The Birmingham age-herald., 1919-04-27

for the best-and "the best admittedly from their point of view would be a fail- ure of the government to enforce the en ergency prohibition measure, together with a court or popular decision nullify- ing the national prohibition amendment aCvise their readers to look the situation squarely in the face and prepare for the operation of barless resorts.
 All sorts of substitutes for revenues ob- | tained from the liquor trade are suggest ed and the live" proprietor is urged to quit worrying and get to work.
 The advertising men, summarizing their l caLvassers, declare that space" contract ed by the hotel interests far exceeds that of last year; in fact, sets record. The | tourist houses in particular, they state, have plunged heavily into publicity, 1 frankly anticipating a bumper season of automobile traffic and planning, through i increased patronage and expansion in many cases of meal serving activities, to recoup the losses which will follow the banishment of Old John Barleycorn From automobile rows of hundreds of eastern cities the word has gone out that people stand ready to buy almost any 1 thing on four wheels. "The war is over,' is the popular cry, and enforced stay-at- homes of recent open seasons are plan
  l it is declared, have seen their saliva ton in the travel boom already apparent in the steadily increasing volume of spring tr affic and improvements ranging all the way from enlarged bedroom and dining room facilities to installation of attrac- tive lunch rooms and cafeterias have been the result in many establishments that hitherto have gone along in a con- servative, old fashioned way, depending on the bar for the bulk of their receipts. While hotel men in many sections have referred vaguely to "aSsuranceS' that wartime prohibition would not be made effective and have proceeded with the acquisition of liquor stocks as though no dry period loomed above the mid summer horizon, bonifaces in the New York district, in public statements, have bitterly assailed the prohibitionists.
 Thomas D. Green and John McE. Bow man, president and vice president, respec- lively, of the New York City Hotel as- scciation, described the attitude of the anti-liquor advocates as mot caring what happens, so long as it doesn't happen to them" At a time when business is just beginning to flow into legitimate chan nels,' MT. Bowman declared, the hotel business is confronted by the spectacle of ruin" if prohibition is enforced, but he asserted he did not anticipate success in what he characterized as this latest
 
 cs' to take away ''more individual rights" However, he predicted many ho- tels of New York city and the surround ing territory would be closed July l, or soon afterward. if the wartime "dry" law is put into force
 George A .Farnham, president of the New York State Hotel association, "re- fused to believe" that either the emer- gency or constitutional prohibition acts would become operative.
 New England hotels, on the other hand, are reported to be counting on the au- tcmobile travel revival to offset the losses under a no-liquor status, while in Pennsylvania serving of iced beverages to tourists and devotees of the dancing craze is expected to provide substantial revenue. Philadelphia for nearly a year has permitted no vending of liquors in dancing parlors, and back in the noun tains, where bars have been few and far between in recent years, the prohibit tion law will have little effect on the con- duct of hotels.
 Along the coast, from Atlantic City south, the hotel men are working out sub stitutes for the bar and the grillroom "We will give them dancing morning, aft erroon and evening" said the proprietor of a great seaside caravansary, adding his expectation, which seemed to be typ ical of other bonifaces in resort cities, of heavy patronage ana good returns rom teas, ices and other light beverages to be dispensed in the terpsichorean halls
 Among hotel men and observers of the business generally there is agreement that consumption of intoxcants has been re- stricted by the high prices resulting from cLrtailed manufacture and increased tax- ation growing out of the war. If the ne- nessity arises, they admit, the task of leading to the tea rooms and soda foun- tains that portion of the public which still clings to drinks with kick in them will be a simple one, compared to such an undertaking without the invol- untary, yet no less liberal education in temperance and abstinence imposed by the world conflict.