USA > North Dakota > Early history of North Dakota: essential outlines of American history > Part 59
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"I have a feeling, Colonel, that prohibition has not only been a good thing for the State of North Dakota, but also that the state was fortunate in being able to set an example to other states in the Union and by such example have been able to demonstrate the possibility and the practicability of the prohibitory system of dealing with the liquor traffic. If you were to see my mail and observe the notes of inquiry coming from all over this country and others, you would feel persuaded that in this last statement I am correct. We have been as it were 'a city set upon a hill,' and the peoples of other cities and countries have been watching our movements. It was fortunate, therefore, that Maine, Kansas and North Dakota were able to stand during the crucial period when other states, which had previously adopted prohibition, were going back to their cups.
"You probably read in the paper of my sentence of one Hendrickson who plead guilty to the murder of his wife. That will give you my settled and de- termined conviction with reference to the American saloon after thirty-four years' contact with it, four of which in territorial days I was prosecuting attorney under the license system, and recently nineteen years as presiding judge of this district.
"In the month of June last I was asked by the editor of the Christian Advo-
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cate of New York (the leading Methodist paper of the country) to prepare an article on a quarter of a century of prohibition in North Dakota. It was pub- lished in the issue of June 27, 1915. I have, however, a copy which I enclose for your convenience.
"If you will turn to my history in the Manual you will see that I was chair- man of the committee which framed the prohibitory law. I. presume it is because of that that I am frequently styled in this state, though improperly, 'the father of the Prohibition Law.' You know that in all instances of this kind the chairman of the committee receives more honor than is his due, and especially if the measure has been one of great importance. For instance, Hobson is known as the hero of the Merrimac, and yet I presume the seven other fellows who were with him and whose names are forgotten, were just as heroic and did as valiant service as did Hobson, but Hobson happened to be the chairman of the bunch. Of course this is nothing against Hobson, but it rather illustrates a condition.
"You know full well that R. M. Pollock was a member of the Constitutional convention, while I was not. He was a member of the temperance committee of that body. Of course all interested persons both in and out of the Constitu- tional convention may have helped phrase the article in the Constitution, but only those who were in the convention, and especially those upon the committee, are entitled to credit for that work. I have frequently been introduced to public audiences as the one who prepared the Constitutional article. That is an error, although I did give all the advice that I had at hand with reference to it. You know that R. M. Pollock and I are not related.
"With reference to the law, having been a prosecuting attorney here at the See city of the Judiciary of North Dakota, because then we only had one judge for all this part of the state-Judge McConnell-it fell to my lot in the year 1887 to work out many of the problems in connection with the enforcement of the Prohibitory Law occurring that year under local option.
"With this experience naturally a large part of the work fell upon me, but I want to say that the people of North Dakota can never fully repay R. M. Pol- lock and George F. Goodwin, who was then attorney general, for the assistance they rendered in the final preparation of the law. It is but just to them, and I hope if you make any mention of the facts in your history you will not fail to accord full credit to them. I worked out the original plan of the law basing it upon the Kansas law and after getting a proposed law in shape I then pre- sented it to the other members of the committee. We then worked over and wrought out the bill in the best manner and in the quickest time possible, and it is only fair to say for the committee that not one of them ever received one penny of compensation for what they did, and even paid their own expenses while in attendance upon the Legislature during the passage of the bill.
"After the matter was all assembled my wife (who was then doing all my typewriting) ran it off on the typewriter-making sufficient copies of the Bill for introduction into both houses, and use of the committees, and thus I have frequently said in a jocular manner that a 'woman wrote the Prohibitory Law of North Dakota.'
"With sincere regards I beg to remain, very respectfully,
"CHAS. A. POLLOCK."
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SENTENCE OF ROBERT HENDRICKSON
Remarks of Judge Charles A. Pollock upon passing sentence upon Robert Hendrickson in the District Court, January 30, 1915 :
"Divine and human law declare 'Thou shalt not kill.' You stand before the bar of justice confessing to have committed the revolting crime of murdering, in cold blood, the woman you promised to love, honor and protect. Another crime, that of attempted self-destruction, could justly be laid at your door. The inno- cent babe which came to bless your home has been robbed of a mother's tender care. You have pleaded guilty and now await the sentence of an offended law.
"It is a most solemn moment in the life of a court, when he is called upon to sit in judgment upon his fellow men. Murder and treason are kindred offenses. The one affects the individual, the other the State. Both alike are heinous and the penalty of death may be inflicted for either.
"Your only excuse in mitigation is that you were drunk when you committed the deed-a plea which can only be received to save you from the gallows.
"I do not know, and, under the present state of our law, I never want to know, who sold you the liquor, under the influence of which you committed this unnatural crime. Let that man's conscience bring such remorse that its ener- gizing power will never let go until the largest possible reparation be made.
"Whoever he was, and wherever he may be at this sad moment; whether his place of business is in the well-adorned and highly decorated room where tempting viands appeal to the taste; where sweet music delights the ear and lulls to sleep the reasoning faculties ; or whether it is in the lowest, dirtiest, man-abandoned, God-forsaken and death-dealing charnel-house of despair, where abides only thoughtless and sullen greed for gain, it matters not; before the bar of God, if not of man, he stands alike with you morally responsible for this horrible crime.
"The trouble is he is not here with you to receive a merited punishment.
"The statute says 'All persons concerned in the commission of a public offense, ยท whether they directly commit the act constituting the offense, or aid or abet in its commission ; or who by fraud, contrivance or force, occasion the drunkenness of another for the purpose of causing him to commit any crime, are principals in any crime so committed.'
"If your partner in this offense were here, he would plead by way of defense that he did not 'by fraud, contrivance or force' occasion your drunkenness-a plea which would have to be sustained.
"How much longer will the courts be deprived of authority to do complete justice between their fellow men? An enlightened and long suffering public will some day, and that very soon, rise in the majesty of their power, and demand that the Legislature strike out the words 'by fraud, contrivance or force' and 'for the purpose of causing him to commit any crime,' and boldly declare that he who in any manner sells intoxicating liquor to another as a beverage, under the influence of which a crime, whether of murder or of some lesser offense, is com- mitted, is equally guilty as a principal in any crime so committed. Such a law would distribute the blame and place it upon all those responsible for the crime.
"The persons who, for business or other reasons, vote to permit the continu- ance of a traffic which robs men of their reason, increasing the liability of crime being committed, are in a measure responsible. Away with your mistaken notions
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of business necessity. It does not exist. Treason against the State stalks abroad in our midst. How much longer will the people permit both treason and murder, in order that there may be continued a system of dealing with the liquor traffic which preys upon the appetites and passions of men ? A quarter of a century ago the good people of our state dissolved partnership with the accursed license system. The State of Minnesota still permits the evil. Her splendid western City of Moorhead, well located for business and containing some of the best people on earth, seems blind to the great wrong of the traffic in rum. We must suffer because of their inability to see. Most of the persons sent to the peniten- tiary by this court would not be deprived of their liberty, and our state would not be burdened with heavy expense for their care, had they not gotten drunk in the saloons of Moorhead. The time has come when this iniquity should be banished forever. You, who will suffer all your life because of your misdeed, may uncon- sciously by your act arouse public sentiment to the end that such offenses will not be repeated and that its contributing cause will be removed. It is devoutly to be wished that such will be the case.
"The sentence and judgment of the law is that you, Robert Hendrickson, be confined in the penitentiary at Bismarck at hard labor for, and during, the remainder of your natural life. Let judgment be entered accordingly.
"CHAS. A. POLLOCK, Judge."
A QUARTER OF A CENTURY OF PROHIBITION IN NORTH DAKOTA
BY JUDGE CHAS. A. POLLOCK, LL. D.
By your letter of the 25th inst. I am called to the witness stand. You want me to give evidence as to the results of prohibition in North Dakota. There is a vast distinction between testimony and evidence. The former is what a person says under oath, the latter what can be believed of such statements. A witness should be competent. That is to say, he ought to know from personal knowledge of the facts, about which he proposes to testify. A lack of method for gathering . statistics renders it possible to put before the public many statements which, by reason of the incompetency of their authors, cannot be believed, and therefore ought not to be considered as evidence. In weighing the credibility of testimony we have a right to take into consideration the personal interest of the witness. When brewers and saloonmen give their testimony as to the failure of prohibition it is exceedingly appropriate to ask by what interest are they moved.
I must presume that you consider me competent to speak, else you would not make your request. Before statehood, under territorial law, the license system prevailed. In 1887 there was passed a county local option law, under which several of the counties in what now constitutes North and South Dakota went dry. In 1889 both states were admitted to the Union, each carrying in its consti- tution a prohibitory clause. Paragraph 217 of our constitution reads as follows :
"No person, association or corporation shall within this state, manufacture for sale or gift, any intoxicating liquors, and no person, association or corporation shall import any of the same for sale or gift, or keep or sell or offer the same for sale, or gift, barter or trade as a beverage. The legislative assembly shall by law prescribe regulations for the enforcement of the provisions of this article and shall thereby provide suitable penalties for the violation thereof."
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In harmony with the mandates of this section the Legislature in December of that year enacted our present Prohibitory Liquor Law, which has remained upon the statute books with slight changes, made necessary as experience indi- cated, where improvements could be made.
It should be remembered that our penalties were adequate in the first in- stance. For the first offense the lowest penalty is $200.00 fine and 90 days in the county jail, the highest, $1,000.00 fine and one year in the county jail. For the second and each succeeding offense the penalty is not less than one and not to exceed two years in the penitentiary. By a recent amendment so-called bootleggers-persons who carry around on their person or in grips liquors for sale-are sent to the penitentiary for all offenses. The trouble in a large num- ber of states where they attempt and fail to enforce the Prohibitory Liquor Law is, that the penalties have not been adequate. This mistake has made it possible for violations of the law to continue with impunity. Disgrace is therefore heaped upon the system because the remedial character of the law is not sufficient.
During the license days the saloon very largely controlled the politics of the territory. At that time we had one distillery and about eight or ten breweries in the territory now constituting North Dakota, all of which went out of existence with the advent of statehood. It should be remembered that we are largely en- gaged in raising cereals, which necessitates the incoming of a large horde of men during the harvest season. The rainy day was a serious problem to every farmer during the license period because at those times men would congregate in the little towns and villages, all of which had from two to ten saloons according to population. Business men were found to be friendly to the liquor interests and many of them were habitual drinkers. Stabbing affrays and murders were of frequent occurrence. Scant police protection could not afford relief. Court calendars were full of criminal business and the expense to the public was large. Business men were clamoring for no change, lest their sales would be injured, rents decreased and general stagnation follow. Young men grew up, feeling that the business of the saloonkeeper was respectable, and the open sesame to political preferment. In Fargo, with few exceptions, the followers of Blackstone, numbering about forty, were regular members of more than one bar. Many became habitual drinkers, and most of them were among the so- called moderate class. Six of the most brilliant now fill untimely graves-the direct result of the liquor habit.
Now, exactly the reverse condition exists. In Cass, my home county, there are sixty-five men entitled to practice. All of our leading lawyers, with rare excep- tions, are total abstainers, and only three or four can be classed even as moderate drinkers. When we consider the influence which the lawyer can exert for good or evil, fortunate indeed is that community whose legal fraternity is composed of sober men. The sentiment of our business men has changed. They have found that money can be made without the help of the traffic. It is interesting to hear those who spoke loudest for the saloon now declare their opposition to its return. Indeed, they see and admit that conditions are better without than with the sale of intoxicating liquor; that rents have increased rather than dimin- ished, and general prosperity prevails. The saloon has itself to thank for much of the success attained by the prohibitionists. Liquor men here, as elsewhere, had respect for neither law, ordinary decency nor common sense. Their law-
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breaking proclivities disgusted the people, and many who primarily had little faith in the principle of prohibition, flew to it as a relief from what they regarded greater evils. Law enforcement has traveled its weary way from a frail be- ginning to a point where an enlightened public conscience demands of public officials a full discharge of their duty. Everywhere in the twelve judicial dis- tricts of the state come encouraging reports that the judges, sheriffs and prose- cuting officers do not wink at violations of law, and are positively and energet- ically attempting to stamp out crime. It is easily within the truth to say that in most of these districts the Prohibitory Law is as completely enforced as other criminal statutes, and in the others the difficulties of enforcement are fast passing away. When prohibition was adopted in North Dakota, we had a population of about 180,000. It was urged that if the prohibitory system was engrafted upon our statute books, the state would not develop. This state- ment, like others from the saloon source, has been shown to be untrue. We now have a population of about 700,000 and the per capita wealth of our people is approximately two thousand dollars-the highest of any state in the Union .. South Dakota, when admitted to the Union, had something like 250,000 inhabitants. After having had prohibition for four or five years it returned to the license system. That state now has a population of less than 600,000. With us as the saloon interests decrease in a community the banks and trust companies increase. The last reports from our banking interests show a constant and healthy development, the aggregate deposits mounting up into the millions. Statements of the banks in Fargo alone show an aggregate of about $10,000,000. Fargo has grown from a city of 6,000 under the license system to one of 20,000 under the prohibitory. It has all modern improvements like heat, water works, paved streets, street cars, electric lights and every convenience attendant upon city life.
We have been pestered and annoyed by the shipping in of liquor from outside states under the interstate commerce laws. Since the passage of the Webb-Kenyon bill and the so-called Knox bill those evils are being reduced, but I am persuaded that the greatest relief will come to us by cleaning up in the last two weeks eighty-seven saloons, two breweries and twenty liquor dis- tributing agencies in Polk and Clay counties, Minnesota, just next to us on the east, under the recent county option law just passed by the Minnesota General Assembly.
There was a time that North Dakota, with Maine and Kansas were the only prohibitory states in the Union. We felt quite lonesome then but the system was working so well and was so constantly gaining headway that we persuaded our people to remain in the prohibitory column. Thus we have been able to demonstrate the great possibilities for good following a dissolution of the partner- ship formerly existing between the state and the saloon.
It may be urged that liquor is still sold in North Dakota and from that it will be concluded that the prohibitory system is a failure. No such conclusion should be drawn. While under the interstate commerce law it is lawful to ship into our state liquor for private use, yet the amount which can thus be brought to the people yearly is so small as compared with what would come to them if the license system prevailed that we ought to compare them only by way of contrast. Suppose it may be conceded that two or three million dollars worth
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of liquor was sold in the state of North Dakota coming from outside during the last year-a fact which we do not concede except for argument's sake-what does that prove in view of the fact that if we had been a license state not less than twelve to fifteen million dollars' worth of liquor would have found its way into our state and been consumed by our people?
I claim that that system of dealing with the liquor traffic is the best which will reduce the use and sale of liquor to the minimum. Purely from an economic standpoint therefore, leaving out all moral questions, we have present in the State of North Dakota a complete demonstration that the prohibitory system is the best for the reasons which have just been stated. If to this may be added the moral phases everywhere shown, we are then emboldened to state that the influence upon the rising generation, upon politics, and upon the people generally has been uplifting and wholesome in the extreme.
Many of those who were most bitterly opposed to prohibition have been won over and are now planted firmly upon the side of the present system, con- vinced it is true against their will, but now firm in their new position because they cannot put aside what they see and know to have been fully demonstrated. They have in a large number of cases been manly enough to step forward and give utterance to the unshaken faith which they now possess. They declare that under no considerations ought we to permit the saloon to return within our borders. I have the written statement of most of our leading business men speak- ing from their view point of the beneficial effects of prohibition. Many of them were determined opposers of prohibition when it was adopted. Under these conditions it is the height of impudence for the liquor men to assert that our law has been a failure and therefore we ought to cause its repeal. If it is a failure it is because liquor has been sold in larger quantities and if that be true the vendors of such liquor do violence to their own interests by attempting to destroy such a valuable field in which to carry on their traffic. The simple answer is that prohibition has been a marvelous success. One method usually adopted by the liquor men in discussing the question is to find some spot in our state where law enforcement has not been very successful, exploit that through the press and insinuate that the whole state is like affected, therefore a failure. As well might you say that a person is a cripple and of no vital force, simply because upon one finger is a wart. The warts upon our body politic are fast dis- appearing, and if the people at large will pass the national constitutional amend- ment making it unlawful to manufacture and sell intoxicating liquors as a bever- age, we will then demonstrate to the people of this country that North Dakota will be among the very first to fully demonstrate the great blessings attendant upon living under the prohibitory system. One of the best results of prohibition in North Dakota has been that many persons who formerly sold liquor have been forced out of a bad business and are now respected citizens engaged in legitimate employments. Many such cases have occurred. I know one man who was about down and out when he was finally thrust out of the saloon trade-and today is probably worth over a half million dollars made in a legitimate business. Besides he has the respect and has been honored politically by his neighbors and friends. Big of heart, his hand is always open to aid the needy, and the greatest enjoyment comes to him in helping to advance the best interests of the state. In a private letter to me he said: "In response to what you ask about prohibition in our city Vol. 1-31
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(Fargo) and state, let me say that in my judgment it was a fortunate day when the prohibition law was adopted. When the question of changing from a license system to prohibition was first proposed in 1884, and for several years afterwards, I was bitterly opposed to prohibition, but I am now glad that the change was made and there is no man in the State of North Dakota that would fight the return of the saloon in any guise stronger than I would, should the occasion arise, and I do not believe the people of North Dakota will ever permit the saloon's return to our state." These words speak volumes. Where can the license system furnish such a fine example of redeemed manhood? That system which makes men and places them where they and their families can attain advancement, morally, intellectually and financially, ought to be preferred by every true lover of our republic. The success attendant upon the equitable remedies found in our law which results in closing the buildings where liquor is sold, for one year, has been turned with great force against gambling houses and the red light district. Like "blind pigs," they also are declared to be common nuisances and the buildings where the illegal traffic is carried on can be closed one year.
Speaking with reference to my own district, may I say that during the terri- torial days there were about one hundred and fifty saloons, while now there are none and have not been for twenty-five years. For the past twenty years. only occasionally do we find a blind pig, which is the colloquial name for the stationary place where liquor is sold and which under the law is called a common nuisance. They are now a thing of the past. We are troubled occasionally with bootleggers, but by the recent amendment making it a penitentiary offense for them to sell, that phase of violation is becoming rapidly reduced. Their work occurs mostly during the harvest season and is carried out by men who go through the country carrying in their grips liquor which they personally dispense to the harvest hands. The farmers, however, are constantly on the lookout and with the telephonic communi- cations which now exist, reports come in rapidly of such violations. When caught they rarely ever go to trial, but plead guilty at once and are sent immediately to the penitentiary. Twenty-five years under prohibition has brought to our people happiness and prosperity. It is unthinkable that we will ever retrace our steps upon this question.
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