The Hawaiian star. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu]) 1893-1912, 1911-08-05

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.frage amendment to the Constitution
for popular approval, and the vote on
Its acceptance is to be taken in the
Fall Of next year. The liquor inter-
ests see the necessity of beating that
proposition before their own gets be-
fore the people.
IF the women are enfranchised,"
says the leading liquor organization of
the country, they will go 10000 to l
lin favor of the retention of the anti.
liquor clause"
Liquor agitations increase in Ohio
as the time for the assembling of the
popular convention that is to frame a
new fundamental law for the State
next year approaches. The dry
forces hope to induce the delegates to
include a prohibition clause in their
draft. The delegates are to be chosen
at the general election in the coming
Fall, and the VETS and tee-totallers
are engaged in a fierce struggle for IA
voring members.
Ohio publicists all agree that the
State Constitution has outlived it's
usefulness. 1t is more than sixty
Years since it was given to the COM
monwealth, and something less anti
quated is demanded by mmen of all
parties One of it's features is a clause
providing that "the liquor traffic shall
never be licensed" The courts have
CONSTRUCTED this to mean, not that the
traffic is prohibited, but that it may be
conducted under other conditions. 1t
has since gone on under what are
known as "mulct laws" and other
police regulations laid down by the
| Legislature from time to time.
That which is now being made is
the second attempt of recent years to
give the State an organic law more in
keeping with her greatness than that
she now has. A Constitution, fash
Toned by popular convention in 1885,
was defeated because the people did
not like its liquor clauses. Precau.
tons have been taken against the re-
ipudiation of the work of next years
convention for reasons of that char.
acter. The Legislature has directed
that it's clauses concerning liquor
shall be voted on separately from the
body of the instrument. A mighty
discussion is going on between the
lcontending forces as to the form in
which those clauses shall be present
ed to the people.
The temperance workers have al
ready written upon the statute books
of the State a county option law, the
modification of which was attempted
at the recent session of the Buckeye
Legislature. Many cities voting wet"
were forced to go dry" by the vote of
the surrounding places in the county,
and an act offered to the Legislature
was designed to enable the cities to do
as they pleased about it.
1t was beaten in Ohio, but Indiana,
which has a similar county option law,
passed an amending law. 1t permits
the cities that want saloons in dry
counties to vote them in. Since its
passage, so of the 1913 municipalities
that have held elections under it have
been taken out of the prohibition area.
They call the dry counties Saharas in
Ohio; the saloon-voting cities are
known as GASES by the thirsty. Most
of the cities in the State of whatever
size are preparing to take advantage
of the modifying law, and both sides
are girding for the fray.
Those who may have been puzzled
by Henry Watterson's anti-prohibition
frenzy, find it's explanation in the
collision of the prohibition movement
with the larger politics of Kentucky.
He is not the only Bourbon who fears
that his Blue Grass may be snatched
form his lips as the result of the com
plication. According to the story told
in official circles, ex-senator Beckham