The Montgomery advertiser., 1909-03-27
GREAT AUDIENCE HEARS
 ADDRESSES IN MIL WAUKEE
President of Albion Defends the
 Laws.
Mayor of Northwestern City Brings Forward Statistics To Prove His Contention and Appeals For
 Personal Liberty of Citlzens.

lue iIOst TeinarkdDIe ueDdteS ever nelu was that tonight on the question: Resolved. that prohibition as applied to the manufacture and sale of intox- icating beverages. is right" with May or David $. Rose. of Milwaukee. de- lending the negative, and Dr. Samuel Dickie, president of Albion College, Albion. Mioh.. the speaker for the prohibitionists.
 The great Hippodrome. with a seat ing capacity of 1000, was damned to the doors. and although admission was by card. great throngs of people were turned away.
 This was the first of three debates, the second to be given at Chicago, and the third at some city In the South.
 Mayor Rose. at the recent Louisville convention of the National Model h. cense League. challenged the National Prohibition Party to produce its best orator to meet him on the question de- bated tonight. No decision was ren- dered.
 Advocate of Prohibition.
 MT. Dlckie was the first speaker. He said in part:
 The prohibition of the liquor trafic is right, if considered only from the economic standpoint. The saloon Is the foe of capital. but pre-eminently the enemy of labor. It paralyzes the arm of the working man. shortens his life. excludes him from many lucrative call ings, decreases his power as a producer and throws into the labor market vast mass of debased and unintelligent laborers who compete disastrously with the sober and industrious workmen.
 No line of manufacture gives eIn- ployment to so few men in proportion to the capital invested ns does the H. quor traffic. e
 '1he liquor business breeds crimin. ais. The testimony of prison chapiains of wardens, sheriffs and judges of the criminal courts, warrants the asser- tion that from eighty to ninety per cent of crime is directly orSfhdirectly traceable to the use of intoxicating H. quors.
 Not only is the liquor traffic breeder of criminals. but 1t is, itself. largely composed of men who do not hesitate to violate the law. The great majority of retail liquor sellers are open and notorious law breakers,
 "The friends of the liquor traffic are such as to condemn 1t by their own character anu COnuuCts SohNNdihb Sho' a few men of fair responsibility are It's apologists, 1t nevertheless remains true that the lawless classes. the thieves. the gamblers the thugs, the blacklegs. the outcasts. the harlOts, the low ana vile of both sexes. can be depended up- on to the last man and the last woman. to stand with Milwaukee's Mayor Tn opposing prohibition and. adVocatihs the saloon,'
 ReiOinder of Rose.
 In arguing that prohibition Is wrong Mayor Rose treated the subject from three viewpoints. the Biblical, ethieal and moral He challenged anyone 10 find a passage in the Bible forblodlns the manufacture or sale or intoNicat- ing liquors. cal side. he took the census figures of the government and records of cities and states to prove that prohibition in- creased crime, insanity, deaths, domes- tic infelicitles and stagnated business He took the criminal records of Mill waukee. a wide-open town, and snow ed that the arrests here per capita were less than in the prohibition states of Maine, Kansas and GeorSia. He showed that more drunkenness ex- isted in Maine than Wisconsin. He quoted census figures showing that more insanity existed in prohibition States than in neigh boring wet states and that the death rates in Maine and Kansas were hiSner than In the wet States adjoining.
 Much was said about thousands of drunkards dying every year, but the Mayor again ~qupted census figures to show that more people died from whooping cough and measles than al- cohollsm. Of the latter disease 6.4 per sons in every 100000 died while of di- restiye diseases 23l.3 in every 100000 died He quoted figures to show that there were more divorees in Kansas and Maine than in Wisconsin. a wet State; that prohibition States also had more paupers.
 He said the bank deposits of dry States were smaller than in wet States and claimed that prohibition had been a failure wherever tried because 1t was impossible to correct the ills and weaknesses of man by laws
 In the South. he declared. the theory had failed. that liquor was to be mad not only by whites, but by blacks. and that d marked increase In the orus habit was noticeable.
 Nation wide prohibition. he said. wo,tld mean loss of s215,9o3,00O of revenue year to the government; would seriously affect the farmer ana laborer of the country because the brewers and malsters and dlstlllers con sume slO9,0OO.00O of grain a year. It would. he said paralyze business, crip- nIe railroads. be felt in every walk Of fife and deprive people of personal lio- nrtv. "all for no purpose except the fanaticism of the prohibitionists.
 The Mayor urged sane regulation as the true solution of the drink prob lem.