The St. Lucie County tribune. (Fort Pierce, St. Lucie County, Fla.) 1905-1920, 1910-10-28
FLORIDA FOR
PROHIBITION
Citizens of Jacksonville State
Issue In Present Campaign
SALOONS OR NO SALOONS
A Vote Against Amendment Is an Alliance
With the Criminaliy Qualified Negroes
and Whiskey Control OF Politics

The citizens of Jacksonville named
below have addressed the following ap-
peal to the voters of Florida:
On the 9Th of November you will be
called upon to vote Yes or No on the
question of the continuance of liquor
saloons in our State.
You will have been bewildered by all
sorts of questions about Local Option"
County Rights" ''True Democracy,
Personal Liberty" and the time-worn
wall that prohibition Does not Pro-
hibit" and every bubble that can be
raised to dodge the issue and turn you
aside from the real question Shall
Saloons continue or not?
But there is no lodging the issue, for
| no matter whether you vote against
the Amendment from personal interest
alone or from an honest conviction that
it violates some principle you uphold,
the real effect of your vote is vote to
keep open the saloon, to keep up the
jug trade, to keep up thelcontrol which
the liquor interests now hold on both
business and politics and finally to sane
| ton and join int alliance with the
criminally qualified negro vote which
these self-appointed opponents of"pure
democracy" have so brazenly created.
| You are asked to vote against the
Amendment because it would put an
end to the benefcent reign of 'Local
Option" by which. through the bless.
ing of the jug trade and the mail order
system. you can enjoy living in coun.
ty that is dry by name and wet by
neighborhood.
The same Local Option which gives
your county the privilege Of going dry,
gives your neighboring county the
privilege not only Of staying wet out
also of flooding yours with the very
traffic you have voted out. Thus there
cannot be one truly dry county in Flor
ida as long as there is single wet one.
ests out of county after county. they
have taken refuge in the remaining
ones and you have finally rounded them
up so closely that the unfortunate
localities where they have settled are
not able of themselves to GUST them,
and must not only suffer from their
yoke but unwillingly aid in debauching
the balance of the State, unless the
counties which have driven them from
there own borders by individual action,
will now by united action drive them
from the State itself.
You are asked to believe that State
wide prohibition by the vote of the
whole people is violation of the prin-
ciples of true democracy; but what
principle of democracy is more firmly
| fixed than the sovereignty of the States
whole people? What right has small
arbitrary subdivision Of the State,
made for convenience in the local
execution of statewide laws, to say to
the sovereign people of the whole state,
Thou Shalt not?"
You are told that this Amendment
will deprive you of your personal
liberty" possession we cannot prize
too highly, but one which in a civilized
community must be limited on all sides
by its contact with the personal
! liberty" of those around US.
! Our personal liberty of dress is limit
| ed by the law that we must not appear
in public unless decently clad; our per-
sonal liberty of defense by the law
against concealed weapons,our personal
liberty of eating by the laws against
the sale of impure food; our personal
! liberty to poison ourselves is limited by
the laws prohibiting the sele of opium,
cocaine and other dangerous drugs, and
| the Amendment but adds to this list
! The most dangerous and poisonous drag
of them all-Alcohol.
These laws do not prohibit US from
dressing as we choose in the privacy
of our home, nor from keeping weapons
! there, nor from eating what we please,
nor even there partaking of poisonous
drugs neither does the Amendment
prohibit US from using alcoh oil in he
same place.
When all these questions fail to con-
vince you. you are told to vote against
the Amendment because prohibition
does not Prohibit" That statement
| in itself bears the semblance of a truth
since law is effective only through its
enforcement.
Because of this fact, what you are
really told then is, Prohibition will
not be allowed to prohibit" because
wherever the liquor interests are in
power, they will cause the laws of the
State and the oaths of officials, sworn
to enforce them, to be set aside In
other words, in seven or eight counties,
the liquor power says to the rest of the
State, Its no use for you to make
laws that hurt our business for we
won't obey them and you can't make US
do so"
The statement of the liquor interests
that Prohibition does not prohibit Is
nothing more nor less than direct