Wet vs. dry battle dates back more than a century

(This is the ninth in a series of articles as the Log Cabin Democrat reaches its 100th anniversary as a daily newspaper.)

Straddling a fence, or attempting to, is a problem common to newspapers everywhere, and the Log Cabin Democrat has considerable experience in this arena.

For a hundred years, publishers and editors of the Log Cabin have straddled fences of boiling hot at the moment issues of all sorts. Like their counterparts elsewhere, the Log Cabin leaders are quick to tell the danger of being atop a fence. Both sides throw rocks at you. Attempts at balance and equal treatment in the news columns go unheeded in the passions of the moment.

One issue that was ebbed and flowed but never completely disappeared is liquor the "wets" versus the "drys."

The skirmishing began nearly as soon as Faulkner County was formed and about the time the weekly Log Cabin was launched. The newspaper in those days and down through ensuing years refrained from taking sides in the debates but printed news items and notices of meetings and elections on the alcohol issue.

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The history volume, "Faulkner, Its Land and People," was published by the Faulkner County Historical Society. It summarized the long-running fracas:

"On occasion an issue has appeared in addition to the usual concerns over taxes, schools, and roads. One such issue was over the sale of alcoholic beverages. Beginning in the 1870s the Arkansas legislature enacted a series of liquor control laws, the most important of which was the Three-Mile Law. This measure provided for the prohibition of the sale of alcoholic beverages within a three-mile radius of a church or public school, if a majority of the area inhabitants signed a petition favoring such a ban. In 1884 the Three-Mile Law was used to eliminate the sale of liquor in Mount Vernon, and a few years later was used by anti-liquor forces in Conway who achieved a similar victory. The "dry" cause in Conway was led by Reverend Edward A. Tabor and a prohibitionist politician, Captain William W. Martin.

"The city saloons were closed at midnight, December 31, 1888, initiating a "dry" period which lasted for forty years. During the last fourteen years of that period the entire nation was legally "dry" under the 18th Amendment to the Constitution. In 1933 that amendment was repealed, despite the resistance of prohibitionist forces. In the Faulkner County election to name a representative to the state convention on repeal, the "dry" candidate, Reverend William Mordecai Harper, overwhelmed his "wet" opponent, 1257 to 465. However, this victory was overshadowed by the fact that enough pro-repeal delegates were elected to place the Arkansas convention in the anti-prohibition camp and help put an end to the "noble experiment." A special session of the Arkansas legislature in 1933 completed the process of making the state "wet" again, although provision was made for communities to prohibit liquor by means of a local option petition.

"In 1943 this device was used successfully by prohibitionist forces in Faulkner County led by Dr. Henry Baxton Hardy and George Owen. In an election held on Dec. 29, Faulkner County residents voted 1,753 to 488 for local option prohibition, thus terminating the "wet" interlude of 1933-1943."

In more recent times, Arkansas laws have been passed to allow limited liquor permits for "non-profit" organizations in dry counties. These are issued and controlled by the Arkansas Beverage Control (ABC) agency.

From the first such permit, which went to Conway Country Club, the alcohol permits have increased and expanded to restaurants, which use a private club strategy allowed under the laws. Each time an application for liquor permit is made, the opponents swing into action. Coverage in the Log Cabin is invariably low-keyed yet both the wets and the drys are quick to accuse the paper of being biased in favor of the other side.

Opposition has lessened, though, but not disappeared. Public officials and civic promoters in recent years have either been quiet on the liquor issue or have publicly supported the issuance of restaurant liquor permits as necessary and desirable for a modern growing city.