The morning Astorian. [volume] (Astoria, Oregon) 1899-1930, 1904-10-15

is not permitted to be sold in many com.
munities The Posts article which follows, will
prove interesting reading, even to those who may
differ from it in conclusion;
For decade remarkable change has been going
on in the south. The manifestations have been local
but the results bear the semblanee of great move
ment After the war the south had almost as many
drinking places as it had stores. Today more than
one-half of the counties below Mason and Dixon :
line prohibit the sale of liquor, Fer instance, al.
most sixty per cent of Texas nearly eighty per cent
of Georgia. ninety per cent of Mississippi and all
of Tennessee except eight cities have voted out the
saloon while even in Kentucky forty-seven counties
are under prohibition rule
There is nothing of particular political import.
ance in these facts but there is in them vast deal of
tending to represent the life of the south the mint
julep figures as conspcuousy as the genial sunshine
or the climbing roses, when, as matter lof fact
ice water or lemonade might be more realistic. The
southern 'majah sab =! with some of his old manner
still hangs on, but the southern man of today is
quite another kind of person. This may be loss
to romance, for even to the abstaner there is fra
GRANGE in the mention Of mint which lemonade faik
to suggest, and the major with his large manner
and contempt for statistics fills more of the amoS
phere than the quiet, agile worker who thinks of
crops, cotton mills and stock quotations instead of
the lost cause and its battles,
But the same qualities of grit, endurance and
fidelity and cheerfulness which made splendid rec
ords in war are bravely at work sowing the prob
lens of peace. In most cases the liquor question has
been handled as plain business proposition. The
saloon baked enterprise reduced the labor supply
increased lawlessness and kept communities poor;
more than four hundred counties the good citizen
ship of all parties arose and banished it.
Behold the benefits This year the south has
more money than it has ever known, more money for
spending so much of it in fact that three Of the
great cities of the north have formed special bust
ness organizations to secure southern trade, while
The cities of the west have met the competition by
he most alluring inducements. But the larger gain
s in the general uplift of the population. Despite
he occasional outbreaks of crime-in most cases
where the saloons still exist-the whole trend Of the
outh is steadily toward wise and safe conservatism
md the evolution of southern personality is pro-
lucing broadminded Americans who live clean lives,
10 good work and carry no chips on their shoulders
1t has been said that had it not been for whisky
here would have been no civil war. Hard drinking,
9th north and south, infamed the passions en-
endered by slavery. 1t follows as a most hopeful
act that in the consideration of the race question
-hich fingers long after the abolition of human
Ondage, the work of cancellation and adjustment
i'll be done by men Of temperate habits and tenn
crate minds In the new conditions being wrought
the south itself there must come higher character
nd achievement than its oldest and finest chivary
,uld show.