The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-08-02
Clear View and Plain. Words

makes statements regarding the pllnu
 tiger business which go to show the
 failure, and worse than failure, of
 prohibition in this city. One does not
 have to be connected with the munl-
 cipal government to know in gen.
 eral way that the illicit traffic in liouor is enormous. Chief Bodeker
 gives facts and figures from the
 records in his, office showing that
 lawlessness is increasing instead of
 diminishing.
 But in determining questions such
 as relate to prohibition an intimate
 knowledge of conditions is better
 than all the statistics that can be as-
 sembled. As a great British states
 man once said, of the various kinds
 of lies statistics can do the most
 harm, or words to that effect. The
 prohibitionist who wishes to prove his side of the argument may go back
 and find that before Chief Bodeker's
 superintendency of the police force
 there were, according to population,
 more arrests for drunkenness than
 have been recorded in the past two
 or three years. The man who opposes
 saloons gleefully points to statlstlcs
 to show that the situation as com
 pared with some years ago IS lm-
 proyed. But it should be remembered
 that up to very recent years many
 arrests were made every month on frivolous charges. It is not so now, ? The anti-prohibitionist points to f Bodeker's statistics in his interview f in The Age-Herald of yesterday to = prove that the liquor violations, in = spite of honest efforts at enforce , ment of law, are rapidly increasing. ) The thoughtful man-the man ot | common sense philosophy who under , stands the relation of things and who has a reasonable sense of proportion knows that prohibition instead of improving the morals of large cities has done just the reverse. One may
 readily understand the truth of Chief
 Bodeker's statements when that of ficial says:
 q am in a position to know the dis nal failure of prohibition. This
 failure has also had very demoral- izing effect upon the enforcement of other laws. Reckless disregard and defiance of one class of laws natur-
 ally result in the disregard and de- fiance of other laws.
 "Blind tigers and other forms of , vice go hand in hand. For example, there is nothing more detrimental to , our moral life than the sale of liquors by women and children and in places l frequented by women and children. It f is matter of frequent occurrence to c sec. respectable looking white women
 brought into court for operating blind c tigers. In many instances, girls of e 12 years of age have been found serv- S ing drinks and sitting for company - in apparently respectable houses" O In the election to be held three n weeks from tomorrow for the purpose
 of deciding whether this county is to
 have high licensed and strictly regu-
 lated saloons or dispensaries, or r whether the county is to continue I technically dry, those who advocate f saloons will win.
 s A measure which was proposed p during the session of the legislature l. seeking to establish dispensary sys- a tenn here for the sale of whisky and }, with a provision for beer and wine S saloons would have operated well f But the law enacted makes no dis.
 pensary exception in favor of beel l. and wine, and all things considered n the saloon conducted under the sur n veillance of an excise commission will r be decidedly preferable to the dis h pensary.
 d With saloons established the blinc l. tiger must go. The retail liquor
 dealer who pays 5000 for license st and whose commercial existence de- l. bends upon his strict conformity to E. law will be most circumspect. More > oyer he will make it his business to n hunt down the blind tiger. Purely al e "a selfish matter he cannot afford tt