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THE REASON IF A militant WEEKLY. THE REASON COMPANY 81 Express Building. No. 11. “PROOF OF PUDDING IN THE EATING.” Os all the “reform movements" which have re ceived any considerable support from churches and Christian people in recent years, prohibition has resulted in the most ignomious failure and has been attended by the most lamentable consequences. Through an agitation which has always had a moral end. the most dreadful immoralities have been devel oped and made conspicuous. Thousands of people whose attention had been called to the great evil of intemperance hastily concluded that the only remedy lay in the prohibition of the manufacture and sale of alcoholic beverages, and, with the best intentions imaginable, have done their utmost to bring about the passage of sumptuary laws, never stopping to consider whether such laws were possi ble of enforcement, or whether they might result in bringing about a condition of affairs far more dread ful than any which existed before. I nfortunately. many of God's people, who lead exemplary Chris tian lives, are sadly lacking in wisdom and good judgment and we know of no class of people w ho are so utterly unfit to grapple with great public qiies tions as ministers of the gospel. We can state, from our own personal observation, that in scores of in stances wdiere clergymen have been most, active in their efforts to eradicate vice and promote tem perance, they have succeeded only in scattering the social evil and increasing drunkenness. So far as our own personal experience goes, and it has been considerable, we have never yet visited a community where prohibitory law’s existed and found it very difficult to obtain intoxicants. In many instances w’e arc firmly convinced that prohibi- ONE YEAR SI.OO. rITE LEMS. SAVANNAH, (JA.. JULY’ 4, 1008 tion has resulted in increasing the amount of drunk enness and in materially augmenting the number of tipplers. There are thousands of homes in prohibi tion communities where a bottle of whiskey was never kept so long as it could be obtained without difficulty at drug stores or saloons, but now it is kept always on hand “for medicinal purposes in cast* of emergency." Only too (d'ten the sons in such families have learned to drink at home, when they might never have gone into a saloon. During the last two months we have traveled ex tensively in Georgia and have been at pains to make careful inquiry with regard to the workings of the prohibition law in the State. In rural communities, which were dry before the passage of tin* State law and wdiere the sentiment of the people demands it. comparatively little difficulty is experienced in en forcing prohibition; but in all the larger cities and towms. the law is being flagrantly violated, and we art 1 convinced that there is more whiskey sold at re tail than ever before in tin 1 history of the State. In addition to this, liquor is being ordered from Chat tanooga, Jacksonville, Montgomery and other cities outside the State, and is delivered by express, to the consumer direct, in quantities that are well nigh appalling. Atlanta papers have stated that $250,000 per month is sent out of that city alone for whiskey, and in many other sections of tin 1 State the amount so expended is almost, if not quite, as large propor tionately. Think of it! Almost $25 per year per capita spent for whiskey by a prohibition city, in addition to the amount spent by the poor man wdio buys the vilest kind of poison at disreputable ‘“blind- EDITED BY LAMAR PARKER. Vol. 1.