The Birmingham age-herald., 1916-04-11
SURVEY ATTEMPTS ID RIGHT STORIES ABOUT BIRMINGHAM Long Editorial to Be De- voted to Subject in the
 Next Issue CLAIM MATERIAL IS
 STILL BEING USED President Ward Receives Advance Copy of Article in Which His Own
 Statements Are Quoted
 Extensively

President Ward of the city commission yesterday received an advance copy of the leading editorial in the forthcoming issue of the Survey, in which the publi- cation undertakes to heal some of the Injury caused Birmingham by it's publi- cation sometime ago.
 These statements were seized upon by liquor advocates and have been used in citing Birmingham as a horrible ex- ample" of Birmingham in various prohibi- ton campaigns, notably in Louisiana. The Survey has very limited circulation, but it's editorial is probably of sufficient interest to be here reproduced in full:
 'The Vindicator, the Survey, press bu- reaus of liquor interests and prohibition ists from Montana to New York, the statements of the city commissioners Of Birmingham make up a pretty kettle of fish-all together and simmering.
 BACK TO 1912
 'So far as the Survey goes our part runs back to 1912, when we brought out special Birmingham number show ing, among other things, how this in- dustrial center of the new south was crippled in many of It's governmental and social activities by the hangover of old village and rural fiscal arrangements For example, the sheriff, on the anti quated fee system, was drawing down as much as the President of the United States, while the municipality was starved for funds by an outworn tax system and by hammering provisions of the state constitution with respect to bonding. These, coupled with an eco- nomical desire on the part of the city to avoid paying more than it's heavy share of state taxes, was limiting Bir- mlngham to an annual expenditure of about $750 per capita for the service for which cities of the same size were spend ing SIP or more.
 Tn the succeeding years, the scope of municipal service carried on by Birming- ham grew apace, and on the other hand, the success of the dry campaign in Ala ba ma cut off license revenues of the city. Last summer the city commissioners, sqlarely facing the accumulated indebt- edness piled up in earlier years, and faced, also, by the fact that Birming- ham was spending something like 5000 a day more than 1t had to spend decided that they would have only as much gov ernment as they could pay for But to attribute the whole dilemma to prohibi. ton, as has been done by others, is to d1stort the situation as badly as to say that the British expedition to the south pole froZe to death because their last fagOt went out.
 Last September, the Survey published some news paragraphs from Birming- ham correspondent telling of the radical cuts under way in the city service due to the shortage in income, and the agitation in defense of the social service depart ment-recreatian, education and charities. In October, the same correspondent re- ported (see the Survey for October 23) that ito the joy of the city fathers and the public generally the service cuts were not to be so drastic as had been feared and that the financial situation was to be improved by budget system
 Not a word was said in either report about sources of income or reasons for its falling off-neither the adoption of prohibition nor the archaic system of taxation clamped down on growing in- dustrial city by a legislature controlled by farmers and crossroads attorneys. and by corporations which are quite con- tent with the low tax rate.
 USED IN MONTANA
 "A little later a state campaign for prohibition was on in Montana. The Sur veys first report was seized upon by league, and they put out large display ad- vertisements in which
 The Survey a high-class publication that has on its board of directors some of the biggest and ablest men in public life in America, was apparently made to lear witness that because the prohibition, Birmingham was in sore financial straits and that ''the city is infested with crimi- nals and crooks
 George B. Ward, president of the mu- nicipal board of city commissioners, chal- lenged their statement as untrue on the ground that Birmingham's deficit was of ho to floof doN tbo had been accommodating for some years, branded the use made of the Survey item as exaggerated and garbled,' and carried the argument as to the results of closing the saloons sharply over to the affirma- tive side by this official statement of the comparative number of arrests and con- victions for the final three months of the last two years:
 1914 1915 Per Cent