The Montgomery advertiser., 1905-02-25
warmth, and cordiallty to tn. pas.er.

warmth, ana cordfality to the passer- by"
 All is crude, cold and repellant. The raw business is there. nothing else It Is nothing more nor less than the selling of whiskey. The dispensary building Is not decorated nor made at- tFactive. The line of bottles are sim- ply put on the shelf without any effort of decoration. The dlspensary is there to sell the goods and not to make any recommendation or suggestion. It Is all the same to him whether he does or does not sell any whiskey. He is on a salary and his salary goes on all the time.
 | No amount less than half a pint !, IS sold It is against the law for the | buyer to drink any whiskey on the premises. After he gets his bottle he must go off to some lonely place and drink up his purchase. Observe, i now that this regulation destroys that insidious danger to young men, the treating habit. Treating Is one of the most perilous things about the whole | whiskey business. It A, a distinct menace to the young men of the coun- try and 1t is responsible for moro drunkards than any other. one, thing. Tt Is the tbing that induces a man to take drink when he does't want It. It is the thing that makes him spend money in returning favors which ne dld not want in the first place and which he could hardly refuse without being charged with a lack of social feeling If he was in the company of those who are giving to treating and being treated. And the money he spends for treating crowd of men who may not be more than acquaintances 70 him is money that any young man can III anord to spend. It is the proud. est boast of the dispensary, the great est thing that it has accomplished, the destruction of the insidious treating | habit.
 The financial aspect of the case is of suficient importance to demand great consideration. The entire profits or the dispensary goes either to the county, the city or the schools of the | community, more often to the latter. Fhe' dispenser is paid small salary. I dare say the salary of dispensers throughout Southeast Alabama will not average $50 a month. When. this salary Is paid and the small rent of inc ineonspicnous building the dispensary occupfessi is paid practically all the ex- penses of its operation have been met. l The huge remainder of its profits 20 for governmental or school purposes, They may be estimated when I tell you that the Dothan dispensAry in one year ceared over $lT000. might say that | more to the success of our public schools than any other single thinK. If it had not been for our dispensary our school could not be the absolute ly free school that 1t Is now"
 l '' EDlspensaRy Laws. 1 The dispensary laws of the various towns differ some as to their details. The Dothan dispensary being the parent institution is worthy of the l
 said that so well was the law drawn eight years ago that it has not been found necessary to alter 1t in any inn- | portant particular. The law pro. vides first of all that the earning of the dispensary shall be divided equal Iy between the city treasury of Dothan and the public schools of Dothan. This Is the most popular form of dividing the money, although other towns have instance, half of the dispensary profits go to the schools of the town and half to the schools of the county.
 All the dtSpensarles have governing boards, which manage them directly. 1 These boards are usually named in the law which established the dfspensary. 1 They are sometimes answerable to the county commissioners, sometimes to | the town government and more often I
 Special pains were taken to keep the Dothan dispensary out of politics. The law establishing 1t named the mana gers and provided that their terms of ohnce should expire at different times and as each term expired the City Council of Dothan should i'll the vacancy. The board of managers which now has charge of the parent oispensary at Pothan is composed of George Cotton, lchairman; J. c. san ders. J. L. Crawford. George M Ma lone, T. J. Whatley
 The spread of the dispensary move | ment throughout the Wiregrass may not be easily understood by the Ala bama man who lives in a prohibition or open saloon town. It has become so noted so pronounced as to be a sub tect for comment and discussion. It is said that in each of the wiregrass counties there are at least three dis pensaries. For the establishment of each one of these dispensaries the pas- sage of special law by the Alabama Legislature was required. It may be considered then that the larger towns of Houston, Geneva, Coffee, Henry, Covington, Dale and even Pike made a rush to get dispensaries. There are dispensaries in practically every town of importance in the Wiregrass. Be- gining at Troy a chain of dispensaries runs through Ozark. Dothan, Enter prise Geneva, Hartford. Elba, Brock ton and, continuing, touches nearly every important town.
 The dtspensaries at Hartford Geneva and Enterprise are practically in the same class each earning from $6,00O to $S,OOO which is after all a fair average for the earnings of all the dIspensarIes. And In the main the profits 20 to schools which may account in a meas ure for the large numbers of fine school buildings in Southern Alabama, l and which gives fhaf santlnr, n, ,A,.-