The Birmingham age-herald., 1918-01-27
PROHIBITION AND SUFFRAGE BREAK THE BARRIERS OF
 OUR ORGANIC LAW, SAYS COLONEL HENRY PATTERSON

1 need of today. That which first seemed radical drops later along into the co--4 monplace. So, why should not self-con- t:dent enthusiasm, regarding all seasons summer, indulge itself and cen carry its vagaries to the end of the rainbow If the honest prohibitionist who seeks the abatement of this drink evil could bring himself to investigate and survey the question from other angles than that which obSesseS him, and consider it in all its belongings and bearings, he would encounter many facts to diseoncert his cocksureness and, suppos;ng him to pos
 sess the capacity for thought, to set him
 thinking. As a rule he displays the
 knockdown and drag-out temper of thl propagandist who. in his eager pursuit
 of a single idea, is blind to circumstance and deaf to reflection and dead to req son. He proposes to cure drunkenness.
 which is disease, by statute-dra stic,
 und1scriminating prohibiton-not stop ping to ask the very simple question
 Does prohibition prohfbit?"
 HAS NOT DONE so IN MAINE
 It has not done so in Maine during more tkan half a century or trial. It mas done so in no one of the many states which have followed the lead of Maine. Because it has not done so 1t is purposed to make it nation wide, and to this end an amendment to the con- stitution of the United States is framed by Congress. whose adoption by the requisite number of state legislatures will involve complete bouleversement in our republican system.
 upon theory of state rights the southern states of the union engaged in long, bloody and ruinous war of sec tons. Yet 50 years later the votes Of their representatives at Washington unite IL sI-.. and establishing an absolutist federal power nothing short of despotic, carrying with it a censorship over the private lives and individual habits of the people abhor- rent to all precedents of free government and personal liberty, and a spy system more irresponsible and oppressive than ever existed under the most tyrannous autocracies of ancient ord modern times AS If to proclaim the arbitrary spirit and corrupt aim of this its advocates refuse to submit it to the popular volition but would ordain it by the snap vote of leg 1Slatlve bodies elected without the least reference to it.
 Can any thoughtful, worldly wise man believe that the enforcement of such an upheaval of domestic conditions is pos- sibie in the centres of population or, it 1t be possible, that it would achieve the good expected of it by enthusiasts, who take no account of time, or place, to say nothing about differing characteris- tics and antecedents? If the local con stabulary are unable to execute bone dry statutes, what reason have we to believe that the national constabulary will be able?
 They might make themselves more vex- atious. But alcohol is a very elusory quantity. It is easy of concealment and may readily be handled and passed about. With public opinion behind them US votar1es may even defy the law As- suming, however that the little dry states put the prohibition amendment over the larger wet states and follow 1t up with executive ordinances and in- qu1sitorial provisions, creating an all- pervading secret service and raising an army of federal marshals, what else, after boundless corruption and brutal intrusion, might be expected than an ultimate resort to stimulating drugs that, exuding poison, must in the end undermine alike the public health and morals?
 In some sort the world will have it's drink But this need not be alcoholic. In the Latin countries it never has been. It is for the most part vinous. In other continental regions it is malt. Nor where such beverages prevail is drunk enness known as we know it. But the disdains distinction or dis crlmfnation of any sort. A glass of grog and glass of wine, mug of beer and a Jug of whisky are one and the same to his distorted vision. Fanaticism in- oeed is in it's nature ever and every where unseeing and rampant
 On the superficial, the outer and obvi- ous side Of the question the case might