The Birmingham age-herald., 1916-03-11

may be rebutted by the facts. When we find upon the statute book a law that a certain thing shall not be done; when we find in the community thousands of men who would like that law enforced and an organization maintained for the sole purpose of enforcing that law; when we find, further that throughout nearly Is years that law has been daily trans gressed by men of prominence every where, and ignored by common consent; I say that then this presumption as to the will of the community has been most effectually rebutted, and that you can not re-establish that presumption, cannot rehabiltate it, by merely showing that this or that legislature has refused to remove from the statute book these idle and imperative words.
 Remember gentlemen, that the liquor dealer does not come of a peculiar race, or of a particular species of the human it does in your own. He Is subject to the same passions and appetites, the same sympathies and emotions that you are He Is not an accident, but, like those of every other trade the result of the communities needs determined by the law of demand and supply Make your laws such that liquor dealers do not have to become, politicianss' s
 REASON FOR POLITICS
 Some of you gentlemen serve the tsate as legislators from a sense of duty; some of you do it because it is the pleasantest occupation you can se- lect, or because you find it otherwise for your interest; but most of us are in politics or out of it for reasons which affect us individually and not as mem bers of class. So it should be with the liquor dealers. There is nothing in the nature of, things to make man, o< xrxI,~ ~1ox.n .n1c retail, a politician. There is no par ticular connection between government and liquor. It is a connection which is made by the persecution of the class; and you can readily convert woolen manufacturers or iron manufacturers into politicians by unnecessary inter ference with their methods of doing business. Indeed, the woolen manufac-s turers already go to Congress for their tariff, and the iron manufacturers have likewise become politicians to look out for their interests. The same Is true of some other classes of workers. Why? Because they have privarc ends to sub serve. Because they believe it is nec- essary for their existence to go into politics. to have power and to exercise it; and so long as the laws of the com monwealth compel the liquor dealers to exert Influence in politics in order to live, those engaged in the trade will endeavor to control the government It is the struggle for existence. A great thinker has expressed the opinion that it would be better to have the liquor trade wholly unregulated, than to give it such strong inducements to engage. in politics. In my opinion that alter native is not necessary one Today, under the limited and high license sys- tenn, the liquor trade contains a large number of men whose position is good financially, and, to a certain extent, socially, men who desire to elevate their trade men who want to conduct themselves properly, men who do not want to be in politics any more than all of us do at certain times and for certain purposes.
 Make your regulations but reasona