The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-06-21
Prohibition Element Is Up In Arms Against Both NOm-
 inee and Party
PROHIBITION PLANK IS
 IGNORED BY REPUBLICANS
One of Taft's Yale Lectures Is Used By Liquor Men In Support of Their Flght-Taft Says Prohibition
 Law Cannot Be Enforced.

Chicago. June -(Special)--And now there comes forward another element to raise it's protest against Secretary Taft. Labor is dissatisfied The negroes are dissatisfied. The nomination of Sherman
 with his slush fund record, his connection
 with the Hartman contributions of 1904,
 his presidency of trust, is declared by
 western state delegates to mean a hard
 fought battle. throwing in doubt the rock-ribbed republican states of the west. The feeling in Iowa is most bitter. Iowa has just passed through an exciting cam paign in which the old veteran, Allison,
 was returned to the Senate and Governor Cummins was defeated by the narrowest margin. The President, in the interest of MT. Taft, sought to better this condition
 through the nomination of Senator Dolli- yer for the vice presidency. The senator
 declined point blank. Then the place
 was offered to Governor Cummins and
 his friends entered an indignant protest
 Through the whole of Thursday night
 the conferences on the vice presidency
 were directed at Iowa and neither the
 Dollver-Allison nor the Cummins faction
 would yield. The resultant nomination of Representative Sherman is the worst that
 could be made, say the Iowa men. The
 delegates from Wisconsin, Minnesota, the Dakotas, Kansas and Nebraska say tine
 same thing.
 To top this off. Alonzo Wilson, chair-
 man of the prohibition state central com
 mittee. and one of the principal prohibi- ton advocates in the country, gives out !
 statement tonight declaring that the re-
 publican party's ignoring of their de-
 mands for prohibition plank will result l disastrously to the republican ticket Opposed To Prohibition. Taft says MT. Wilson, lis friendly to the liquor interests; is opposed to pro- hibition and liquor men are now using one of Tafts Yale lectures in support of their fight" The lecture referred to is
 one of four delivered by Secretary Taft at Yale university in the last two years
 and published by the university under the title, -Four Aspects of Civic Duty.' 1. In one lecture Secretary Taft says: Nothing is more foolish, nothing more
 utterly at variance with sound policy
 than to enact a law which, by reason of
 conditions surrounding the community in which it Is declared to be law, is incap-
 able of enforcement.
 Such an instance is sometimes present. ed by sumptuary laws by which the sale of intoxicating liquors is prohibited under penalty in localities where the public | sentiment of the immediate community | does not and will not sustain the enforce l ment of the law.
 1 Tn such cases the legislation is usually
 the result of agitation by people in the | country who are determined to make l their fellow-eitizens in the city better. 1 The enactment of the law comes through the country representatives who form D
 majority of the legislature. But the en- 1 forcement of the law is among the peo-
 pie who are generally opposed to it's en- | actment, and under such circumstances l the law is a dead letter.
 i This result is the great argument in favor of so-called local option, which is
 really an instrumentalty for determining
 whether law can be enforced before 1t 1 is made operative
 Better To Regulate.
 "In cases where the sale of liquor cam not be prohibited in fact, it is far better to regulate and diminish the evil than to attempt to stamp it out,
 l Mir Wilson said the words of the sec
 retary of war only recently had been printed in the Wine and Liquor News of Columbus, O. as part of an article in which it was claimed that Taft was on the side of the liquor men.
 You don't hear the liquor men com plaining about the nomination of Taft,
 said MT. Wilson. 'rhey are pretty well l satisfied with him, and they have reason to be- for, aside from his Yale lecture. he went to Oklahoma and delivered a 1 speech against the prohibition section or l the constitution of that state.
 From a political viewpoint" added l MT. Wilson, ''the republican party made serious mistake in remaining silent on l the temperance question. Hundreds of l telegrams were sent to the convention l from all parts of the country urging that the party express its approval of the l so-called Hepburn-Dolliver bill, which l provides that it shall be unlawful to snip l iiouor into any prohibition territory. l "By setting itself against the indorse- 1 ment of this measure the republican l marty will lose between 100000 and 20o0,- 1 mn votes this fall Georgia. Kansas, Ala l hama and the dry territory of Illinois de-
 mand the protection of the federal gov 1 ernment against the shipment of liquor | into prohibition states. Temperance re- | nublicans now see that they cannot hope for such protection by continuing to vote the republican ticket, and they VIII op- nose Taftr w. 6.