I deeply regret that I was out of the city when your party was here this week investigating the prohibition situation.

I do not hesitate to say that, studied from any angle, prohibition is a big success in North Carolina. It has been in force for ten years, and during these years the industrial prosperity of the State has been remarkable. No other decade in our history can compare with it.

Without doubt it has come to stay with our people. When the issue was submitted ten years ago a considerable number of representative people, and the ablest newspaper in the State at that time, opposed the measure. This opposition was conscientious. Today not a single representative man in the State and not a single newspaper of any character or standing in the State could be induced to say or write anything against prohibition. It has touched in a beneficial way the industrial, the educational and the social life of the State.

Of course liquor is still manufactured and sold contrary to law. You cannot change the habits of centuries in a day, but I am persuaded that today not more than ten per cent as much liquor is consumed by the people of North Carolina as was consumed before the prohibition law went into effect. The amount consumed will steadily decrease, and when a generation comes on that has never seen a legalized saloon or distillery, the consumption of liquor will reach the vanishing point.