Arizona republican., 1914-07-24
MAKING USELESS BLUNDERS

] The time has passed when a few
 druggists can get together at the in
 stance of an aggregation of saloon keepers and dictate to their associates |; how they shall vote.
 | More and more. as time goes on, the | less than thirty druggists who met at l the hotel Adams last Tuesday and de- cided to sweep all druggist votes in | Arizona into the wet cOlmun, together with all others they can influence, will find that they have made a serious mistake.
 If there is any one man who de- serves the severest castigation of dec
 ent people, it is the whiskey druggist. William Allen White in his admirable article in the Saturday Evening Post recently said
 The ostracism of the Whiskey drug gist really did more to pulverize the rum power in Kansas than any other one act of the quarter century. Every Kansas county had in jail at least one genial and urbane pill -pounder who
 was the life of the company at the card table" sss-
 The same thing will have to happen
 in Arizona before We can handle the
 liquor traffic here. The saloon-keeper
 who puts on his white apron and goes
 behind the bar and dispenses his pro-
 duct is respectable in comparison to
 the druggist who uses his prescription
 counter for the same purpose. The
 saloon keeper may not know any bet
 ter, but the druggist does know better.
 He knows that alcohol in all it's forms
 is a narcotic poison and he deliber
 ately and knowingly injures his con-
 fiding patron when he sells him alco-
 holic liquors.
 When expert information is available
 for every honest seeker after truth
 there is no excuse for ignorance. When one wants information about insanity
 he ought to go to an alienist. When
 he wants information on chemistry he
 ought to go to a chemist. When he wants information on law he ought to
 go to a lawyer When he wants infor ma ton on medicine he ought to go to q doctor. When he wants information on constitutional amendment he ought to go to the one who has made a spec ialty of that amendment and knows its every detail.
 By failure to pursue this logical course, the druggists who met at the Adams hotel left their meeting know ing as little as they knew when they arrived. They gave out as their pro- nunciamento the letter of Harry Beas- l ley of Prescott. who knew even less
 than they. Such a course, can never arrive at the truth of anything. Before this campaign is over every druggist in Arizona is going to align himself one way or the other. He Is going to get into the dry column where he belongs or he is going to fight by the side of the Royal Arch where he belongs. There is no middle ground, and he cannot excuse his course by any | false pretext This is a battle in which he must bear scars as well as others and he will be judged by the people on his merits.
 Time will demonstrate what the tenn perance people of Arizona already
 know, that the proposed statewide dry | amendment is most effective piece of proposed legislation. It embodies the crystallized wisdom of all the years in dealing with this question No feature was omitted in it's preparation. It was discussed pro and con from every possible point of view. All in terests were consulted. It had to stop the manufacture and sale of alcohol in all its forms for beverage purposes and to do this not dare to leave the raw materials in the hands of any person to tempt one man to buy and another to sell.
 The provisions exempting denatured alcohol covers every possible contin- gency. The unfermented juice of tho