Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1889-01-24
LFOR PROHIBITION.
A. A. Stevens, Chairman of the State
Executive Committee, in Town.
HOW HE SIZES UP THE VOTE HERE.
THE LATTER WANTED TO RUN THINGS

A. A. Stevens, Chairman of the State
Executive Committee of the Prohibition
party, was in the city yesterday comforting
with a number of prominent Prohibition
lists in regard to the future work of the
party. While the Seventh Avenue Hotel
last night he said:
1t would be foolish for any person to try to
make an estimate of what the result Of the
vote on the prohibition amendment will be.
have looked over the ground very carefully,
and think / can name some approximate
figures. The cities of the State will poll vote
of 100000 against us. This will be overcome by
the large vote in the country districts. which
will come in like breeze and sweep everything
before them.
In Blair county, where I reside, we will have
5000 majority. All the counties in the Juniata
and Cumberland valleys will roll up big prohi-
bition majorities, and it is only question Of
how much each will give. The northern border,
Beaver, Mercer, Crawford, Warren, Venango.
Lawrence Butler, Tioga and Forrest counties,
will also go very large. am not well acquaint-
ed with Allegheny county, but the cities we
expect to go heavy against the amendment.
This will be neutralized, however. in the coun-
try surrounding Pittsburg and Allegheny, and
if a certain element of the Pittsburg press
keep their hands off us it will help us about
1000 votes. The brewers here will
SPEND MONEY. LAvISHLY
to defeat the amendment, and the only part
they will take in the contest will be the distri-
button of dollars and cents. They will not en-
ploy speakers, as that is not their method.
Doodle talks better than any speakers they
could get
What will become of the large amount of
capital invested in breweries. distilleries, ETC.?
Why, that's easy enough to explain. What
would become of a brewers stock, if the courts
refused to renew his license? He would lose
money of course. Well, he takes that risk in
his business. and If the prohibition law passes
hi can sell his brewing for manufacturing con:
cern. Out in Iowa and Kansas nobody lost
anything from the property which was sup
posed would be confiscated. The distilleries
were turned into factories. At Des Moines,
Iowa, where they had one of the largest distil-
leries in the West the owner turned it into an
oatmeal factory. His profits are not nearly as
large as they were, but they are as large as any
other legitimately invested capital
This question of the whisky manufacturers
crying out that they will lose heavily by the
contiscation of their property is all buncombe.
plain against a schindery? Suppose a man
puts up schindery outside the CITY, Pretty
soon the country grows SO that houses are built
all around him. The people complain that the
place is a nuisance and the courts say to the
man, Cit out" 1t is just the same way with
the whisky distillers. The schindery owner has
thousands of dollars invested in his business,
but when he is told to go he loses it, and has no
redress. This has been done time and again
with powder magazines in this State. When
the people say they are dangerous, they are in
variably moved out of the way.
A BIT OF NONSENSE.
think it is all nonsense to talk of calling a
special session of the Legislature to make PEN
atty laws under the new amendment if it passes.
The present prohibitory laws will be good
enough under the new act and the penalties for
a violation will be the same.
From present indications there will be
bitter war between the Prohibition party
and the Constitutional Amendment Associa-
ton on the present proposed amendment.
The former has called conference of all the
executive officers of all temperance organi-
cations in the State to meet at Harrisburg
February 5. The amendment association
when asked to send representatives to the
conference, refused to do so on the ground
that the matter had been taken out of their
hands; and they would let the others now
run it TO suit themselves.
The Constitutional Amendment Associa-
tion has called an opposition meeting of all
who will join with them, in Huntingdon in
about two weeks. The association has few
branches of the w. c. T. q. with them, but
outside of this do not amount to much.