The Montgomery advertiser., 1909-12-10
A CORRECT VIEW.

observer of passing events. and has kept critical eye on recent happen l ings in this State. "One feature" 1t says. "of the result of the recent election in Alabama has attracted considerable attention, not only in that State but elsewhere, and has giv- en very serious turn to the prohi- bition propagandists. It has been claimed with more or less assurance | that the farmers of the State and the voters of the rural regions are to be invariably counted as unreasonable adherents to the cause of prohibition | as against local option. and ready to vote the most oppressive and radical laws on the subject of liquor that can be proposed. The result in Alabama quite disproves this theory. It shows that farmers, as fact. are thought full citizens: that they thoroughly ap- preciate the real issue involved, which Is that laws opposed by the major ity sentiment of the community to be affected are coercive. oppressive and impossible of enforcement. He dis played a wonderfully conservative at- titude on the question and called 8 halt upon radicalism that will be helpful in it's effect upon other States, He realizes that prohibition laws are helpful, in fact essential. to small cities and towns and sparsely settled communities. but he has seen enough and apprehended enough to realize that in the larger centers of popula- tiony made up of people of all shades of opinion, and where vices and law lessness may So easily hide in the al- leys. byways and secluded places. 1t is next to impossible to compel a com piiance with prohibition laws.
 "The result in Alabama does not mean that the farmers and the stall wart men of the country would en- courage drunkenness or intemperance, but it does mean that they do not ap-. prove the saddling of such conditions as exist in the larger cities of the State upon the people for all time. It means that if present laws do not se- cure the reforms intended they must be modified and changed to meet the approval of good sense and sound. practical judgment. It is a most en- couraging thing to know that the far mers cannot be rallied and herded to put intolerable conditions upon cities and to keep them there after they are made to understand the frightful wrong committed thereby"
 Perhaps about the greatest surprise to the advocates of the amendment came when the returns from the rural districts came in and they discovered that "the country cousins" had not been led away and unbalanced by the heated arguments of the leaders of the campaign for constitutional pro- hibition. It was known and admitted that liquor selling and drinking under the former regime was hurtful to many communities away from the large cities. and this was taken by over-zealous amendment advocates as an assurance that the rural vote would be somewhat in the nature of unanimous in their favor.
 The result shows that the farmers cannot be taken off their rect by ap- peals to sentiment. In many places they were trying the local option plan and were satisfied with 1t and willing to give it further time and opportun- ity to show its workings. This did not mean that they thought they had a right to clinch that system for all | time. or that 1t was their privilege and duty to legislate for the towns and cities. The vote. in short, was a plain endorsement of the theory of Io- cal self-government and of non-inter- ference by one community with the affairs of others. The vote plainly proves that the farmers and other country dwellers of Alabama are more conservative and just and intelligent than the "reformers" expected.