Atlanta semi-weekly journal. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1898-1920, 1909-02-16

LAREDO, Tex, Feb g. 1909.-During the
last ten days have passed from Atlanta,
Ca, to Laredo, Texas-from the Chatta-
hoochee to the Rio Grande. 1 have used
the opportunity to observe closely men
and things, and my observations have
been cheering to me. in the states of
Georgia, Alabama. Mississippi, Louisiana,
and Texas through which l have taken
my journey, there are visible on all sides
the most notable evidences of both moral
progress and material prosperity. These
commemorative are a considerable part OF
the Increasingly prosperous and sober
South.
Along the way the farmers were seen
busy with spring ploughing and other pre-
paratory labour for the next crop. They
are using better livestock, better tools
and better methods than ever before, and
they are securing as never before the
fruit of their toll
Through the windows of the railway
coaches came the odor of newly-ploughed
ground, and not once did l catch whlfr
of whiskey-tainted breath. From the
Savannah river to the Mississippi is
solid area of unbroken prohibition now,
and west of the Mississippi the dry spots
are more numerous and extensive than
ever before. Even in the old French
state of Louisiana there are many large
towns, such as Shreveport and Crowley,
where prohibition prevails
BY travellers In the Pullman cars l
heard the question OF prohibition discuss
ed from every possible point of view, and
1 carefully avoided taking any part in
the daily discussions or disclosing to the
disputants my identity. This was little
hard to do at times, as for example, when
heard one wet disputant telling how
prohibition had destroyed the value OF
real estate in Atlanta. But even IN the
hearing of this reckless romancer held
my peace. Several things 1 noted in this
running debate of a thousand miles in
length. The anti-prohibitionists did all
the swearing that was done on the sub
! ject; from which inferred that the men
who loved virtue more than liquor were
| inclined to be dry, while the men who
| loved liquor more than virtue were in
clined to be wet. This fact was sugges-
| tive. Furthermore, / observed that the
anti-prohibitionists charged that liquor
| drinking was more general now than IN
| the days of open saloons, but they offered
no proof Of the charge from official sta
| tistics; while the prohibitionists showed
| from reports of police courts and other
official records that drunkenness had
greatly decreased. The wet-men talked
much Of the "blind-tigers" now in exist
ence, but they seemed to forget that in
the days of the open saloons there were
|
| 1t seems to me that there are great
many blind takers as 'blind-tigers," and
1 have heard tell of ''blind drunks." This
whole liquor business seems to produce
much blindness of one sort or another.
Some wet men are so blind that they
| can not see the prevalent prosperity OF
| Southern agriculture. They say the
| farmers are all bankrupt, or about to be-
come so, and that breaking up the saloons
has resulted in the breaking of many 9TH
or enterprises. OF course we all know
| that the panic hurt the farmers along
with all other classes; but notice most
of the farmers think their case would
| have been worse without prohibition; they
say that farm labour is more orderly, CON
| tented and industrious in the dry regions
than II is in the west areas. Among the
disputants whom 1 heard discuss the Sub
| ject along my journey, the farmers with
out exception were on the side of prohibi-
| ticn While meditating on this fact my
eye fell on a passage in an interview of a
reporter of the San Antonio Express with
| Mr.. William Mckenzie, a distinguished
Scotch fnaneier who is now visiting Mr..
H. p. Drought, in San Antonio. The re-
porter of the Express represents Mr.. Nc
| Kenzie as saying that he finds the United
! States very prosperous from end to end.
| He traces all our prosperity to agricul-
ture, and points to the remarkable devel-