The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1913-10-06


IN THE WAKE OF PROHIBITION
From the New York Commercial.
Efforts to legislate morals into people
end usually in developing a contempt for
law on the part of those at whom the
legal enactments are aimed. Wherefore
the last state of the community is worse
than the first. Witness Tennessee. A
close approach to anarchy exists in the
Volunteer state. Its credit has been in
jured more or less through near default
ON its bonds. Its legislators have lost all
sense of the dignity of their positions.
They meet and wrangle like old women.
Public officers neglect their duties in or
der to have time to sling mud and ex-
change billingsgate with other public Of
ficers. Brother is set against brother and
house is divided against itself. Preachers
rise in their pulpits to denounce this poll
tieian or to urge the election of that one;
the old time religion is discarded in favor
of the new time politics. The hem of the
cassock is dragged through the mud and
filth of political intrigue and bargain
drawn into the mess in the making of the
last state of the community
And all this that prohibition may remain
on the statute books; that those who do
not drink may say to those who wish to-
Thou shalt not
The senate halls of the capital of Ten
nessee have witnessed riot. Not a par
liamentary flibuster rancorous de-
bate, but the invasion of the galleries
and the floor by armed men representing
the prohibition mad coterie of office
holders determined to shoot down the
speaker of the assembly because of his
rulings. They trained their guns on the
speaker and on the senate leader who OPP
posed the prohibition force bills" The
order to shoot was given but other sem
ators threw themselves between the
would-be assassins and their targets A
prohibition senator made a personal at
tack on the speaker. but was restrained
by the speakers friends.
There was a time when Tennessee was
peaceful state There was a time when
many statesmen were among its sons
Three presidents, numerous cabinet off
GERS, Senate leaders of the type of Isham
G. Harris testify to this. Today a mem
Der of the supreme court and the Attor-
ney General of the United States are of
Tennessee but are not products of the
present day political system OF the state.
In the earlier time, until scarcely de-
cade ago. the people We're sober and in
dustrious the states business was trans
acted in decency and order. The citizens
dwelt together in brotherly love. They
We're proud of their state, proud of their
communities, and they had high sense
of public duty and private honor. Then,
ignoring the lesson of Maine, of Kansas
and of other states which had tried pro-
Inhibition and suffered from 1t, the So
called four-mile law was extended from
towns of 1850 in habitants or less to towns
OF $500 then to 5000 and at last to 10000.
This law provided that no liquor should
be sold within four miles of a school,
house or in any town of the designated
population, but was not retroactive. That
is, it did not apply to towns already
incorporated. The principle of local option
at first was regarded in that where
town voted dry the Legislature would
repeal its charter and Immediately re-en-
act it, this making the town a "subse-
quently Incorporated one" But as prohi-
bition fanaticism grew this was Disregard
ed and over their protests the larger
cities and many of the smaller ones were
all brought within the scope of the law
except one lone spot in the wilds of the
Cumberland plateau. where an area little
larger than a city block is more than four
miles from any schoolhouse.
The blind tiger. the alley dive. the
bootlegger Immediately began to flourish
But the large cities tired of this and when
the federal government reports showed a
great increase In the retail liquor licenses
issued the cities took upon themselves the
licensing of the saloons in open defiance
of the state laws. The courts ignored the
violations, the people by majorities of
two and three and four to one sus-
tanned the legal-illegal liquor selling. A
fortnight ago the capital city indorsed
overwhelmingly the present government
Notwithstanding the so-called whisky
vote was divided between two candida ties,
while the flaw enforcement" candidate
had his field to himself.