The Birmingham age-herald., 1907-08-05
INCONSISTENCIES MUST GO.
Government Sounds the Death kneIl Of Illicit Whisky Making in South.

washington Cor. chicago News.
 'Moonshiners," heroes of song and story and the stage, are about to be extermin- ated as class The death knell of the once prosperous but illicit business of making mountain dew" has been sound ed by public opinion, according to David A. Gates, chief of the internal revenue agents of the treasury department. To- day, throughout the entire moonshinlng district of the southern states there are not ten legalized saloons. The stamp of public opinion so clearly written within the law is about to make it's indelibe im- press on the hidden "still' without the law. It Is the judgment of the men who have taken their lives in their hands in the fastnesses of the southern mountains to face these criminals that the real solu- tion of their difficulties is at hand.
 There has never been more attrac.i ye personality to the writer of fiction or the author of melodrama than the rugged 'moonshiner" living on the craggy noun tain side, with his primitive still hidden Tar back in the underbrush. He has n- Nariably been made the object of adnlira- ton and sympathy for those who came in contact with him through these mediums
 learned professor of the University of Chicago once said that the Cumberland mountain region of Kentucky and Tennes- see, where the moonshlner abounds, af- forded one of the most fertile fields for the truthful portrayal of real American Ism. Descendants of Scotch-Irish parent age, of early deep religious convictions sing garbled ballads of the old Scot tish border and relate traditional legends from Erins isle.
 There Is another side to this unusual type of the American people. Perhaps the first moonshiners in the United States were those who fomented the whisky re- bellion in western Pennsylvania in the first administration of President Washing ton. This rebellion was broken only after the use of federal troops.
 There never since has bene occasion to use an entire army for the suppression of moonshiners. but armed revenue officers have never ceased to patrol the lone noun tain trails in search of Illicit stills, nor have they succeeded In overcoming that dogged resistance to the internal revenue laws which came about through the eternal belief in nearly all "moonshinng" localities that what is right for the father Is right for the son.
 In this connection 1t must be noted that the fuedists of Kentucky have In many instances been numbered among the
 
 added also that they have at times evineed such q high regard for the en- forcement of the revenue law that they have been found enlisted under the reve- nue banner, gun In hand, for the sole purpose of staying lawfully their malg- nant enemy.
 Those who have gone forth to fight the battles of the revenue law among the 'moonshiners' of Kentucky, Virginia and Tennessee, the ''wild-catters' of the Sand mountain districts of Alabama and the "blockaders' of North and South Caro- lima and Georgia know them all to be O. one type and characteristic, namely. hu- man wolves. Only when forced to fight in the open does the ordinary moon shiner," by whatever name he may be known do so
 This hero" finds his favorite fighting ground behind a convenient rock or troe. which he has gained preferabl without the knowledge of his victim. Since 1S76 when the revenue officers began their work among them. hfty-four of these agents of the government have been killed and ninety-four wounded, many of whom never saw the man who fired the shot. This does not include marshals and dep uty marshals who were killed in making arrests
 Within the last five years the prohibi- ton question has been one of the most vital issues in southern politics. It is ad- mitted by southern politicians that the negro question is at the bottom of the prohibition question, the theory being that the criminal class among the negro race as a whole is practically uncontrollabl ble element where whisky is permitted.
 Whisky was the issue in the election in Tennessee last fall, and Tennessee went dry. It was an issue before the recent session of the Georgia legislature, and dry legislation was enacted by that body in response to the demands of the Georgia people.
 his growth of public sentiment has it's stronghold in the mountain districts of all the southern states. Where hitherto revenue officers not only did not receive assistance from judges, sheriffs and other local officers of the law, but were hin- dered and handicapped, they can today be assured of the utmost cooperation Of practically every citizen in the so-cal,ed "moonshining" districts
 Another sentimental element which has contributed to the enforcement of the law against Illicit distiling in the south was the building of the federal peni- tentiarY at Atlanta. Ga, a few years ago. Until that time judges on the fed eral bench in the mountain districts were extremely loath to send the average 'moonshiner'' to a northarn nrisnn-