The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1909-11-24
JUDGE COLEMAN ON
NEW REASONING
SHOWS HOW ARGUMENTATIVE
POSITION OF PROMINENT
AMENDERS LEADS TO ABSURD
1TY-CALLS ON CUNNINGHAM.


| To the Editor of The Accelerate:
Fearing that my first article would be
too long l cut out part of the argu-
! ment prepared by me upon one PROPOSE
| ton. Since then l have heard a speaker
make the assertions therein considered,
and now DR.. Cunningham is reported as
| saying that the second section is neces-
| sary to enforce the prohibition statutes.
l have concluded it best to supplement
my previous article from which l omitted
some of the argument l give below, and
hope to read the reply to it from some
newspaper over their own signature rather
than have it discussed at some neighbour
hood meeting when there will be no OPP
portunity to reply. | have, incidentally,
toward the close referred to Judge Thor
ington's last reply, as he does not truly
state. through inadvertance, my Ian
| guage.
Section l. The manufacture, sale and
keeping for, sale of alcoholic and malt
! liquors and other intoxicating beverages
shall be forever prohibited in this state,
| but alcohol may be sold for medical, sci
entifc and mechanical purposes, and wine
| for sacramento purposes under such reg
ulations as the legislature may have pre-
scribed or may hereafter prescribe
sec. ,. Nothing in the constitution OF
! Alabama shall be construed to prevent
/ the Legislature. under the police power,
from designating where such liquors may
not be stored or kept
! The reader will please keep the pro-
posed amendment continually before his
mind as he follows the argument in reply
TO the amenders, demonstrating theirs to
be an absurdty-"reductio ad absurdum."
Mr. Thompson, solicitor of the Fifth cir
cult, (and others have followed the same
; line) stated in his excellent address at
Eutaw, that as the words ''vinous liquors.
were omitted from the first section OF
the proposed amendment, according to all
previous constructions of the law wine"
could not be included. He went so far
as to admit that so far as the consti-
tutional amendment interfered, unaided
by legislative action, saloons for the
sale of wine could be opened through
out the state without violating the con-
sttutional amendment. 1t follows. there
fore, if Mr.. Thompson be correct, that
the words such liquors used In the
second section of the proposed amend
ment does not include and has no ref
erence to wines" whether stored and
kept for use or for sale, and the leg
islature would not have the power under
Section to designate any place, neither
in the home or elsewhere. where wine
should not be stored or kept.
Dr. Dickinson and Mr.. WEIGH, in their
respective addresses at Eutaw, each stat
ed that the word manufacture" as used
in the first section (read it, meant and
was only intended TO prohibit the making
of alcoholic liquors and "other intoxi-
eating beverages for sale or profit. That
when these liquors were made for home
use, or social use in the home the amend
ruent did not interfere, and that 1T APP
piled only to such liquors and beverages
as were made for sale or profit, and that
those for sale or profit were the only
kind of liquors within the scope and con-
temptation of the prohibitory clause Of
the first section OF the amendment. This
is the popular argument, and no doubt
1t has been spoken and preached to
thousands of people.
1t being settled then, according to these
gentlemen, that liquors and wines not
made or kept for sale were not within
the influence of the first section of the
amendment and were not intended to be,
it necessarily follows that the words
..such liquors in the second section of
the amendment had no reference to them
sand could not be stretched to include or
cover them. 1t further necessarily fol-
lows that under the second section of
| the amendment, in designating places
where "such liquors shall not be stored