The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-09-01
An Ant,.prob,bition Prediction

An Anti-ProhibitiOn Prediction l q read with interest ex-Mayor George | Wards forecast of Brmingham's condi- tion made just before the election in 1907, l said a taxpayer Tn that forecast it was assumed that Jefferson county would go dry. and it did go dry. MT. Wards ut terances suggested the utter futility of
 prohibition and the bad blood that would be stirred up. l looked upon MT. Ward at the time-during the Anti-Saloon | league campaign in 1907--as wide awake, earnest executive, but I hadn't thought of him as a seer Subsequent events, however, proved that he had clear vision, knew human nature, and looked well into 1 the future.
 T voted the prohibition ticket in 1907,
 but have been on the other side ever
 since. I attended meetings in all the campaigns going to hear those who thought and spoke as I felt and those who held opposite views. But with the exception of attending meetings l have taken no active part in contests over the liquor question. In voting for the open saloon last week my conscience told me
 
 mingham. Moral conditions could not be any worse than they have been under prohibition in this state of Alabama, and l think there is reason to hope for rea- lively clean moral community with the regulated saloon, At any rate, Birming- ham will be better off in many respects with saloons than it was without them. T may not be as good a prophet as MT. Ward. but one thing I will predict other wet or dry election in this coun- ty-that is to say. in this generation. l am one of the many who helped drive out the saloons in 1907, and who has helped to establish saloons. I have no apolo- gies for my anti-saloon vote four years ago. Liquor conditions here impelled me to vote then as l did. But many who voted with the Anti-Saloon league be- came dyed in the wool prohibitionists. Some of my best friends turned out to be regular fanatics on the subject of liquor. They declared with vehemence, Now that we are rid of the liquor traffic in Jeffer- son county no one will live to see"the day when a saloon will be opened again in Birmingham
 When the legislature adopted those ab- surdly drastic measures making prohibit tion statewide my fanatical friends eX- claimed, The day will never come when the saloon can be opened again in the state of Alabama Many of the leaders thought that way-even some who were supposed to be shrewd politicians; but 1t didn't take much of a prophet or much of a philosopher to know that puritani- cal institutions can never thrive in the south, and the very severity of the Car michael and Fuller acts made it certain that a reaction would take place, and take place soon. The majority of the voters of Alabama were never statewide prohibtionists. The laws were fastened on the people by an hysterical legislature. When the people had chance to express themselves directly they voted against the prohibition side. In this county the Anti Saloon league sprung the election in 1907 on the people when hundreds of men op- posed to prohibition-a0O0 or 3o00 perhaps living in this county were not qualified to vote That was a legitimate advantage that we Anti-Saoon leaguers of the time seized.
 Now believe that the open saloon in Birmingham under an excise commission | will make this a model saloon town. l hope and pray so. But whether or not | it proves to be a model we are certainly not going to have bad Birmingham any
 more, and as the majority of the people are sick and tired of political prohibition l there will never be another prohibition election in this part of the country. I Those of my neighbors who had said with such emphasis that the saloon would
 never return feel bit sore now They
 die hard, but I believe the ultra-prohibi- l tionists will be few and far between be- | fore next Christmas"
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