Prohibition With an
If
I think I can explain why the Poole prohibition bill was so
overwhelmingly defeated in the House of Representatives last week. The Poole
Bill proposed to make the consumer and purchaser of liquor as guilty of crime
as the distiller and boot legger. It made the purchaser or possessor of illicit
liquor a party to the crime of the illicit dealer. And the house voted it down
with a bang.
Mr. Poole and the Anti-Saloon League failed to take into
account the fact that their most influential supporters are not honest. The big
manufacturing and business interests of the South lined up with the Prohibition
movement, not because they wanted prohibition for themselves, but because they
wanted it for the working class. They thought they would get better labor by
taking liquor away from labor; but they never had any idea of taking it away
from themselves. Who does not know hundreds of men who voted every prohibition
ticket with a wink of the eye, willing to put prohibition on the other fellow,
but sure all the time that they could get all the liquor they wanted for
themselves. I was in Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia and Florida in 1907 when the
lumber manufacturers of those states lined up for prohibition. And they drank a
toast in rye to their resolution. Or was it corn?
And now the dishonest prohibitionist finds himself in
anything but his old time idea of a pickle. He has been trapped into voting
himself Dry. That’s why the General Assembly killed the Poole Bill—too few of
them game enough to go the limit.
Yes! I voted for the Poole bill; I would have felt like a
knave if I hadn’t.
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