IN THE SUNFLOWER STATE.

White Ribbon, Volume 21, Issue 247, 18 January 1916, Page 5

IN THE SUNFLOWER STATE.

From William Allen White’s story of how Kansas “swore* off and of why the “swear-off sticks,” in the Saturday Evening Post, we call the following facts: Kansas consumes per capita per annum i.25d01. worth of liquor for all purposes, as against the* average American consumption of liquor «>t 21 .oodoi. a head. Forty-eight of Kansas 105 counties did not send a prisoner to the penitentiary last year. Eighty-seven counties did not send an insane ptaient to the asylums. In fourteen counties no jury has been called in ten years to try a criminal case. Fifty-three counties have empty gaols. Thirty-eight counties have empty poor-houses. The Kansas dea*h rate is 7 1-2 per thousand —the sec oik lowest in America. Bank deposits have increased in ten years from i00,000,000d01. to 220,000,000. The average holding of taxable property is i,666.cj2d01., the largest in America. Kansas has decreased its State debt faster than any other State. It has over #OOO students in its colleges and in other educational institutions above the high school grade - more according to population than any other State. It has 39,46# students in the high schools. “Thus, we find,” says Mr White, “that the State having the* largest number of students in colleges, according to population, having next to the lowest death rate, and having the smallest State debt in proportion to its population, is the State in which the smallest average expenditure is made for liquor. We have saved about twenty dollars a head from our liquor bill to spend for things worth while.