The Ocala banner. (Ocala, Marion County, Fla.) 1883-194?, 1914-02-13
THE CHURCH MILITANT AGAINST
THE SALOON

(World's Work, Feb. is, 1914)
The Anti-Saloon League is the fed
Grated church in action against the
saloon. It's agents are of the church
and under all circumstances loyal to
the church. 1t goes just as fast and
just as far as the public sentiment of
the church will permit 1t has not
come to the kingdom simply to build
little local sentiment or 10 secure
the passage of a few laws. nor yet
to vote the saloons from a few hun
dred towns. These are mere Incl
dents in its progress. 1t has come TO
solve the liquor problem.
The Anti-Saloon League is not po-
litical party. 1t is a league of organ
izations, and these organizations are,
chiefly, the Christian churches of
America, of almost every denomina-
ton, creed and sect. The Anti-Sa-
loon League is, in fact, the church in
politics-the modern church mill
tant" And the holy war in which il
against the saloon.
When the league was organized,
twenty year sage, outside of few
thinly populated prohibition states
there was hardly a spot on the map
of the United States where liquor
was not sold openly and legally. To
day, rs per cent. of the total area of
the United States-2,13O,476 square
miles-is dry" territory There are
nine states in which it is illegal to
sell liquor anywhere in the common
wealth: Georgia, Kansas, Maine, Mis-
sissippi, North Carolina, North Dako-
ia, Oklahoma, Tennessee and West
Virginia.
There are ten other states in which
more than 80 per cent. of the total IS
dry" These states are: Alabama,
Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, Ken
lucky, New Hampshire, New Mexico,
Utah, Vermont and Wyoming.
On the other hand, there is not a.
single state that is entirely wet"
New Jersey comes nearest, with only
four-tenths of one per cent. of its area
prohibition. Three-quarters of Penn
sylvania is license" territory But
Illinois and Missouri are each ~ per
cent. dry" and IS per cent. of New
York state is prohibition territory.
The Anti-Saloon League has hardly
made itself felt as yet in the larger
cities. It is working toward the cit
ies-surrounding them with areas of
prohibition territory and masses OF
prohibition sentiment All the nine
states now having statewide prohibit
ton laws are distinctly rural commu-
mites Only slightly more than %
per cent of the population of any Of
them live in the cities Only two o.
the prohibition states have cities Of
100000 opulation-Georgia and Ten
nessee. More than half the people
of seventeen other states live in ter
ritory that is dry under local OPP
ton laws. Nine of these states have
no cities of 100000 population. Six
other have one such city each, and
Minnesota has two. There are thir-
teen states in which between rs and
so per cent of the people live in ''dry"
territory, and in these thirteen states
there are twenty-five cities with a
population of 100000 or more In the
remaining nine states and the Dis
trict of Columbia less than Is per
cent. of tn population live under
prohibition laws, and these states con-
tain fifteen cities of 100000 popula-
ton or more, in which II per cent. of
their people live.
With this situation as it's encour-
agement, the Anti-Saloon League now
announces its intention to attempt to
bring about an amendment to the
federal constitution prohibiting the IL
quor traffic throughout the United
States.