The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-08-21
LOCAL OPT|ON|STS | FIRE THE PEOPLE WITH ENTHUSIASM Big Meeting Held Yester-
 day at the Orpheum
 Theatre TWAS GATHERING OF PHALANX OF VOTERS Prohibitionists Criticised for Desert ing Their Offspring and Rush.
 ing to Aid of Dispensaries. Tom Long Spoke

I
 several hundred men stood. From the
 unbounded applause which greeted the | utterances of the speakers, it was very
 evident that the local optionists are an | ticipating handsome majority in favor
 of the open, well-regulated saloon on next | Thursday.
 | Col. Peyton G. Bowman presided over
 the meeting and the speakers were pr. | E. H. Elkourie, Isadore Shapiro and Tom L. Long of Walker.
 Colonel Bowman announced that he would only make few remarks, be- cause his voice was not strong and he was saving it for the joint discussion with his law-partner, MT. Beddow, who is chairman of the opposition. The de- bate will be held next Wednesday night at o'clock, at the Jefferson theatre. Colonel Bowman also announced that he was going to give MT. Beddow the great est skinning he ever received' A chal- lenge had been also extended, he stated, to MT. Rice by Isadore Shapiro, to meet him at the Orpheum the same evening, | and that Tom L. Long would extend an | invitation to MT. Burr to meet him in
 
 date.
 pr. Elkourie thanked those in the au- dence who took part in the generous | reception they gave him and MT. Shapiro last Thursday night. 'I do declare before God and you, I entered this fight he stated, without hope of fee or reward. | I have not received penny for my services, and do not hope to receive any compensation; therefore, I have merely | tried to do my duty as an American cit ! izen." He spoke against the dlspensary ! and the inconsistency of the opposition condemning the Smith bill and then ask ing the people to support the dispensary which can only be established under the provisions of that bill. He talked of the evils of blind tigersm and told the au- | dience that In his opinion the only solu- | tion of the present problem was the we'll regulated saloon.
 | He was given close attention and the | audience applauded him enthusiastically | at the conclusion of his speech. | Isadore Shapiro was the next speaker. He was greeted with much applause. He told the people that ''in 1so7 a band of theorists, styling themselves prohibition | lsts,' painted to the people of this county
 two pictures. One was a picture of misery and distress-representin the old time,
 unregulated saloon. The other was a pie ture of land of milk and honey gar den of Eden, without a tint of liquor. This picture the prohbitionists told us represented prohibition. Like a fanciful lchid hypnotized and fascinated into be-
 lieving fantastic and wonderful stories, the people believed these tales, and iol-
 lowed the theorists along the path Of
 prohibition until they came to a preclpice,
 and looking oeer they beheld true condi- tions, realities, actualities. They woke up
 as one awakes from some beautirul dream. They had been fooled. They be-
 held blind tiger ridden community. and
 the degradation that accompanies that evil"
 He took up the salient features of the Smith bill, and said that the opposition s attack upon that measure was not made in good faith. "Their criticisms he said,
 "are fictitious, manufactured for the sole
 purpose of misleading the people, and be-
 
 He spoke of the merits of the excise con- lnission and enumerated the drastic iegu-
 lations of the bill.
 He paid his respects to the dispensary, and said that the dispensary had every where it had been tried the same unen-
 viable and black record as prohioition-- dismal failure.
 l 1r,, hi a. golden opportunity to render service
 of immeasurabe value to your country, to your state and to your county. Help
 rid the community of the blind tiger and all the vice that accompanies it. Enlist
 your friends in this great moral fight. Go
 to the polls. plant ballot for high license and strict regulation and there will sprout decency, morality and law and order The blind tiger will then be relegated to the archives of prohibition"
 Mr. Shapiro was wildly cheered when he concluded.
 | Tom L. Long was the next and last speaker He started out by praising Bfr- mingham and Jefferson county saying that the eyes of the country were rpon both The question: he said, was not wet or dry, but that politics was behind it., and referred to some of the opposition speakers as discredited speakers. He pre- dicted that if the prohibitionists should Incidentally happen to win this fight, that the amendment ghost would again make its appearance, and that the reo- pie would be compelled to fight that all over again.
 He denounced the dspensary as being much worse than the saloon. He stated that the dispensary lis all right for the wealthy man with a big cellar and side Loaid, but it is not the thing for the
 workingman who cannot afford these things
 He denounced the race prejudice that had been stirred up against the local ol tlonists to poison the minds of the
 Ieople.
 MT. Long deprecated the activity of the church in the fight, charging some of the
 church people with desecrating the Sab | ] ath by inflammatory utterances. and con-
 dcmned the utterances of certain minis
 ters. We are willing he said, Ito take | :. yard stick and measure ourselves with
 some of the preachers on the other side" | He said that the great democrat, Thom- | as Jefferson, sought the separation of the 1 church from the state, and that 1t was sad to behold the preachers now attempt frs to bring the church so prominently into the political arena. He paid his re-