The Montgomery advertiser., 1909-10-12
IS ENTHUSIASTIC Weakley Speaks at Court
 House. SAYS FIGHT IS NOT LOST Takes Fling at Supporters of the
 Amendment. $50 People Hear the Jurist Argue for Votes to Support the Conner
 Administration Pet
 Measure.

Hoarse from the past ten days of al- most continuous speech making, speak ing between occasional sips of a lemon for his throat's sake. Judge s. D. Weakley, author and defender of the constitutional amendment. spoke to an audience of about $50 persons at the court house last night
 The crowd was mostly pro-amend- | ment, and there were occasions when the applause that greeted the speaker { remarks was prolonged. Only once however, did the hearers rise to vocif- erous .app.ause. and that was when Judge Weakley sounded an exultant promise of victory.
 Don't believe what you see in the morning paper about North Alabama being lost to the amendment. North Alabama Is on fire. and November 29 will send them to the Capitol solid phalanx for the amendment, with Jef- ferson in the lead. l don't know of four or five counties in all of which there Is any doubt"
 And the audience, a big part of it., shouted.
 There were not more than fifty wo- men in the room, but they added their quota of demonstration with consistent hand-clapping.
 Judge Weakley from the start, de- cared the fight on the amendment to he the fight of the liquor interests to re-establish saloons in the State. He ascribed no other motive to the oppo- sition.
 He charged the opposition with Ia naticism and intolerance. telling of his experience in Mobile and in Montgom- cry last week.
 There was an element In Mobile,' he said. "as there was an element here. that l knew I would find who would interrupt me in my speech. There they were so insistent that my opponent was forced to ask them to hear me. It hurt them. The liquor men, so fanatical and lntolerant that they don't want to heal q debate. can always be depended upon to make fools of themselves at the proper time.
 "Of course they don't want to heal argument" he continued. They know that the liquor traffic can never live when exposed to the clear light oi Gods truth.
 My speech In Mobile" he declared was probably the first real. sound genuine prohibition argument that they had ever listened to-"
 He declared the brewers were back l of the fight, that they were spending | the money to maintain the expensive | campaign and offices. He hit at Leor McCord. of the Safe and Sane League Ont of the obscurity of a Supreme Court clerk ship" declared Judge Weak l ley. where he copied opinions tha | other men wrote. rose this leader of great movement. the President. Secre tary and Treasurer of this League, fo all I know
 Warns People. | He warned the people against the at | tempt to reinstate saloons, against tho work of the German Alliance. which ht said had been organized in this State from the Philadelphia headquarters tC | fight prohibition in Alabama. Judge Weakley warned against the local optionist.
 Local option, in a dry State" he de- clared, means the desire of a chance to vote the saloon back in again" and he took up the statement of Hon. E n- nett O'Neai, his opponent in the joint debates to charge that, back of the fight on the amendment was the fight on prohibition. O'Neaps statement de- clared that the people should elect a Legislature and a Governor who would not be false to their vows. Judge Weakley said 1t meant thrust at pro- hibition. He said that he would ask O'Neal upon the stump in future to deny that 1t did.
 As to the need Of the amendment Judge Weakley said it grew from the worry attempts on the prohibition laws He said that 1t started when the Bir- mlngham Age-Heralds Montgomery correspondent wrote an article telling of the employing of a young Montgom- cry lawyer to lead the fight on the amendment. fight, which the article inferred, would have a bearing upon the prohibition laws. To prevent a re pealing of the laws, the speaker de- clared. the amendment was conceived IT. tot. |. declared to be signs that the liquor forces were fighting to defeat prohibi- ton.
 He sneered at the Montgomery con- ference in many instances.
 Now everybody is for prohibition, even the Montgomery conference he said, and this talk Of reaction of sem timent you can not find except in the columns of The Advertiser and The Age Herald"
 Judge Weakley feared for the in- tegrity of future generations and of future legislatures. He declared the amendment was for the purpose of preventing the debauching of law makers and citizens with the blood money" of the brewers in their efforts to defeat prohibition hereafter.
 Judge Weakley took up the Fuller bill He said the anti-amenJment
  itis." He hinted that the Fuller bill is a simple document after all. that there is nothing new in it. except the clause providing for the destruction of liquors seized. He said that many of the charges made against 1t were libels. among them the statement that a lease Is forfeited if a land lord knows that liquor is being kept on the premises of a tenant. The forfeiture of the lease is entirely op- tional said the judge.
 Search and Seizure.
 The search and seizure law fs noth- ing new, he said It was taken from the New York law where 1t was put by the New York brewers interests to prevent the competition of blind tigers. This cry of new laws and of the "sanctity of the home." he said, is the same old wolf cry of years.
 Judge Weakley was a little con temptuous of "the big men with the great regulations who write things for The Advertiser" as hetermed them among whom he mentioned Judge Walker. Sid Bowie and E, K. Camp bell He said Walker had always heen against prohibition. that he was counsel for parties who fought the law in Cullman.
 He declared the cartoons which had been drawn and circulated in the campaign as libels. "I might cut off the last syllable and then have it right" he said. The cartoons refer red to the raid on the Nelson home in Mobile. and one depicted Governor trIr lrT