The Morning Sun

FLORIDA CAN BE MADE DRY

If the People Have the Will, the Legislature Has Provided the Way.

THE SENATE PROHIBITION AMENDMENT PASSED THE HOUSE YESTERDAY.

By vote of 52 to 17, the House of Representatives yesterday agreed to submit to the people the question of State-wide Prohibition.

This ends the fight along the picket line, for the resolution adopted yesterday by the House was the one which the Senate adopted the day before.

The fight along the battle line begins today, and the people of this State will decide for or against the sale of whiskey in the general election of 1910.

This was the vote in the House on the prohibition amendment.

Those voting for the submission of the amendment were:

Messrs. Alexander, Boland, Brown, Carter, Carr, Cash, Clark, Conway, Cox, Duke, Durrance, Epperson, Godfrey, Grace, Hardee, Hilburn, Hodges, Hull, Kelly, King, Knight, Light, Littell, McAffey, McCaskill, McKenzie, O'Putnam, McKenzie of Washington, Miller, Moore, Neely, Newton, Ogilvie, Page, Pattishall, Pearson, Register, Richbourg, Robertson, Sheppard, Stewart, Stringer, Taylor, Terrell, Thagard, Thornton, Tidwell, Trammell, Wall, Watford, Wiggins, Wilson—52.

Those voting against the submission of the amendment were Messrs: Acree, Blanton, Butler, Bynum, Calkins, Chaires, Chase, Davis, Dempsey, Dupont, Hatcher, Knowles, McWilliams, Malone, Smith, Wells, Mr. Speaker—17.

Mr. McWilliams changed his vote to aye, and gave notice that he did this in order that he could make motion to reconsider today.

But the prohibition steam roller is in good working order.

"We have met the enemy and we are theirs" is no doubt what the Jacksonville delegation wired home yesterday afternoon.

If it wasn't that exactly it was probably something like it. All day the prohibition men have stood to their guns, while shot after shot was fired from local option ammunition—a shot that must have gone far wide of the mark, for after every parliamentary practice had been resorted to, amendment after amendment offered, argued and voted down, the vote upon the question of the submission to the people of a constitutional amendment prohibiting the sale or manufacture of liquor in Florida, was found to be 52 to 17 and this notwithstanding the boasts of the local option people from the beginning that they had 29 votes solid and could get enough more when needed to form the two-thirds if necessary to kill the resolution for submission.

The fight began yesterday morning when Mr. Hilburn of Putnam moved that the rules be waived and messages from the senate be taken up.

Among the messages from the senate was the resolution known as the prohibition resolution, and Mr. Hilburn

A Question of Privilege.

The SUN makes mistakes, I confess it.

There were some mistakes made in reporting the action of the Senate yesterday, but when you take into consideration that the SUN is printed not only in another town, but in another county, and that all news after twelve o'clock m. has to be sent in by way of the long-distance phone, and that the final vote on the Constitutional amendment, which created so much enthusiasm in the Senate, was not taken till after two o'clock, the SUN will, I hope, be pardoned.

This is the official record of the action on the Constitutional Amendment in the Senate Thursday, which corrects the SUN's error:

Mr. McMullen moved to waive the rule and to take up from its order Senate Joint Resolution No. 68 for immediate consideration.

Upon which the yeas and nays were called for, and the following was the vote:

Yeas—Mr. President, Senators Adkins, Baker (20th District), Baker (29th District), Broome, Crill, Cone, Cottrell, Dayton, Flournoy, Girardeau, Humphries, Leggett, Massey, McLeod, McMullen, Miller, Sloan, West, Williams, Withers—21.

Nays—Senators Beard, Buckman, Cook, Davis, Harris, Henderson, Hosford, Johnson, McCreary, Sams—10.

So the motion of Mr. McMullen was agreed to by a two-thirds vote.

And Senate Joint Resolution No. 68:

Joint resolution proposing an amendment to Article XIX of the Constitution of the State of Florida, relative to the manufacture and sale or other disposal of intoxicating liquors or beverages.

Was taken from its order and read the third time in full.

Upon the passage of Senate Joint Resolution No. 68, the vote was:

Yeas—Mr. President, Senators Adkins, Baker (20th District), Baker (29th District), Broome, Crill, Cone, Cottrell, Davis, Dayton, Flournoy, Girardeau, Humphries, Johnson, Leggett, Massey, McCreary, McLeod, McMullen, Miller, Sloan, West, Williams, Withers—24.

Nays—Senators Beard, Buckman, Harris, Henderson, Hosford, Sams, Zim—7.

motion was carried, the resolution came up and was, in its turn, referred to the committee on constitutional amendments.

Another sharp little skirmish, and the rules were again waived by a vote of 40 to 22, and the resolution was before the house for its first reading.

This first reading concluded the battle proper.

Broadside of oratorical grape shot, shrapnel and canister were set off. Battery after battery thundered through the legislative halls.

The noon hour came, and still they talked. It went—and the talk still flowed. Rivers, streams—Oceans of talk, talk.

Mr. McWilliams of St. Johns, one of the champions of local option, offered three different amendments, each of which was slaughtered in the fray.

Mr. Hilburn had already offered an amendment, which was to the effect that the words "barter or exchange" should be inserted in lieu of the words "other disposal."

Mr. Dupont spoke against submission, as did Mr. Bynum, Mr. Chase and Mr. Davis.

For submission, speeches were made by Mr. Miller of Lake, Mr. Richbourg of Walton, Mr. Pattishall of Hillsboro, and Mr. Hilburn of Putnam.

One of the features of the speaking, the only talk that had in it anything but prohibition argument pro or con, was the address of the speaker of the house, Mr. Farrill of Duval, who, during the course of his argument, and after stating that his opposition to the submission of the
FLORIDA CAN BE MADE DRY

(Continued from First Page.)

The amendment arose out of the fact that he considered it opposed to a fundamental principle of the democratic party, indorsed by W. J. Bryan, regardless of whether prohibition itself was good or bad, used these words:

It is needless for me to continue this discussion. As I said a few months ago, words from me could not change a single vote on this question. When this session of the legislature is over, it will end my experience as a legislator in the Florida legislature. Not because I fear the people of my county would not return me, but because I have no further ambition to serve the people in this capacity. I am not afraid to go back before my constituency and justify everything I have said and done in this body, BUT THIS ENDS MY LEGISLATIVE EXPERIENCE IN THE STATE OF FLORIDA, and when the legislative session of 1909 shall have come to a close in the work of this body, I say I would rather leave this hall with the confidence and respect and the esteem of every member of this body than to have triumphed even in the cause I advocate.

Now place the emphasis on the words, 'in the state of Florida,' coming just after 'but this ends my legislative experience,' and then note the inference.

Might it not be considered, without too great a strain upon either the words of the speaker or the imagination of the reader, into a tentative—the word, but owing to its recent history in this state it is a word taboo—into at least a form of announcement that perhaps other legislative halls might some day echo to the footfalls of Mr. Farris?

Not a really truly true announcement, but just a sort of faint foreshadowing of a future one.

BUT the vote was 52 to 17, and THE SALOON MUST GO if the people say so at the polls.