The Birmingham age-herald., 1920-04-07

the discussion of the issues in the cam
 paign and directed most of his speech
 to the eighteenth amendment to the | federal constitution. He said that if
 elected to the position as senator for ! the short term he would support the | eighteenth and nineteenth amendments.
 for he said that any man elected would | have to do that, for he would have to swear to support the constitution of | the United States. He said that he opposed this amendment for the fol- lowing reasons First. that it was ! unnecessary, because each state could take care of it's own liquor business; second it was passed by the congress when two millions of boys were on the seas or in France and were de- prived of a vote in the matter; third, he opposed it because it was not left to a vote of the people for ratification, but instead. was ratified by the state general assemblies.
 Governor O'Neal made his most bit ter opposition and denunciation against the Volstead act. He said that attor
 neys were employed by the Anti Saloon League of America and it was they who wrote this act. He claims that the lawyers sat in the gallery of Congress and with their fingers direct ed the congressman who voted for the act. He claimed if the real representa- 2 tives of the people had acted on the best judgment of their own initiative, this act would never have been enact ed He termed those who worked for and insisted upon the passage of this act as traitors to the old time democ- racy as advocated by Jefferson and others
 He made a very bitter attack upon the extravaganza of the Congress in ( nff a nd many of them for the purpose of en- forcing the Volstead act He said that under Cleveland the cost of the federal government was $10 per capita and ip 1916 it was $S7.
 He claims that if the Volstead act should be repealed. much of this eX. travagance would be eliminated, for he says 1t destroys state rights, individual liberty, allows the rich to keep liquors in their cellars and prohibits the poor man from keeping a small amount for medicinal purposes, and in this way is entirely undemocratc
 He claims under this act that if every man, woman and child who is guilty of violating the act were in jail. bond issue larger than any of the war bond issues would be necessary to construct a jail sufficiently large to hold them. He says that if butter milk that is two days old is drunk the thinker is violating the Volstead act because it will contain more alcohol than is permitted by this act.
 Governor ONeal came out clear in his position by stating that the saloons of this country had sinned away their day of grace, and that the time had come 9to choose a happy medium be- tween the evils of the saloon and the evils of the Volstead act, and he says that if sent to the Senate he will favor the repeal of this law and favor the permitting of the sale of light wines and beer. because it will stop what he terms a revolution of the people from Maine to California and from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico.
 He says that this revolution is spreading and growing, and that it is developing a Lenine and Trotzky and Brooks Lawrence form of government in our own country. Governor O'Neal