The Birmingham age-herald., 1910-12-25
JACKSON WRITES ON
 PROHIBITION FIGHT Says Regulation Always Has and Always Will Fail MAKES REPLY TO PERCY Activities of Such Men for Solution of Problem Are Proof That Con
 science Is Awake in the
 State

To the Editor of The Age-Herald: No man may rightfully assume to speak for the prohibitionists of Alabama. And yet fronted as we are with the assump- ton on the part of our opponents that | our cause can last only till the converting of the legislature, 1t may not be pre- sumption in me, as chairman of the con- mittee which made the fight for the | amendment, to assume moro or less representative capacity, and so to say word of comfort and of hope to the friends and supporters of our undertake ing
 I am moved to this course at this time by the letter of MT. Percy, legislator-elect from Jefferson county, which appeared in The Age-Herald of last Sunday, and in which he declares that prohibition is a failure, that whisky Is to re-enter Br mingham under the sanction of law, and that the only question left for statesmen to discuss is, what restriction shall bind the triumphant enemy of mankind on his legalzeda return from Elba? As if. for sooth, any regulations or laws or pains or penalties less than extinction can D1nu him. Lions are not tanned with latitude to roam at large, even though the muslin skirt of regulation be hobbled around their feet. The prohibitionists are yet in the ma | jority in Alabama. The submission of the
 amendment gave opportunity to our enc
 mics to lug in other issues. to obscure
 the genial sun of temperance reform,
 to frighten many men and to buy many
 more. But down in their deep hearts the
 people are sound to the core. MT. Percy
 and others who shall march in the forth
 coming procession from Elba have only
 little while to wait for the booming
 guns that will announce another Water
 loo For every "come back" in bad
 cause, from Napoleon through Jeffries
 down to Mr., Roosevelt, there has been
 Waterloo Let aspiring politicians be
 sure that the God of justice and mercy,
 who feels for the widow and Is the or
 phan's stay. will make no exception in favor of this arch enemy of the human
 race in his boastful ana proud return l I speak for all the prohibitonistsi when
 I say, with John Paul Jones. We have
 just begun to fight" We have once for
 all taken our stand on the issue whisky
 O. no whisky" Compared to the feeble
 and temporary trial given prohibition,
 but which MT. Percy thinks has been so
 complete and fair and full as to leave
 no shadow of doubt, the trial given reg
 ulation has been as mountains piled on
 mountains to the tiny molehil at their
 base. Centuries on centuries have tried
 regulation. Laws who printed length
 would belt the universe. have tried to
 regulate Nations have given their best
 and noblest minds to that intellectual
 task Philosophers and statesmen, preach
 CTS and churches and kings have regu-
 lated in vain.
 | Along the line of march of regulation,
 from Noah to Percy and Motion and
 Robertson and all that latter-day multi
 tude who are dreaming they can do what
 no one else has ever done, failures lie piled like skulls in the wake of Tar | ter armies. Every theory of regulation | that the human mind has ever conceived | has somewhere been tried out and by
 men as wise as we. The good. the great, the wise, lovers of mankind, have given
 days and nights and labor and prayer | to schemes of regulation. have felt the
 high ecstacy of believing they had found the secret of regulation. Yet all their | schemes and theories and labors have | gone down in one common ruin of failure | and despair. & a ..i.-..
 Various and sundry gentlemen are put | ting forth their petty plans of regulation
 and restriction. pluming them and preen- | ing them, gazing on them and caressing them as a mother her first born, unwit- ting they that all have been tried of cid and all have failed. and their progeny
 are but foundlings dragged from the
 sepulchers of dead and putrefied experi-
 ments.
 | Schemes of regulation and restriction have been tried in all the centuries. n- cludiny Alabama for more than half her | life time If they were not all failures
 why are our wisest and most potent To- cal statesmen puzzled to find the right method ready at their hand. Why, amid all the thousand variations of this sweet
 rose of regulation, planted and nurtured | in this land and in all lands, can one not
 bc found ready lowered and without a thorne to pick MT. Percy's nose when tests their scent and quality? If regu-
 lotion. the rule and law of life in all the world except a few scattered prohibi- i
 ton spots that dot it's surface here and
 there, Is not failure. why must MT.
 Motion spend 'laborious days and nights
 devoid of ease'' thinking out a new reg ulation scheme. when myriads of old and
 tried ones beseech his approval and adop- tion? ~ W rs.e+.-s, 4,t rsa Birmingham, Jefferson county, Ala
 bama, went prohibition because regula-
 tion had failed. It is no matter to say why regulation failed. Its condemnation
 as failure was uttered in thunder tones
 by the people who saw and knew and believed the evidence of their senses.
 Tried for years and years and years. and
 condemned as failure-by whom? By the people. But prohibition, after two years of trial. petty, brief two yeors, is declared failure-by whom? As between two dogs, MT. Percy would not give the verdict against the younger on such a
 comparative test as thatia A4 hs-. My friends and associates in Athe cause of prohibition our hone and comfort lie,