Kansas Capitulation

Since the 1850s, when local option laws prohibited the sale of liquor to "any man against the known wishes of his wife," Kansas had made it tough--but not impossible--for a man to get a drink. By 1880, Kansas drys decided that they could trust neither the bartenders nor the wives, adopted an amendment flatly prohibiting the sale or possession of liquor.

The dry-hards held Kansas for nearly 70 years. In 1933, they rejected the federal repeal amendment (21st) with the offended aloofness of a preacher declining a Sazerac. Many a hypocrite, it was said, staggered to the polls to vote dry.

The war boosted the wet cause. Thousands of factory workers and servicemen imported bootleg liquor from Missouri. Kansas boys, raised on lemonade, went away to war, learned there was something more exhilarating, came home demanding more of the same. Bootleggers rejoiced and multiplied; bonded liquor went to $16 a fifth.

Thus by last week's Election Day, when Kansans voted again on a repeal amendment, the issue had become more economic than moral. Repeal won. The amendment, banning the saloon but enabling the legislature to provide for package sale of liquor, passed by 60,000 votes. There was still a chance that the legislature would reverse this triumph in the spring. But by vote of the people, Kansas had voted wet, leaving Oklahoma and Mississippi the nation's only remaining dry states.*

South Carolina, the only state where divorce is now prohibited, voted to amend its 53-year-old constitutional ban, permit divorce on grounds of physical cruelty, desertion, habitual drunkenness or adultery.

* Elsewhere in the election, the wets held fast against major dry attacks. Washington, California and Colorado rejected proposed dry measures. Oregon turned down a plan for sale of liquor by the drink, but Washington adopted one.

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