one-tenth, and probably not one-twentieth, as much liquor is consumed in the State now as was five years ago.”

But even while Governor Larrabee wrote these words the knell of the new movement had been already sounded, and from 1890 the cause he advocated has been steadily losing ground in the State. His successor, Governor Boies, was notoriously opposed to prohibition, and threw the whole weight of his authority against efficient enforcement. He declared the suppression of the drink traffic to be an impossibility, and that to attempt it is “a cruel violation of one of the most valued of human rights”. As though to make his own assertions come true, he pardoned by the wholesale persons convicted of unlawful selling. The result was what might be expected. In all communities where the authorities had been not over-warm about enforcement they now became slack, and everywhere the police said that it was useless to secure convictions merely for the Governor to make out pardons. In more than one town and county where the trade had long been kept under, it now again made its appearance, and soon the last state of Iowa was worse than the first. Most of the teetotalers seemed to lose heart and do nothing; while for the few who were active the dynamiter’s bomb, the incendiary’s torch and the murderer’s revolver were ready to silence them into submission.

But all the blame must not be laid on Governor Boies. He could not have assumed the attitude he did had he not been supported by a large proportion of the people. His conduct was approved by the State in general, as may be seen by the fact that in 1891 he was re-elected for the Governorship by a majority twice as large as that he had previously secured. Iowa had tired of its anti-liquor crusade.

The condition of affairs in many parts in 1893 was a disgrace to the whole State. At Council Bluffs, a town of slightly over 20,000 inhabitants, no attempt was made to secure enforcement, and about seventy saloons were wide open. The city had made regulations of its own to deal with this and similar evils. Drink shops were allowed to do business undisturbed on paying the City Treasury 52 dollars 10 cents a month; gambling hells were required to pay 100 dollars a month; houses of ill-fame 12 dollars 10 cents a month, and the inmates of such places 8 dollars 10 cents each.

In Carroll, a town of 3000 inhabitants, a similar plan was adopted, and seventeen saloons and four wholesale dealers were allowed to go free on paying 20 dollars each monthly, as a town licence. In the whole of Carroll county the law was ignored. At Des Moines, with a population of 50,000, the amount of drunkenness had been rapidly increasing ever since Boies took office. In 1890, out of 2441 total arrests, 940 were for drunkenness; in 1891, out of 2921 the number of drink cases was 1015; in 1892, 1113 out of a total of 3345 were for drunkenness. In Davenport, with 3000 inhabitants, largely Germans, there were beer gardens and saloons running open week days and Sundays, as free from concealment as though they were in the Fatherland. The houses of ill-fame have been licensed here, confined to a certain quarter of the city, and their inmates inspected weekly and given certificates of health. The keepers of such houses are made to pay monthly fees of 25 dollars, and the inmates 10 dollars. A fee of 200 dollars a year was required from saloon keepers, and those who refused to pay were subjected to all manner of annoyances from the municipality.[4]It would be wearisome to go on further. Hardly a town in the State, besides many country parts, but had abandoned prohibition, not for licence and control, but for a lawless free trade, tempered by the levying of municipal blackmail.

It was manifest that this condition of affairs could not last; and the Republican party, that had for many years remained steadfast to the cause, at last determined to abandon it. A purposely vague clause was chosen for the party platform in 1893, stating that “prohibition is no test of Republicanism. The General Assembly has given to the State a prohibitory law as strong as any that has ever been enacted by any country. Like any other criminal statute, its retention, modification, or repeal must be determined by the General Assembly, elected by and in sympathy with the people; and to them is relegated the subject to take such action as they may deem just and best in the matter, maintaining the law in those portions of the State where it is now or can be made efficient, and giving the localities such methods of controlling and regulating the liquor traffic as will best serve the cause of temperance and morality.”

It was fully understood at this election that the Republicans would now advocate some modification of the law, and on this understanding their candidate for Governorship was returned to office by a large majority. The newly elected Governor, the Hon. F. D. Jackson, dealt with the question at some length in his inaugural address. “A trial of ten years has demonstrated,” he said, “that in many counties it (prohibition) has fully met the expectation of its friends, having successfully driven the saloon system out of existence in those counties. While this is true, there are other localities where open saloons have existed during this period of time in spite of the law, and in spite of the most determined efforts to close them. In such localities the open saloon exists without restraint or control, a constant menace to the peace and safety of the public. From these localities there is an earnest demand for relief—a demand not from the law-defying saloon sympathiser, but from the best business element—from the best moral sentiment of such communities—from the churches and from the pulpit. While the present prohibitive principle, which is so satisfactory to many counties and communities of our State, should remain in force, wisdom, justice and the interests of temperance and morality demand that a modification of this law should be made applicable to those communities where the saloon exists, to the end of reducing the evils of the liquor traffic to the minimum.”A measure for the semi-legislation of saloons had been brought forward in 1893. The malcontents did not ask for the total repeal of the law, but they demanded that, in localities where prohibition had notoriously failed, some other measures should be tried. At the end of March, 1894, a “mulct-tax” Bill was carried in the House of Representatives, and sent on at once to the Senate, where it was “railroaded” through without debate. Early in April it received the sanction of the Governor and became law. This measure is not a licensing law, and does not (nominally) license the saloon; but it provides that, on the payment by a saloon-keeper of a special tax, and on the observance of certain conditions, he shall not be liable to punishment for breaking the prohibitory law. This sounds somewhat strange to those of us who still retain old-fashioned opinions about the necessity for enforcing all laws or repealing them. Clause 16 of the “mulct” Act is surely a curiosity among illogical compromises: “Nothing in this Act contained shall in any way be construed to mean that the business of the sale of intoxicating liquors is in any way legalised, nor is the same to be construed in any manner or form as a licence, nor shall the assessment or payment of any tax for the sale of liquors as aforesaid protect the wrong-doer from any penalties now provided by law, except that on conditions hereinafter provided certain penalties may be suspended”.

The tax required from liquor-sellers is 600 dollars a year, besides a bond for 3000 dollars. If, in a town of 5000 inhabitants, a majority of the electors who voted at the last poll sign a written statement consenting to the establishment of saloons; or if, in a place with less than 5000 inhabitants, sixty-five per cent. of the electors sign a similar statement, then, in such places the fact that a liquor-seller has paid his tax shall be a bar to any proceedings under the prohibitory Acts. Each saloon is to consist of a single room, with only one exit and entrance, with the bar in plain view from the street, and with no chairs or furniture except such as are necessary for the attendants. The attendants must all be males, and no liquor is to be sold to minors, drunkards, persons who have taken “drink cures,” or to any person “whose wife, husband, parent, child, brother, sister, guardian, ward over fourteen years of age, or employer shall by written notice forbid such sales”.

It is too early yet to say what the result of the “mulct” Act will be. The latest news from Iowa reports that the necessary proportion of signatures for the opening of saloons has been obtained in a number of moderate-sized towns, which were formerly thought to be favourably inclined to prohibition. In Des Moines 5500 signatures have been secured, and the drink-sellers boast that they can obtain one or two thousand more if required. It is yet a matter of doubt whether the saloon-keepers in several border towns will submit to the new law or will continue their old plan; but it seems certain, that for a large part of the State the days of even nominal prohibition are over. The State Legislature has agreed to re-submit to popular vote the prohibitory amendment to the Constitution; but this is done rather as a sop to the advocates of temperance than with the expectation that it will lead to any change.