The Birmingham age-herald., 1907-06-05
PROHIBITION Is
 GAINING IN SOUTH New York Papers Gather Inter-
 esting Data BIG FIGHT IN TENNESSEE Symposium Indicates Wide Scope of Movement Which Ia Especially
 Active In the South at
 This Time.
BIG FIGHT IN TENNESSEE
BY WALTER HARPER.

BY WALTER HARPER.
 The New York Times of last Sunday devotes a page to a feature story on the prohibition movement in the south.
 The article is made up principally of letters on the subject from leading editors of the different southern states. and Is very interesting in that it indicates the very wide scope of the temperance move- ment.
 The Times starts out with the general proposition, with the following editorial expression from the Memphis News Scim- itar:
 The south is leading the country in moral reforms and the north in eco- homie reforms. The north will learn from the south and the south from the north. The leaders in the north who fail to read alright the signs of the times in the moral movement will struggle out of the army of progress as have those who ignored the spirit of economic reform. In the south the unbelievers in economic ad- vance will meet the fate of the infdels in the moral struggle"
 Prohibition Predominates.
 Continuing, the Times says:
 "The symposium herewith presented shows that prohibition now predominates in most if not all of the southern states, and the sweep of this great moral wave seems to have gathered so much momen- tum as to make 1t fairly certain that all of that vast region which lies beyond that now obliterated line known as Mason and Dixons will soon be totally prohibition. And this, too, in the regions that have so long held a worldwide fame for it's mint julip-loving planters and hard-drinking colonels; famous, too. for the manufac- ture of fine whislxes, and, in some other of it's localities, infamous for the illicit distillation of 'moonshine' whisky"
 The information gleaned from the differ ent correspondents shows that the move ment is widespread and aggressive in all the southern states and the consensus of opinion seems to be that negroes who drink large quantities of mean whisky are at the bottom of the general revolt.
 Negro Is Cause. The Times, in summarizing, says:
 "one of the chief causes of this great temperance movement is, as you might have guessed-the negro. It is when these drink of the vile, cheap whiskies that they are most liable to commit the crimes which the southern white man avenges so swiftly and so terribly.
 The reform in many sections seems to have had it's origin in realization of this menace, and, once started tho churches and the white women of the south, working sedulously and earnestly, striving with parishioners and with friend, with neighbor and with the stranger, gave the movement such an immense impetus as to have sent it sweeping through al- most every county of every state. and merging with 1t went great wave of religious enthusiasm and fervor."
 The Kentucky correspondent gives the following information of the work that has been done in that state which is fa- nous for it's mint tulips:
 ''The period of greatest progress in the anti-saloon fight has been since the new county unit local option law went into effect, June Il last. Since that time twen- weight counties, with population of 444,762, have been put in the dry col umn, a total of POS saloons having been busted An approximate estimate by the anti-saloon workers Is that a little over 91 per cent of the entire area of the state is dry at the present time" High License System. The Louisiana correspondent says that in that state a system of high license for saloons has prohibited the mean dives and conditions have been greatly improved. The negroes are not allowed to buy mean whisky and in this way crime has greatly diminished under the system and it Is claimed that in some of the blackest parishes the jails are empty and the courts comparatively idle
 Maryland presents an unique situation in that the legislature designates prohibit tion territories without the voice of the people.
 South Carolina the home of the dis pensary seems to be on the verge of total prohibition. The recent legislature abolished the state dispensary and left the matter to the counties. The friends of state dispensary control are said to be disgruntled and may join. the prohibitions ists in fight for total abolition. Situation In Missouri. Of the situation in Missouri the editor or the St. Louis republic says: Probably as good a measure as any other of the prohibition sentiments in Missouri is obtained from the fact that of the IA counties which, with the city of St. Louis, make up the state between | thirty and forty have voted under this local option law to prohibit dramshops. The Anti-Saloon league is working with zeal to increase the number, with what success we shall know later.' Expressions from Tennessee indicate ----------~-----