St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1885-11-22
REMARKABLE CONTEST.
The People of Atlanta Highly Ex-
cited over Local Option.

ATLANTA, Ga, Nov 21.-On Wednes-
day next will close the most remarkable
contest ever carried on in any Southern
city, when Atlanta will decide whe ther the
sale of liquor shall be prohibited or not.
For ten years temperance agitation has
been car ried On in Georgia. which has SO
far succeeded that now out of 137 counties
of the state the sale of liquor is only al
! lowed in fifteen. These fifteen counties
are the seats of large cities, where the liquor
element has large property interests at
stake. The principle by which the agita-
! ton was carried on is know as that of
so cal option" 1t has been broached in
each community as moral and police
measure, thus meeting the support of both
political parties, of both colers and of the
entire moral element of society. 1t was
not until this movement reached the large
| cities that any serious opposition was met.
These
LOCAL OPTION ELECTIONS
were held under special acts of the legisla-
| ture The business interest of the large
cities was always strong to prevent the pas
| sage of such local option acts so far as they
were themselves concerned, hence the legis-
lature passed general local option bill
under which the ordinances Of the counties
were required to order an election upon the
petition of given number OF citizens. The
first city to which this was applied was At
| lanta. An election on the question was
ordered by Calhoun on the petition of $500
voters, to take place on Nov. 25. Then
began a canvass which has de-
! veloped most remarkable features. The
highest vote ever cast even in a
presidential year was little over 5, 0e0.
| The registration in this election has run up
to 5000. The prohibitionists organized a
strong committee. backed by nearly all the
preachers in the city with Senator Colquitt,
| District Attorney Hill and other prominent
men actively at work. The brunt of battle,
however. has fallen on the shoulders Of Rev.
j. H. Hawthorne, the celebrated Baptist
preacher. Rev. Samuel Jones. Col. Samuel
Small, Rev. A. C. Haygoed, Rev. W. h.
FELTON, and others have for ten days been
addressing audiences of from 500 to 300 in
Sam. Jones' gospel tent. The anti-prohi-
bitionists have been equally active, being
led by Julius Brown. son of Senator Brown,
Hon A. Cox and many others. They have
been particularly active in committee work.
The most
| REMARKABLE POLITICAL FEATURE
| of the campaign has been the breaking ur
Of party and color lines. The meetings OF
both parties are attended by white and
black, and earnest efforts have been made
by both sides to capture the colered voters.
For this purpose not only have speakers OF
both sides addressed large bodies of colored
men. but they have imported prominent
colored speakers, such as Bishop Campbell
of Philadelphia, Bishop Turner and ex-
Congressman jeff Long. The ladies, too.
have taken up the conquest with yiger. In
word, every element Of society, all ages,
sexes and colors are stirred up. and nothing
else is talked of but prohibition. The gen.
eral feeling is that If Atlanta goes for pro-
hibitien the movement will spread rapidly
throughout all the Southern states.