Americus times-recorder. [volume] (Americus, Ga.) 1891-current, 1909-12-03
LEADING GEORGIA PAPERS ON
ALABAMA ELECTION.

There seems to be practically one
voice in the Georgia press as to the
lesson to be drawn from the recent
Alabama election, and that is that the
public is very apt in all other South
ern states to resent and defeat any
effort at such drastic legislation as
was contemplated in Alabama, and
to vote down efforts to inject prohi-
bition of this type into the state con-
situations. Prohibition, it is recog-
niZed, is on trial, the laws regulating
the sale of liquors, or prohibiting
them entirely, are experimental in a
large degree, and the public prefers
that the conditions be not made as
infiexible as the proverbial laws of
the Modes and the Persians. The pur-
pose of the prohis, of course, in writ
ing prohibition in state constitutions
is to forever prevent notifications or
repeats, it being generally requisite
that a two-thirds vote is necessary to
amend the CONSTITUTION,
The Augusta Chronicle holds that
the fact of the situation is that none
of our Southern states are willing to
adopt prohibition as part of their
organic law And for the very good
reason that they all recognize prohi-
bition as, at best, but an experiment.
At any rate, the people are not yet
willing to accept prohibition as the
great infallible 'cure-all,' and so ar
range it that they cannot rectify their
| mistake in future"
The very conservative Savannah
News believes the prohis overshot the
mark in their Jealous desire to force
their opinions upon the state. Says
| that paper:
| 1t is regrettable that the prohibit
| tionists of Alabama raised the issue.
| If they had remained quiet and en-
| deavored to strengthen the sentiment
in favor of prohibition by educational
means the chances are that they
would have held the state until the
/ oSAIAiAAOhl W 40 SO StlOAS3 IlldJ II NOuiA
/ have been practically impossible to
change 1t. Now they will have to go
| back and virtually do their work over
| again. II they had been less eager to
restrain personal liberty they might
in time have educated the people up
to where they would have consented
to such restraint. 1t looks as if the
prohibition movement would move
| rd i'm - 60, a,.I III
because of the lack of judgment OF
the part of the prohibition leaders
The reason the local option system
was so successful was that it accom-
plished its object by educating the
people to approve prohibition. AS
soon as the effort was made to drive
the people they baked
The Atlanta Constitution says the
Alabama election does not indicate op.
position to prohibition so much as tc
extreme radicallsm. 1t points out that.
The grave danger-a danger which
confronts all radical action-is that
the reverse swing may, for the mo-
ment carry 1t in the opposite direction
to an anti-climaX. We hope not, but
the danger in such movements is al
ways present.
If the opponents of prohibition pre-
sumo upon this as their exclusive vic
tory, and, mistaking the true mean
ing OF the result, lose their heads az
the other side did, they, too, will be
called to rigid account
The only safe and sane conclusion
to be drawn from the result is that
in the long run extremism does not
pay in politics any more than it does
in anything else.
The dangers to personal liberty in.