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Show , ALMOST WON AGAIN. The prohibition wave is moving northward along the Atlantic coast, and, although it is not sweeping everything before it, its force is being felt, and in West Virginia an amendment providing provid-ing for prohibition was lost in the state senate by only one vote. There are thirty members of the West Virginia senate, and the amendment to carry required a two-thirds vote. Nineteen senators voted for the amendment and eleven against it. While there is no intention on the part of the temperance advocates to bring the measure up again at this session, the result is highly gratifying gratify-ing to them. On the other hand, the opponents get some poor consolation from the fact that they won, but their victory has none of the merits of a fight put up for a good cause. West Virginia is a small state, but she has fifty-five counties within her borders, and all but nineteen of these are "dry" territory, and in 'these nineteen counties the sentiment on the liquor question ques-tion is pretty evenly divided. As the importance of the temperance sentiment is thus manifested, the attitude of the liquor people has changed materially. ma-terially. When the legislature was convoked in special session by the governor, at which the ques tion came up, there was no premonition that the Anti-Saloon league .would press the issue. There was no mention in the call of any proposed legislation legisla-tion regarding the saloon, but only a stipulation that the legislature could submit amendments to the constitution to the voters for their approval or rejection. ' The Anti-Saloon league seized this opportunity, op-portunity, but the proposed amendment was Ipst by one vote. Had it passed the legislature, it is conceded throughout the state by about everybody that it would have carried at the polls by from 20,-000 20,-000 to 50,000 votes. The political parties have awakened to the size and strength of the movement, and the liquor interests in-terests are now actively supporting a local option law, hoping to secure this concession in the face of the certainty of state prohibition in a very short, time. It is even suggested that the legislature will be convoked by the governor in another special session ses-sion to deal with the liquor problem and possibly pass a stringent local option law. This action it is thought will stay the demands for prohibition and will satisfy the siiloou element. If this result should follow the campaign of the Anti-Saloon league, it will give them what they contended for in the first place, and with which they would have been content. . Opposition to the demands of the temperance leaders only tended to crystallize and unite the forces of prohibition, with the result that the overwhelming public opinion favorable to the temperance cause was made. manifest. 9 In the result as it hangs in the balance in West Virginia there is a lesson for Utah temperance people and Utah saloon men. The lesson for the saloon men is that they must obey the laws made to regulate the traffic or be ultimately forced out of the business. The lesson for the temperance folks is that the reasonable demand for a local option law will attract a larger following than the demand for total abolition of the liquor business, and if this reasonable demand is met with active onnosi- tion by the liquor interests, sentiment against the saloon will be crystallized and the sale, manufacture manufac-ture or storage of intoxicating liquors within the state will be forever prohibited. , ' |
