The Brunswick news. [volume] (Brunswick, Ga.) 1906-2016, 1911-10-08

year each Oh lH0 gang.
Tight to regulate their own ;nrernal
affairs, by the adoption of local o:dioA
as to fence law, stock law, local tax
alton for schools, different for rs of
road laws, and various other subjects
CT legislation.
There is not a county in Georgia
where statewide prohibition has late
ly been even remotely beneficial, or
ed, where these results were not for
merly achieved by means of local op-
ton. All just laws derive their pow
er from the consent of the governed,
and from a governmental standpoint
the reversal of policy implied by the
passage of the general prohibition law
in 1907, without the advice or con-
sent of the voters of the state, was,
in my judgment long step backward
instead of a forward movement.
"The local option law of 1885 was
designed to prevent the evils of in
temperance, and so states in it's cap
ton. The present So called prohibi-
ton law was conceived in stealth, and
ushered into the world by snap
Judgment, which silenced by force
the voice of any, and every humble
citizen who dared to protest against
it. The issue of supplanting a system
of local option with regard to the
traffic in intoxicating liquors, which
had been adhered to as a policy of
the state for nearly a generation, by
statutory prohibition, was not sub
mitted to the voters of the state even
indirectly, as it most assuredly should
have been, if proposed at all. The
passage of this law, depriving some
of the counties of the right to regu-
late the sale of intoxicating liquors
without their consent, was an act OF
injustice tending to create a natural
resentment against the mere power OF
might. I favor the enforcement oi
every law upon the statute books as
long as it is a law; but 1 protest
against an unjust law, an utterly i'm
practical law, such as 1 conceive the
statewide prohibition law to be, and
I favor its repeal.
"At the time the general prohibit
ton law was passed, prohibition pl e.
| vailed in more than 120 counties, ard
in many of these counties the Law
was we'll enforced, because there wa:
public sentiment behind it. L. c9r
readily be seen, therefore, that :h<
only poss'ble reason for the passag,
of the Statewide prohibition law wa.
to affect those counties which had not
| adopted prohibition under local op.
ton; and if prohibition was what tht
| 10 counties needed, they already hat
! 1t. What has been the result in the
remaining counties? Instead of a linn
tied number of legalized saloons from
| which the state derived a revenue
there has been multiplication, o.
various devices by which intoxicatin&
liquor can be sold; and the genera
| effect of this disregard of the law il
| the counties in which there is not suf
ficient sentiment to support the pro
hibition law, has been to teach dis
regard and contempt of law in coun.
ties in which, prior to the passage o
F, the act of 1907, the prohibition Law
, was fairly we'll enforced.
| 1t is not my purpose to aid in leg.
/ alizing the sale Of liquor in any coun
ty not desiring it, nor to suggest th,
right of legal sale in any county, un
less a majority of its voters SO iecide
'''F"s" o-''"''-7 which, prior to 1907
voted prohibition for themselves
lFhould Nav" NJ '-'-o again. If the,
SO elect. Prt "oncnd'ng that the Law
is effective in all of these (more thpl
100 counties) what is the result OF III,
4 passage of the secret act of 1907? Al
see it. 1t is merely the transfer o
/ the liqu6r business necessary to SID
ply the uses of the rnoople, of thi
state from the cantrolscs our laws {,
the control Of the lawFs of other state
in which we have no voice.
| Il propos" to the people of Georgi,
that they return to the democratic
principle Of local option and the righ
of the people to n--age their owl
affairs"