The Montgomery advertiser., 1909-09-12

II | say that no other kind of laws on le subject shall be passed. if State-we | prohibition is not successful. is an t- III tirely different thing. We are oppofi III to tying the hands of the Legisiatu, H
 50 that we cannot get the next-bf method of handling the liquor Questft H if the Statewide prohibition theq H does not work in practice. Netth H | can we afford to be >unmindful of otft H
 States and localities on this Questiol | For example. Massuchusetts. Vernon II New Hampshire. Illinois. Iowa. Mich
 gan. Delaware, Maryland. New Yorli | Rhode Island and other States hay | tried Statewide prohibition. omy | be repealed in every one of them aftel a full trial. It remained in Vermoul
 and New Hampshire for half cenI tury.
 This history at least suggests to uI
 that time may come when Statei wide prohibition will need to be rel | pealed in Alabama. Neither can 1t bt said that the failure of enforcement | in said States was due to any inade@ Quate or insufficient legislation. as | every device known to the Fuller bill has been tried in the effort to enforce
 1t. The right of trial by jury has been | repealed; the vicarious punishment of | the agent and lessor for sins of the lessee has been provided for: the right of search without warrant has been 1 enacted; officers of the law have been stimulated to diligence by the fee sys- | tenn, and . share of the fines; and Q | single individual was sentenced to one hundred years Imprisonment for violation of the law. And yet. after l long years of trial of the law in many 1 States. Statewide prohibition was re- | pealed. in the interest of temperance
 and good order.
 'Nrhird-When we ask what States
 have Statewide prohibition, we are
 referred to a very few. Those having
 constitutional prohibition are ohio. Maine, Kansas. North Dakota and Ok
 lahoma. The Ohio constitution of 1851 declares in Article Jv, Section 9; l No license to traffic in intoxicat- ing liquors shall hereafter be granted in this State, but the General Assembly
 may, by law, provide against evils re-
 sulting therefrom.'
 "It is a dead letter there. and in l Ohio saloons are taxed" not
 licensed" We are reliably informed
 that in neither Maine nor Kansas Is
 there is rigid or general enforcement | Of Prohibition. Oklahoma has 1t in
 its Constitution. because the Act of
 Congress by virtue of which Oklahoma
 became State provided that. on acc
 count of the Indian Territory and l Osage Indian Reservation. there should
 be Prohibition in that portion of Okla homa for at least twenty one years.
 The Federal Governmnt, as guardian | of the Indians. required the provision
 as a condition to Oklahomas state
 hood. And. while it seems to us that
 there are those who would occupy
 similar relation of guardian to our | people, we are sure the people of Ala bama do not need @ guardian or a paternal government and certainly they do not need to be treated as l though they were Indi4ns.
 Out of the entire Union we there ! fore find that only five State Con- stitutions have Prohibition in them. | and not one of those States would be | taken by Alabamians for their guide in constitutional or legislative mat | ters
 How much sympathy has Kansas with Alabama? From John Brown down we have been accustomed to- think of ''bleeding" Kansas as the
 headquarters of "isms" and freak sug- | gestgons. And certainly we do not
 have to go to Maine or North Dakots
 for instruction. When fhtff the wisdom
 tate-Wide Prohibition is proven.
 It will not hurt Prohibition to leave
 the Amendment out until we try the
 statutes: and 1t may seriously hurt
 some parts of the State to adopt 1t FTf' after awhile sentiment as to state
 wide Prohibition changes and the statutes need modification.
 "The argument that if the Amend ment is adopted. 1t will settle the Pro- hibition question and remove 1t from politics." is. in our judgement, de- ceptive and unsound. The Amendment will Re voted on, and will be adopted or reflected. in a few months. What. then. means the talk of. men running for office next year on the Prohibition issue. or against 1t. if the question is to be out of politics?
 ''One of the few States that had Prohibition in its Constitution was South Dakota, which was admitted in- | to the Union in 1889. Speaking in | round numbers. Prohibition was writ | ten in its Constitution by vote of | 55,000 to 10000. And, in 1895. the | question of repeating that provision was submitted. and carried by a vote of 31,00o to 24,000. Then 1t was out | of the Constitution Two years after, | another amendment was submitted, to | put the liquor- question in the hands of the State (presumably, the dis pensary system,) and that was adopt ed by vote of 24,000 to 1000. Then again, another amendment was sub
 ntteOt 10 repeal the state control amendment. and. in 1900. the newI was adopted; and the ques- tion went out of the Constitution again, by a vote of 49,000 to 34,00O. It therefore appears that putting Pro- hibition in that Constitution did not settle the question at all, because there were four elections on 1t in less than eleven years. And 1t Is significent. from the figures given (and they are taken from a publication by the Fed { ral Government that while a total of 75, 900 voted for and against constitu- tion Prohibition in 1889, 1t was taken out of the Constitution by a vote in which only 55,000 participated. Did the 10000, or nearly thirty per cent. of the voters go to sleep, or lose in- terest in the question? Then again. when the State control amendment was adopted why did only 44,000 vote, out of the original 75,000? Presumably there were more voters in 1897 than In 1889, and certainly so when we find that in 1900 the vote cast on the ques- ton aggregated S8.0o0. of which 34.0O0 voted to keep it in the Constitution What became of the original 55,00N who put 1t in the Constitution of South Dakota?
 We mention this history to show how spacious is the argument that putting Prohibition in the Constitu- tion' settles anything, and to fortify the proposition that putting Prohibit lion in the Constitution will cause many well-disposed people to abate their interest in the question. They