The Memphis Appeal

THE PROHIBITION AMENDMENT.

Why Some of the Senators Voted to Refer the Resolution.

Nashville Banner: Senator Padgett is a temperance man and wants to vote to submit the proposed constitutional amendment to the people, but he regards the present status of the McDowell resolution as a complete tangle and liable to confound confusion worse. If the report of the committee for the suppression of the liquor traffic recommending the striking out of all after the signature of Gov. W. B. Bate is adopted the resolution will be stripped of all except the resolution adopted by the Forty-fourth General Assembly referring the question to the present session, and it is the opinion of a number of Senators that if this is done and the act of the last General Assembly is adopted the object sought to be obtained will fail, for this act provides simply that intoxicating liquors shall not be manufactured and offered for sale in this State as a beverage. Of course this leaves all of the gaps open for an evasion of the law, for whisky can be manufactured and sold for purposes other than a beverage. This is the opinion of Senator Padgett and others, and for this reason they voted yesterday to have the McDowell resolution and the report of the committee referred to the Judicial Committee.

There is no disguising the fact that the people interested in this important measure are not a little suspicious that a jumble will be made of it and that the popular will will be defeated. But Senator McDowell insists that he has had the aid of the best legal light in the State and that there is no cause for alarm on the part of the measure.