The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-01-10

traffic, Ensley, Bessemer, Avondale, Woodlawn, East Lake, North Birming ham, Elyton, Kingston and Pratt City, voting separately, all gave similar ma jorities. If whisky is sold it is in viola tion of law and against our protest and the protest of the majority of our cit izens. and in spite of the efforts of the law officers who are seeking to apprehend the Violators.
 But, If the prohibition law Is violated, is this more than can be said of our other laws? The laws against gambling and cocaine selling, and against assaults, dis orderly conduct. and even homicide, are all flagrantly violated from time to time in this county, but it has not been sug- gested that the remedy for these viola tions is to repeal the laws, and let im- morality and vice run riot.
 1. If Med Brace" sees blind tigers on every side of us, "on the street corners ,'' and fin the alleys" and walking the streets with bottles in their pockets. ' why does he not report 1t to the proper authorities? Has he no responsibility here? If he sees his neighbor's house on fire and fails to give the alarm, is he eXcusable? If he sees or knows of the viola tion of the prohibition law and conceals it or fails to condemn 1t, is he guiltless
 5. The statement that prohibition in Blr- mingham is making criminals seems to us to be absurd. A criminal Is not made by the law which seeks to restrain, but crime is due to the wrongful conduct of those who refuse to submit to the man. date of the law. Instead of prohibition making criminals, 1t is saving men from crime. All of our records show great re- duction in crime during the present year. It is true that there have been too many violent deaths in November, 19OS but they were not so numerous as they were in November, 15J7. In ten months, tseer pro- hibition law, there were 130 death by violence. and in the same period of 1907, with the saloons, there were 294, show ing a decrease under prohibition of about 60 per cent. The former number is far too many, and will be greatly reduced under rigid enforcement of ths law. which we are seeking to bring about. None of our laws are being perfectly en- forced, but as many results have been achieved from the prohititory liquor law as was expected in so short a time, and the law is being enforced far too well to suit the gamblers and those former sa- loon keepers who are seeking to con- tinUe their business after it has become unlawful.
 6. Again "Ned Brace says. 'boys even buy 1t on the streets, and one sees them everywhere, about in doorways at night,
  their bottles." Surely Ned Brace must having been "seing things when that sentence was written. We deny the state- lnent in toto, and confidently assert that the author, with all the liquor interests , backing him, cannot prove 1t to be true. There is one part of the article for which the author must be given credit He says that 'It Is nasty stuff; 1t is poison. '' Is Tot this the same stuff that is so copi- ously advertised in The Age-Herald as pure goods to be bought more cheaply than ever before? The mistake the au- thor makes Is in supposing that It is or would be better under license MT. w. H | Wiley, chief of the government bureau oi chemistry, says that S5 per cent of all whisky sold in the United States, in ho | tels, restaurants, clubs and bars, is no | whisky, but a cheap and deleterious imi | tation." MT B. H. Warner, diary and l food commissioner, nas said, that Inc wonder our insane asylums are full with men drinking such deadly poison habitu- ally" Yes, Ned Brace is right, 1t Is pois-