The Montgomery advertiser., 1909-04-09
MW RICHIE WORKS igi
 HARDSHIP IN WALKER
{ 1s,per and cafboa Hal Without < Funds.
s,6atsaaDt New Bsiss Maae h7 These zsw.s se Rssse Mesey sy Private s.lsersStie. te Prevent cls.-
 Ing es Es-e.ti..ai
 lastatstisrs. '
nr CnAnLrs .. HARoLp.

4r~. ,
 DY CHARLES L.. HAROLD. yaaper, Aprfl s.--(SpeciAl.) )--Ineuiry lad this week into Walker the impe- ptal idtnpensary county of the state They esfablished countrywide dispen- aarfes. in walker Jan. l., iso4, as the result oS hot campaign waged under . special local option act. It, was ey q narrow margin that the saloons were driven from the second largest coal producing county in Alabama. But when they died the spirit of resist nnce to prohibition practically passed away and. we find that in the latter part of 1907, under the State local op- ffon act, the prohibitionfsts defeated the dtspensaries without much oppo- sltion.
 The majority of the representative citizens Interviewed testified to marked simproyement in the drink sst- uation at the two points visited. These were Jasper and Carbon Hili. They were the largest of the five dispensary points in walker County. Singular enough as 1t may appear to the out afder, Carbon Hill turned more profits into the county coffers than her; sis ter and large city of Jasper. Whether it was more progressive In It's man agement or whether the actual demand at Carbon Hill made 1t the banner dis pensary of the county. 1t is not the purpose of this article to decide, It Is only known that the county-which received 70 per cent Of the net dis-- pensary profits-=fattened more on the remittances from Carbon Rtll than from any other of the duintette.
 superinsemdenk PHI as Paeased.
 general Sunerintendept Pill of the Galloway Coal Company's mines. lo- cated around Carbon Hiil. gave some important testimony in 7connection with prohibition. He Is very grateful for the changed condition of things. He uives it as his belief that had the dispehsary been running last surnmer-- certainly If the. saloons had been in operation--he would not probably have been able to handle the most menac- inr strike of his miners during the last decade. Of course. he could not say what would have happened had drink been easily accsssibie to the men on sstrike. As s.
 II believe, howsysr.. he added. "that we could not; have dealt at ali with the situation without great violence. Pro- htbitfon seemed to have taken away from the striking miner his whiskey. Furthermore, the general condition of the workmen in the mines has isnproy- cd since prohibition for, so far as can see, they are drinking, less. Of course, they are getting some drink somewhere. but I do not believe the amount is as much as when either the sa1oons or the dispensary were runs ming"
 without a doubt the voting popula- tiop of Carbon Hill. would long hesi- fate before re-establishing the. legal sale of liQuors In that town. It's pre- cincts. even the main streets, were at one time notorious for noise and yio- fence. It was the Mecca of the several hundred registering miners who would come in from the surrounding mines to 'recuperate% from. the arduous labors in the earth's cavities. With the sa- looms It was at least intoierable and there was signal victory in 1903 for the dispensary. M was hoped that 1t would better the morals of the community and make it possible--or safe, at least---to go down town nights For this purpose, the citizens found the dispensary ali 1t was recommended to be. It did not cure all the vio- lence nor clear the streets of theridan- gerous buns that made then' their nightly habitat. but 1t cut down the evil materially. '.
 Once when religious revival seizr ed the people and city council of Car bon Hiii. the dfspensary shut its doors. It was done by formal order of the
 
 mained closed only about ten days. It was considered at the time a very ex- traordinary thing for the governing body to do. Financial persuasion got the upper hand and the busirsss of the dispeusary was resumed This was in the year of 1904. 't
 But the small vote in favor of re- taining the dispensary in 1907 did not measure Justly the popularity of that e.fe r.H faSf qs4 NN has been question in Alabama of choosing between prohibition and the dispensary. the latter has been swept aside like the wave of the hand In the air. There was no individual interest that the dispensary served. No cham pion arose to defend its honor" no knightiy lance shot out to defeat the. army of King of Prohibition. It was due. of course. to the irresistible wave of reform that struck the State ins all sections. but the reason that the dis. pensary went down so easily as com pared with the saloons was because of the lack of direct interest in it's con tinuancS.
 School Funds CuFtRiIed.
 With this analysis In mind 1t Is easy now to explain why a good many of the Walker county people rather fa- yor the dispensary. The dispensary did not affect them Grectly. they ar Gued when they voted against 1t in 1901 It was a general revenue prop osition that would entail but little dis turhance whatever the outcome. But the developments of the last few days fin Carbon Hill and Jasper have caused many to express their approval of pro hibition in less fulsome terms. The schools at the two places have suffered much by being deprived of the dispen- sary profits. That forty per cent. of