The Hattiesburg news. (Hattiesburg, Miss.) 1908-1917, 1913-11-29

which have any knowledge are on the
statute books OF my state. The juries
indict and convict the violators of those
laws quicker when proven guilty than
for any other crime, yet, Mr.. Speaker,
I have seen justice thwarted, permit
ting notorious blind tigers to infest a
law-abidng community, not because
the officers of the law were not doing
all in their power to run the blind
tigers down, but because they were
protected by the Federal government,
which allowed them to have their
liquors consigned to them in the depot
to remain in safety until the darkness
and stiffness of the night when they
could procure their large consignment
and convey it to their den of vice and
immortality. If this bill passes the Of
flcers Of the state can seize the liquors
before they are delivered to the blind
tiger and thereby prevent the deadly
poison from infesting the community.
from making sad homes and hungry
children. l have seen, Mr.. Speaker,
In my own city, the officers watch the
express offices and freight offices for
days and nights trying to catch and
seize great quantity of liquor, which
they knew was not for personal use,
but for sale after it had been delivered
to the consignee by the interstate car
rier, but the bootlegger and blind tiger
are always too cunningly alert and
immorally smart. They know every
policeman and detective, and the senti-
ments of every man in the community
their sympathizers and their enemies
and they wait their time with pa
thence, sometimes until the wee hours
of the morning in order to obtain their
| liquors from these offices. If this law
be passed the express and freight Of
fees can be watched, and these liquors,
when brought into prohibition states
for illegal purposes, can be immediate
ly seized and destroyed, and the COM
munity will be blessed thereby.
When we ask this right. who should
oppose it? The people of a state hava
right to demand that their laws be
enforced. Good citizens of every state
will sympathize with their brethren
in other states in the enforcement OF
their laws.
If the liquors are received for person
al use they will not be destroyed, and
only the lawbreakers, bootleggers
blind tigers, and their sympathizers il
my state and other prohibition states
can possibly find objection to the pas
sage of this bill, and only the distillers
liquor sellers, brewers, and their sym
pathizers in other parts of the countr!
will oppose it.
The gentleman from Milwaukee (Mr
Berger) says that the violation of tn,
law has increased in the South sine,
the advent of prohibition. l interrupt
ed the gentleman for a question whel
he made that statement, but he declin
ed to yield. Surely he does not desire t
do the prohibition states of the Soutl
an injustice, and | am sure that thi
statement was made because of his is
, norance of the conditions there rattle
} than desire on his part to misreprt
, sent the condition there. l will not a
!, tempt to speak on this question of a
increase in crime since the advent c
prohibition in the other states of tn
/ South, but coming, as do, from Nil
sissippi a state that has within the las
7 10 years seen the open saloon and il
: effect and statutory prohibition and it
influence, feel that I can truly depic
to this House the conditions in thu
3 state before and since the enactmer
of statewide prohibition law.
e l served for two years as distrit
t attorney in one of the districts Of m
t state where three of the counties ha
t open saloons and legally sold liquor
4 l served for three years in the san
e district with those three counties u
9 der the statutory prohibition law an
r when the open saloon had been abolis
ed-for five years in the courts
= those counties, two years of whiC
d there were saloons and three years
l. which we had prohibition-and durir
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