The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-08-17
As To Future Progress
manner.

sus it had an apparent gain of 245 per cent over the census of 1900. This phenomenally large percentage of increase was due to the extension of the city limits, but even in actual gain in the territory brought with in the corporate limits there was a growth of more than 100 per cent a larger percentage gain computed on properly related figures than most of the other prosperous cities in the United States could boast of, and there is every reason to expect greater rate of growth between now and the time the next census is taken.
 Few cities in the United States are so favored as Birmingham This dis trict has great natural resources in it's minerals, and the city of Birming- ham is situated not only in the midst of coal and iron, but in a splendid agricultural field as well. Cotton and other crops contribute materially to Birmingham commerce. While this will always be known as a manufac- turing center, there is enough terri tory whose trade is tributary to Bir- mingham to make the city great jobbing point and the best shopping town between New Orleans and Louisville.
 A week from today the people of Jefferson county will vote on the Tliquor question to decide, in the first place, whether this county is to re- main "dry" or whether it will vote for legalized liquor business, and next, in the event that the county decides against prohibition, whether we will have the dispensary or the saloon. There can be no doubt whatever as to the general result. Jefferson coun- ty will vote wet by a landslide ma jority. Even hundreds of pronounced prohibitionists who have been sincere in opposing the liquor traffic will vote wet this time. AS to the strength of the dispensary side, it will be diff ficult to guess just how many votes it will poll.
 The high license and regulation proposition appeals most strongly to the business men of Birmingham. Men who have been active and who will always be active in the upbuild- ing of this city think that both from moral and a commercial point of view the saloon is best for Jefferson county. It is certainly better than the blind tiger, and, viewed on all sides, it is better than the dispensary. The dispensary seems to have worked we'll in Tuscaloosa and in other cities of the smaller class. Birmingham population today is between 150,000 and 0,000. Our citizens like to tell of Birmingham metropolitan charac- ter. The city has many metropolitan features, and the district is, in the nature of our industrial situation, strikingly cosmopolitan. We have
 large foreign element and we want
 more foreigners. The districts ex-
 perience with foreign labor has been highly satisfactory.
 Now, as Judge Lane pointed out,
 dry town is a dull town. No one can accuse Birmingham of being very
 "dry." It is dry only in technical
 sense. It is wet in scandalous
 sense. It has come to be one of the
 rottenest blind tiger towns in the
 south. The last legislature adopted
 sumptuary laws as puritanical as
 those adopted by the early settlers of
 New England. Governor Conner com
 mitted himself to drastic prohibition, but in his administration prohibition failed to prohibit in Birmingham, Montgomery and Mobile, to say { nothing of other cities in the state. 5 There was spasmodic effort at en- : forcement, but in populous communi- l ties large police organizations would ! have been necessary in order to keep 9 up with the blind tigers. @ The Birmingham police have been s especially vigilant of late and have 0 made many arrests for violation of e the prohibition laws, but unless every l. other citizen were policeman, ana a honest and lynx-eyed at that, it woulc o have been impossible to rid the cit, k of blind tigerism, since public senti | ment is not decidedly arrayed agains