The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1885-11-05


sir, as man ever followed" I said to
him: "You know that widow on the
hill? ?" eyes," ''She has two boys.
Their father died about the time they
we're grown and left them about $4,000
or $4,000, and they began drinking with
you, sir. One of these boys is in the
penitentiary now, and the other is of
somewhere, the mother don'tknow where,
and she is grieviDg her life away. Which
would be worse, to have broken into that
house and stolen that money, or to have
debauched her boys, as you have done,
putting one into the penitentiary and
running the other Off" He said he
didn't want to talk about it, nohow.
It has been circulated all over this
country that I was a bar-keeper and gam
bier and all that sort of thing, but, sir, I
never, in the worst hour of my life, got
my consent to put the bottle to my neigh
boris mouth. I never saw moment
when would sit down and play cards.
There are some of you triAing fellows
listening to me now that are meaner and
more reckless than I ever was. Some Of
you tell on me to this day that I won't
pay my debts. If you will buy claim
against me you will get paid with COM
pound interest from the time it was due.
If you will find me any man at my home
that says I won't pay my debts I will eat
him raw, without salt. Great laug liter.
There is the place to find out all that is
bad about a fellow-where he lives. l
say it, with all the earnestness of my
heart, would steal before would sell
whisky.
Ar lther thing 1 will touch on right
along here is the whisky guzzlers them.
selves. We come up to this pooT fellow
who drinks, blubbering over him and
telling him what a magnificent, kind
hearted fellow he is, and how sorry we
are to see him intoxicated. don't
know how many people I have had to tell
me: "Jones, you are clever, big.hearted
fellow. You should quit drinking. 1t is
a pity to drink" Now, it makes these
whisky drinking feel big if you brag
one of these guzzling fellows, you just
tell him: "You imbruted hog, you mis-
erable sneak, you." "What do you talk
to me that way for ?" he will ask. You
tell him: "Whenever a man like you,
sir, bleeds his wife's heart, ruins his home,
pauperizes his children and debauches
his own body, 1 want police billies TO
persuade you, SIR" I will tell you what
you may do with any four-legged hog on
this mountain. Just take pint of the
whisky you drink in this country and
pour it down his throat, and when he
gets sober, if it doesn't kill him, he will
quit these diggin's without stopping to
say goodbye or settle his bill. Much
laughter These two.legged hogs will
not only drink all they can get, but will
pawn all their children's clothes to get
more. Which is the wiser hog of the
two? If were you would get some
more legs aud little more hair and be
the other kind of hog. Laughter.
If you are whisky-drinker you are not
clever man, a kind. hearted man, a first
class citizen or anything of the sort-a
dog, dog, dog! I wonlk rather have
my little boys run with dog than with
you, sir, for they might get heas on them
from q dog, but they would not get tdrunk,
as with you. a dog will beat you, sir, as
fellow to run with. You all can under.
stand that; you can see that; you can
see anything that is on a level with
bottle or demijohn that is down on
level with you.
Nobody but covetous rascal and COW
etous scouudrel will sell whisky, and no.
body but miserable fool will drink it.
[Sensation.] Now we are getting the
thing down about right! Applause.
Now, that is cheering, good If you
want to cheer, just cheer The man who
makes whisky ought to be reimbursed for
the amount he has put into it. The man
who sells it ought to be ready to quit, for
if he has any intelligence at all, he has
more to quit, except, perhaps, the three
gallon fellow, and those little three-gallon
barkeeper and the bob-tailed yellow dogs
under the wagon-the meanest of their
species. Laughter and applause.
Now, as I have said, there are three
elements involved on the whisky side Of
this issue-the men who make it, the
men who sell it, and the men who drink
it. These last form the largest class of
humanity. Now we come to the main
proposition-prohibition or no prohibi-
ton. And just as soon IS you spring
this question men are going to talk about
"liberty" and say, "he wants to destroy,
the liberty of the American people"
Do you know that liberty means the
power to do right? License means the
! power to do wrong. There is the differ
ence-liberty is to wright what license is
to wrong. Every whisky license in
America to-day is sold for so much, with
the distinct understanding that wrong is
to come of it. I am opposed to licensing
bar, because it puts the poor, helpless
family at the mercy of the most heartless
brutes that curse the fair face of earth.
The child of a physician in our town
went to one of these fends and said:
"Please don't sell papa any more whisky.
He has been on this spree for two weeks"
And then the barkeeper turned around
and crushed the heart of that pure girl
with, MADAM, l pay license for my busi-
ness" Her heart bled as she went home
to tell her mother. am down on
license "What are you going to do ?
Prohibition don't prohibit" you say.
Let me tell you why that is lie as black
as hell every time you say it. | can
prove that you have lied, aud that you
are fool to keep saying it. Start pro-
hibition vote in Tennessee and how much
money will not the whisky men of
Tennessee spend against it? Why don't
they let itrun? Every dollar they spend
is demonstration of the fact that pro.
hibition does prohibit. Why, in Georgia,
when we went to vote county on
"whisky" or "no whisky" these whisky
fellows sent from $4,000 to $4,000 to
defeat prohibition. Every dollar they
spend and every gallon Of whisky they
donate is demonstration that prohibi-
tion does prohibit
One gentleman, who thinks he is a
statesman, says: "The reason [ am
against prohibition is, l believe it will
ruin the trade of the country" a man
can lie, no matter how low down he gets.
The first town below my town in Georgia
is Ackworth. Thirteen years ago Ack.
worth voted whisky out There were
more than ten to one in favor of prohibi.
ton. There was not single niger in
the whole town or district that voted for
whisky. There were some whito men
that did. That was one time l said, and
the first time, that would rather be a