The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1910-04-24
IN HOTEL LOBBIES.
A Losing Cause

was not surprised to read that
William Jennings Bryan was to make
speech in Missouri in favor of state
wlde prohibition" said Robert N
blanton of Chicago; but while I was
not surprised 1 was sorry, for I think
a good deal of Mr.. Bryan.
If it were not for two or three ifs
William Jennings Bryan would be a
real statesman and a successful leader.
lie is absolutely sincere, but so are
fanatics He is brilliant orator but
so are many men of only ordinary in
telleetual force eloquent in speech He
| is in sympathy with the struggling
masses, but he falls short of being a
statesman because he is susceptible to
Gil sorts of isms' He is visionary. and
nothlng proves him to be such more
conciuslYely than his readiness to
champion the cause of state-w wide pro-
hibition. Prohibition is a failure and
more than failure, because 1t pro-
notes hypocrisy and perjury and makes
Tor moral deterioration in general
way
Mr.. Chain, the prohibition can
didate for President in 1908, and Ma
tional Prohibition Chairman Jones are
both giving out interviews showing
that prohibition is a failure. They
prove by the United States internal
revenue statistics that the consumption
of both whisky and beer is Increasing.
MI Jones said the other day that there
was no such thing as dry territory.
According to Messrs. Chain and
Jones prohibition will always be
failure until Congress adopts legisla-
tloS prohibiting the shipping of liquor
into states that have statutes against
the liquor traffic.
1T has been found that statewide
prohibition in the few states that have it
is either too drastic or so loose that lit
tie or no attention is paid to it.
THE so-called prohibition wave is
rapidly receding. Missouri will nor go
dry, and neither will Florida On tie
other hand at least three states that are
now nominally dry will return to the
sound democratic doctrine of local option
within the next year or two.
"Since the prohibition agitation started
in New England, over so years ago, no
man big enough to occupy the White
House has ever espoused the cause of
prohibition. Jefferson Davis, Presiden. of
the Southern Confederacy, is now ac-
cepted by impartial publicists as one of
the greatest statesmen who has lived in
modern times. He was strongly against
prohibition. Abraham Lincoln, who was
an exceptionally great man. uttered some
harsh things against prohibition. lie
had no patience whatever with prohi-
bition agitators. Mr. Tilden was earnest
~ opposed to prohibition. MT Hayes
was total abstainer. but not a prohi-
btionist. Grover Cleveland regarded pro-
hibition as undemocratic and altogether
wrong in principle. Ex-President Roose-
welt Is vehemently down on prohibition,
and President Taft has written and
spoken ably against prohibition. l am
truly sorry that Mr.. Bryan is not states
man enough to avoid political pitfalls;
sorry that he gives his support to a propo-
sition that has been found to be utterly
impractical to say nothing of its puritanic
and unfairness. And while
prohibition stimulates the traffic In the
worst sort of whisky, cities and states
are cut out of much needed revenue