The courier-index. (Marianna, Ark.) 1917-current, 1918-03-01
BAILEY AND BOOZE

BAILEY AND BOOZE
Joseph w Bailey, former United States
senator from Fcxas, who lost his seat and
spoiled big career because he soiled his gar
ments with The ordor Of kerosene and other
products of the Standard Oil Company, is very
much exercised over the passage OF the consti-
tutional amendment prohibiting the manuiac-
lure and sale Of whiskev. He has written a
long private letter for publication to bis friend
r. NJ Johnson of Houson Texas. (Nlr. Bailey
lives in New York now in which he deprecates
the fact that many southern congressman voted
for the amendment, because he regards the
amendment an invasion of the doctrine of
states rights The letter has been sent broad
cast over the country by the liquor dealers
association. In his letter Mr.. Bailey says:
y sure you were very much surprised when
anaiy zed that and found that hundred and
forty-one voted it. while only sixty
four Democrats had voted against it. What radical
national prohibition could have been elected
a delegate Democratic county convention from any
majority of the elected to Congress Demo
Gratis voted yesterday for that proposition"
Horrible thought! Twenty years ago booze
common commodity in every city, town,
village and crossroads John Barleycorn held
high carnival and exacted his bloody toll in
every community. Millions of dollars that
should have gone to the support of hungry
children and terrorized women found their way
into the Golfers of the booze Molochs. The
devil had recruiting station in every hamlet
and hell declared dividend in sorrow, sin
and shame every fifteen minutes.
But those the good old days" for
Bailey A democrat could not be elected a
delegate to county convention then without
first having been submerged in the whiskey
vat to kill the prohibition ticks on him. The
fact that twenty years have brought about a
revolutionary change in public sentiment
that decency, not debauchely. controls the acts
of men in public places-that the one hundred
and fOrty-one congressman who supported the
prohibition amendment represented millions
of sturdy God-fearing, law-loving. home-buld-
ing citizens means nothing to the man who
tries to dstort a. theory of government into a
doctrine of defense for damnabc traffic that
never had any moral right to exist. The right
of the states to govern themselves in all matters
of local nature is one that is cherished and
icaIously guarded by every southerner and
Jeffersonian democrat but ii is violent per-
version of the truth TO declare the liquor ques-
ton local issue, as the former distinguished
Texas does in the following extract from his
letter:
If 'esas chooses to permit the sale of liquors,
Kansas has right to say shall not do because
the of LIQUOR in Texas disturb the peace.
inure the health corrupt the morals of Kansas .
No argument Mr.. Bailey could make would
have the effect of convincing the people of
Arkansas that the sale of liquor is Louisiana
aud Missouri does not disturb the peace, or
imjurr the health corrupt the morals of this
state. Within three weeks after the recent de-
cisicn OF the Arkansas Supreme Court that it
was no oifense to bring intoxicants into this
state personal baggage, the sluice gates have
been opened and the hell-brew of Missouri and
Louisiana is now disturbing the peace. injur-
ing the health and corrupting the morals of
thousands of men and young men in Arkansas.
If Missouri and Louisiana and Texas and
other states want to souse themselves in a
perpetual jag they perhaps have legal right
10 do so, but they have no warrant of law or
morals to slush their swill and slop on Arkan-
sas.