The Birmingham age-herald., 1922-08-13
MILNER DENIES
 THATL|NCOLNWAS
 AGAINST DRY LAW
Statement of "Emancipator'' Given in Contention That It Was Political So as to
 Sway Negro
By Associated Press

Chicago, August 12.-Denial that Abraham Lincoln had once declared himself as opposed to prohibition was made recently by the Rev. Duncan C. Milner, associate minister of tue Presbyterian church, civil war vet eran, and chaplain of the Loyal Le. zion.
 In a statement intended to refute the claim of "certain wet organi- zations" that the immortal Lincoln had ever lent even hint of ap- proval to the liquor traffic." Rev erend Milner, made public an affi- davit signed by three nationally known men setting forth that an alleged quotation from Lincoln which was used in a local option cam paign in Georgia in 1887 was an ad- mitted fraud.
 Not Original
 The affidavit, signed by the Rev. Sam Small, evangelist, Rev. Sam Jones, and Henry W. Grady, declares that sometime after the campaign, Col. John B. Goodwin. who had been the director of the anti-prohibition forces told that he himself had com posed the alleged words of Lincoln so as to attract the adhesion of the colored voters"
 The alleged statement of Lincoln 8 views were set forth in a circular widely broadcast in the campaign and did much to defeat the local op- ton measure by winning over the entire colored vote to the side of the "wets." Reverend Milner ex- plained.
 The words credited to Lincoln, but since admitted to be those of an ether were:
 Prohibition will work great
 injury to the cause of temper
 ance. 1t Is a species of fntemper-
 anee itself, for 1t goes beyond
 the bounds of reason in that it
 attempts to control mans ap-
 petite by IegisIation, and in
 making crime out of things that
 are not crimes.
 A prohfbitory law strikes a
 blow at the very principles on
 which our government was
 founded. I have always been
 found Iaboring to protect the
 weaker classes from the stronger,
 and can never give my con-
 sent to such law as you pro-
 pose to enact. Until my tongue
 be sIlenced In death, | will con-
 tinue to fight for the rights of
 man.
 The quotation was headed "Abra- ham Lincoln's proclamation" and was followed with this appeal.
 COlored voter, He appeals to you to protect the liberty he has
 bestowed upon you. Will you go
 back on his advices Look to
 your rights! Read! Act! Vote
 for the sale.
 Opposed by Vets
 Rev. Milner declared that the alleged statement of Lincoln is be- ing circulated today by organizations opposed to the Eighteenth amend ment, and appealed for a "campaign to forever clear the name of the great emancipator of so foul stig- ma."
 The affidavit made public by Rev. Milner says In part:
 That the Rev. Sam Jones, Henry W. Grady, this affiant. and many other speakers then openly de- nounced the purported words of Ab- raham Lincoln to be a Slagrant forgery. defled discovery of them in any recorded utterances by Lincoln. and offered a reward for proof of their genuneness, but no one pro- duced any such proof.
 That some time after the excite ment of the campaign had disap- peared, this affiant, in conversation with Col. John B. Goodwin, who had been the director of the anti-prohibi- ton forces in said campaign, was told by Colonel Goodwin, that he him self devised the circular in question: composed the alleged words of Lin coin so as to attract the adhesion of the colored voters and had done SO because to win them was the for lorn hope of the vets the country at thad time being under prohibi- ton law"