Atlanta semi-weekly journal. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1898-1920, 1909-05-04
BY HON. sEABORN WRIGHT.
MUNCY. Ind. April goth. 1903.

MUNCY, Ind, April goth. 1909.
Editor Journal:
Ten days ago on my way back home
from Michigan, l found this significant
Associated Press;
CINCINNATI, April 9.-"The drying
OUT of twenty Michigan counties in the
local option election this week will cost
Cincinnati liquor interests large amount
of business annually, and 1 believe it
would be safe to estimate the loss at
about two million dollars a year." said
wholesale liquor dealer in discussion
of the liquor situation at the chamber
of commerce here.
Mark it, Twenty counties dry way up
in Michigan, and Cincinnati, not the Mich
igan counties, loses 81. 100000. Now, if the
people of the Michigan counties will drink
under prohibition just as much liquor out
of blind pigs" as out of barrooms under
the license system, how is IL that Gin
cinnati will lose this 100000?
But the point l wish TO emphasize is
this: If Cincinnati loses 100000 by the
drying up of twenty counties in Michigan
how much did Cincinnati lose when a
thousand counties in the south went dry?
Now. 81. OOO,O 600 for twenty Michigan coun-
| ties means 100000 annually for each coun-
! ty; apply these figures to one thousand
1
mean the loss of one hundred million dol
lars annually. But, of course, Cincinnati
! is not in as close touch with the south
as with Michigan.
The wall of this wholesale Cincinnati
! liquor dealer ought to furnish food for
much serious thinking to patriotic bust
1 ness men in the south.
The lower south never manufactured a
great quantity of intoxicating liquors
| the four dry states, Georgia, Alabama,
! North Carolina, Mississippi, with their
! eight million people bought from states
north of them the overwhelming mass of
liquor they consumed. If the people of
| these states under the old saloon system
drank no more or less than the people of
| other sections their liquor bill ran on
| the lowest estimate to S120,OOOOO0 annu-
| ally.
| Three-fourths of this vast amount went
| direct-without ever touching the bust
ness life of the south-to foreign brewers.
| distillers and jobbers.
| Take the question of federal internal
revenue tax on distilled liquors alone
10 on each gallon. The consumer, not
the manufacturer, pays this tax, and the
federal statistics show that each consul
mer on an average, drinks something
over two gallons of distilled liquor annu-
/ ally This would make the 100000 peo-
pie of the dry states of the south pay
500 each in federal tax, or 900 an
nually on whisky alone to the federal
| government.
| 1t is a startlingly significant fact that
\ since Georgia started the great tenn
perance wave the internal revenue from
this source has fallen of $41,0O00O0.
| Take another Observation-Disclosures
der the old license system consumed mill
lions of dollars worth of foreign whis-
keys and beer. This vast amount in large
proportion, never touched the life of the
! city after it passed over the counter The
| $50. 900 consumers of Atlanta paid the
federal government internal revenue tax
on whisky alone-over a quarter of a
million dollars annualiy-and even the
city tax, which today is troubling some
people in Atlanta. was not paid by the
saloons, but by the 10000 Atlanta con-
sumers of foreign liquors.
| 1t is no wonder that Cincinnati, st.
Louis Chicago and other great liquor
centers are troubled about prohibition
in Michigan and Georgia. 1t is no wonder
that the liquor interest of these gerat
centers of the liquor trade are spending
millions to stop the spread of prohibit
tion-doing every thing in their power to
nulify laws against the sale of liquors
to bring such laws into disrepute.
This brings me to another Associated