The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1917-12-25
LETTERS TO EDITOR
Personal Liberty

- inc CullOF OIL Inc Age-HeraId.
Liberty is the symbol of Americanism
and was the dominating impulse of The
founders of this great republic of the
United States of America. Whoever had
in mind the best interests of the great
est number of people and every insti-
tuition of the government from its foun-
cation has been set up for that purpose.
or cloaked under that idea, as no public
official or citizen has had the temerity
70 combat that principal in the open. so
10 the mind of a layman it would seem
That the recent action of a majority of
the Congress in submitting the proh.bi-
tlon amendment to the states was fol-
lowing out that American principal
The recent records of crimiology SHES
out all over the land, like a beacon star
proclalming the great moral victory of
prohlbltion over John Barleycorn thar
mas lett happiness and prosperity in it's
wake, but before the ink hardly had
time to dry from the pens of our vice
presidents and speakers signatures. we
see the hand of Demon Rum striking
under the guise of liberty to poison the
judgment OF the voters by appealing to
their personal liberties, which is one of
the liquor interests greatest slogans
AS a matter of fact there are no per-
sonal liberties but what are criminal
Any man who flies into the face of HUI
mainly with a cry for personal liberty
is an enemy to all true liberty for lib
erty alone is for the greatest number of
the people, and there is no argument
thaI condition set up to allow one
man a personal liberty to load himself
up with substance that has no value for
good but it is destructive poison in
every form, doing the geratest harm to
the greatest number than any other one
agency in the world today, can in any
way lay legitimate claim to true lib
erty Such person lacks all the at
tributes of liberty for which so many
thousands of red-blooded American boys
are about to lay down their lives on the
bloody fields of Europe
Even the great body of people of the
Russian empire have recently felt the
spark of liberty windled in them by the
unwilling emancipation edct of their
deposed little father, in closing the liquor
traffic in Russia. Would anv one claim
that the taking away Of personal lber-
ties in that great country has not added
greatly to the cause of liberty in the
world
This cry of personal liberty is and has
ever been a favorte cycle of the liquor
forces to cut down the standard of lib
erty, to enslave the greatest number of
the people on the criminal altar of the
personal liberties of the few. In it is the
of traffic in John Barleycorn, whose
greed would enslave and destroy the
souls of men for the sake of money to
the destruction and death of liberty.
1t is well that persons who seek the
suffrage of the voters let their positions
be known that the guardians of liberty
may know who the enemies of all liberty
are. who would destroy the youth and
vitality of the nation by raising the cry
of personal liberty, who would rather see
our jails refiled as of Old who would
see want and squalor in the homes of
their victims, that a few may smell the
vile fumes of John Barleycorn for the
sake of personal liberty.
No, the great majority Of the people
have awakened from the thraldom of
personal liberty and are able to see the
twentieth century sign of true liberty
that is awakening for the safety of all
the world, and men who would seek self
advancement by false issues must be
avoided. o. S. WILDER.
Birmingham, Ala, December 10, 1917.