The Birmingham age-herald., 1916-02-02
LIQUOR ORDINANCE
 ALSO GOES OVER
 TILL NEXT MEETING
Council Chamber Packed With Laboring Men Who Resent Proposed Imposi- tiOn of $5 Street Tax
By RICHARD F. LUssIER

l Overwhelmed by the vigorous protest against the city service tax by the heads
 of various labor unions in Birmingham at | the regular meeting of the city commis- | sion yesterday afternoon, the street | tax" and "liquor tax went over until the next meeting for further consideration. | This action came after two hours and 1 forty minutes of fervd oratory, and the evening shadows had fallen when the commission took up it's routine matters. | The council chamber was filled with men a long time before o'clock ar- rived yesterday afternoon. At the ap- pointed time, when the commissioners ar rived to take their seats in the chamber | they could hardly wiggle their way through the aisles such was the crush of | interested humanity within the council room.
 President George B. Ward rapped for order and announced that the ''liquor inspection" ordinance and the ''city ser vice" ordinance were up for considera- ton. He announced that the street tax | would come first.
 ORATORICAL STORM
 It was then that the oratorical storm broke.
 From every side men spring up in their turn and protested earnestly against the enactment of the tax. The conditions of the poor were verbally painted with pes simistic brushes, while others more sub tie and able used the stinging, biting dart of ridicule on the municipality of Bir-
 mingham for the terrible financial straits it was in John R. T. Reeves the mayor of Inglenook,' flung out this bit ter quip:
 Let us paint huge sign at the Ter
 minal station on which the legend will read: Birmingham the Greatest City in the South. Admission $5.' :" This provoked uproarous laughter and placed the audience in keenly satrcal humor from which it never quite emerged, as from time to time the speakers in jected ridicule whenever it served their purpose.
 However, it was not only laughter that pervaded within the stad walls of the council chamber of the city hall yester- day. The portraits of former mayors of Birmingham that hang majestcally on tH.. WALLS uedru tnS protest or the poor man yesterday It was not piteous cry of hungry feline, but the rumble-dt might be said the roar-of a people op- pressed. Every speaker from Coroner Charles l.. Spain to Commissioner Arie Barber who delivered the address of
 his life, told of the deplorable conditions of the poor in Birmingham. Every labor union leader told that from 30 to 50 per cent of their members were at the pres
 tax would work an untold hardship upon those who were already suffering burden that was unbearable.
 BARRIERS GREAT EFFORT
 Commissioner Arlie K. Barber made the closing speech It was the supreme ef- fort of the long afternoon. The socialist member of the city commission talked earnestly and at times savagely as with minute statistics he indicted the world for it's miseries.
 Prior to my election I called at the home of every white voter in Birming- ham,, said Commissioner Barber, and the pictures I saw are beyond imagi- nation. Many homes, a great many homes, l should say novels, harbor four to even 10 persons, who have no beds, nothing but the floor to sleep on and whose food consists only of corn syrup and rye bread. This, my brothers, exists in Birmingham. This, gentlemen, is the condition almost at your doors, and I might say the conditions at some of your own homes for I know that the majority of you who are protesting here this afternoon against this poor mans tax are not affluent.
 "I am against this tax. There is a large crowd this afternoon, but if as Commissioner Truss recommends that the tax be placed on everybody 1t would take five city halls to hold the protestors Today the poor and lowly are protesting. I have heard their mes sage.
 DANGEROUS CONDITIONS
 There is dangerous condition abroad. The rumble of discontent Is plainly to be heard. If we are to take everything from the man but his two hands. then beware lest the worker use his hands in violence to tear down our government.
 We are continually passing laws for the protection of our forestry, our ani- mals, our agriculture, but we have for gotten the people. The hogs. come first, then the workers. Such a condition of
 (Centinued on PaKe Twelve)