Bisbee daily review., 1914-11-03
OLD MINER RELATES
 WHY HE IS OPPOSED
 TO PROHIBITION CULT

Say said a grizzleG old mining man, as he edged up to the mago- hany in one of the first class bars in Bisbee yesterday afternoon Whats this talk hear about the state goin' dry2 There wasn't any thing like that when was here the last time. What does it meang"
 The only person at that time on the same side of the bar az the speak CT was a reporter, who had dropped in Co find out how many thousands the vets placed their majority at. and as the speaker looked directly at the reporter. he could only reply. Well, it simply means that a lot of persons who are trying to control the conduct of their fellow citizens are trying to make lis state dry There's been an awful lot Of talk about 1t the past north and you surely must have been out in fhe sticks for a long time or you would have heard about it. Doesn't it meet with your approval?"
 Not by an Elephant Butte dam site" responded the grIzzled veteran. Can you imagine Arizona without liquor? I've been out here 40 years and when l came if l had dreamed that Arizona would ever go dry, I'd have turned right around and gone back again. Say what would Alfrea Henry Lewis and all the other great writers who were kids out here W1en ] knew them what would thek think of dry Arizona? We'll, to begin with, they wouldn't believe it possible. and won't either.
 "You must be a heavy thinker" ventured the reporter "A heavy drink CT" snorted the old miner why 2 was never drunk during all the days I've lived in Arizona. Occasionally I've felt a little good, after coming into town from @ six months trip into the hills. but l have no use for a drunk ard. believe in temperance, but no, in prohibition. Look at me-do ! look like a heavy drinker%
 And the reporter looked. The old man was the picture Of well-preserved manhood Over six feet tal straight as an arrow, and with cheeks and eyes that reflected tre glow of perfecN health, he was a picture worthy of the brush of a Frederick Remington.
 'I couldn't really be called a drink ing man. he continued, "but I'd hate to have any man tell me I couldn't get a drink if ! needed one Why, I've heen out in the hills for six months. took a quart bottle of whiskey with me when ] left and as I came ,in today ] had about a third of t left and gave it to a poor rancher on the way, whose wife was sick unto death and who had no medicine of any kind
 But I wouldn't have gone on that trip without that quart bottle fol anything Well do ] remember the times in the past forty years that have been out when that bottle has saved my life. I've been bitten by snakes and poisonous insects and have had malaria when the medicine has saved my life, and also the lives of other prOspectOrs I have met Say, why should I be deprived of this ne cessity just because a lot of fannticA don't have occasion to use whiskey themselves, and would therefore de- prive everybody else of it? I'm a pretty old man, but if Arizona passes as foolish a law as this I'm going to move on to other fields, where the air may not be any purer but where the soul of man is not figated"
 Don't you know young man, that if Arizona should go dry the Mexican border towns would bloom and flour ish. Men would go there to take a drink and then get on drunk Many would be thrown in jail and some would never come back. There would be bad whiskey and worse women. Crime would reign and vice flourish. Hundreds of dollars that weekly go into channels of legitimate trade in this district would go to keepers of dives and dens l know, for I've been