The Montgomery advertiser., 1909-03-17
One Good Lesson
 h Local Option

(Green*ille) by the Legislature. He was but young man then, yet 1t was impressed on his memory that a crim. lnal statute was on the books, that a criminal statute was disregarded as if 1t did not exist. that 1t was laughed almost to nothingness. that blind tigers stalked abroad glaring brazenly at the officers of city and county, and that that law was the prohibition statute.
 Could Not Enforce.
 What was the matter that you could not enforce it then and you en- force 1t so splendidly now?" was asked a leading merchant of Greenyille. He had lived through the lurid days of early prohibition.
 ''The reason was this. The Legisla- ture. by an act approved Feb 26. 1887, forced prohibition county wide upon Butler. Mind you, that would have been well and good enough, but what had just preceded this? Just before Christmas, during the same session of the Legislature, the people of this town had voted wet by the command Of special act of local option which had been approved Nov. 27. 1886. That was an uncontested election, in which a good majority of the voters had cast their voice for the continuance of sa- looms. True. there was a good ma Jority of the negroes who voted for whiskey, but they voted for 1t and the votes counted just the same. The citi- zens seemed to accept the verdict. But a few weeks later at the same session of the General Assembly. the prohibi- tionists succeeded in getting spe- cial prohibition act passed that practi- caily rebuked the majority in the GreenYille election.
 You can imagine how the local op- tionists had resented the measure. Oh, they were hot! and would not subscribe to the enforcement of the prohibition act. From the time the law went into effect, there seemed to be a total dis regard of the statute. Blind tigers spEang up in different places right on the main street and defied the officers. You can find men now high In the es- teem of our fellow citizens who ran those tigers. They are now among our leading prohibitionists."
 No less distinguished Alabama citi- zen than Jesse Stallings might verify the difficulties of his office as Butler County prosecutor during those trying days of prohibition. He might now relate the incidents of the State of Alabama vs. Hinson, which was a sample proseiution for violation of prohibition. Mayor Hamilton says, if he remembers well, that ths defend ant, arraigned for running a blind beSEr dohllllCu Bulll. But memory goes further and relates that all the powerful eloquence of Solicitor Stallings, that all his earn estness of speech, and all the solemnity of the judge as he told the jurors if they believed the defepdants own tes- timony, they must bring in verdict of guilty-that all this was convinc- ing only that the defendant must have tested, must have been mistaken. At least he went scot free. and, 1t Is said, repaired at once to his old stand on the corner.
 Wet Is Restored.
 But history proves that the people of Greenville were spared further humil- iation in the eyes of law abiding men when the Legislature next assembled. The prohibltionists must have been caught off their watch for their op- ponents slipped in a fatal rider on an otherwise immaterial and impertinent enactment. By an act approved Feb ruary 19, 1887, effective January l, 1888, the saloon privilege was extended to Greenville beat of Butler County under. the gulse of regulating the