During the past four years I have had, I think, a fair opportunity to learn what has been accomplished in this State. I have visited nearly every section of it, and have talked with officers or citizens from every county. I have watched, with interest, the course of events, and the development of public sentiment touching the temperance question. I certainly have no reason to misrepresent the condition of affairs in Kansas. I have never made any secret of the fact that I voted against the prohibition amendment, and I cannot, therefore, be suspected of a desire to vindicate my own original judgment when I declare, as I do, that in my opinion this State is to-day the most temperate, orderly, sober community of people in the civilized world. I realize, fully, the force of this statement, and am prepared to sustain it, here or anywhere. _First_, I assert, in the most positive language, that the temperance laws of Kansas are enforced as earnestly, as fully and as effectively as are any other laws on our statute books, or as are the criminal laws of any other State in the Union. _Second_, I do not believe that there is, to-day, an open saloon within the limits of the State of Kansas; nor do I believe that such a saloon has existed within the borders of this State, for more than a year past. I do not mean to say that intoxicating liquors are not sold in Kansas. But I do assert, with earnestness and emphasis, that the open saloon, as it existed here at the State Capital three years ago, and as it is known to-day in all other States where the liquor traffic is legalized or licensed, has been banished from Kansas, utterly. _Third_, I assert that whenever or wherever liquors are sold in Kansas at all, they are sold just as all other crimes are committed, namely, in secret—just as houses are robbed or horses are stolen—and by men who live in daily and hourly terror of the law. _Fourth_, I affirm that, as a rule, arrests of those who violate our temperance laws are as swift and certain, and their punishment, when arrested, as sure and full, as are arrests and punishments of any other class of law-breakers or criminals. _Fifth_, I believe and declare that, as a result of the enforcement of our prohibitory laws, and the banishment of the open saloon, fully nine-tenths of the drinking and drunkenness prevalent in Kansas eight years ago, has been abolished; that thousands of men who were then almost constantly under the influence, more or less, of intoxicants, are now temperate and sober; and that, in thousands of homes all over this State where want, wretchedness and woe were then the invited guests of drunken husbands and fathers, plenty, peace and contentment now abide. _Sixth_, I assert that, in every town and city throughout the State, arrests for drunkenness are annually decreasing, notwithstanding the fact that their populations are steadily increasing.