The state chronicle. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1883-1893, 1886-01-28
OUR NEW YORK LETTER.
NIX. PAGE. IN HIS USUAL HAPPY
VEIN, CIV Is INTERESTING NEWS.
He ton.ratulate> the Chronicle. Discus
>e> the Prohibition Question. Touches
on tivif Service Reform. Etc


70 know. That i the business Of a news
paper except III North Carolina. In Kal
elgh their business n Il rule teyery b0dE
viii know 10 which the rule applies and
which are the EXCEPTIONS has been 10 con
Ceal what folks wish To Know. There +,
Que thing, which you very properly ran
not insist on, bat on which hope to be
pard01cd for insisting on with all empha-
SIS III your columns, and that Is II is every
man duty III the State who wishes 10
have a newspaper III Raleigh to pay you
for your work. Whether Il person agrees
with you or not Is a tritling consideration.
The man point Is, You print news. AID
news IS worth money To any community
The people ought to see ttheV do see too
that directly III proportion 10 the pay the
CHRONICLE gets viii il be Il good nrwsp;-
per. 1t IS better now than il ever was be
cause more folks take it. And the bigger
It's patronage the better il viii be For
my part, | know of no better service | can
do liberty of speech, broad IDEAS. manIi-
llness and progress in the State than 10
fill the space that fill with an humble
but hope useful appeal for 10 900 sub
scribers. If You had them people outside
of North Carolina would hear something
about the State, and the people in the
state would have newspaper that carries
weight with it. / am overcome with
feeling of shame whenever talk about
1Iorth Carolina journalism in any Of the
great news 5pcr Offices lere. The CnRoN-
ICLE and two or three other wcekles fthe
Statesville Landmark for onc) are the only
papers that ever attract moments attcn-
ton. The rest are-well, the less said the
better. They contain nothing independ
ent, nothing original and are not needed.
No other Southern State is 50 barren.
South Carolina has its News and Courier;
Georgia, It's Constitutions; Florida. its
Times-U Mon; Alabama, its Mobile Regis
ter; Louisiana and Texas Of course have
great papers in their great cities the Cad
weston News and the TimeSDcmocrat OF
New Orleans; Tennessee has its Nashville
American and Memphis Avalanche and
Appeal; Virginia has its Dispatch, and
| State. North Carolina alone has no paper
that speaks out to the nation. But it viii
have, and you are driving towards it with
all good speed 1t depends on the people
how fast you can hasten your present rate.
a Prohibition paper published here
has for several months contained a let
ter two in every weekly issue about
the growth Of the Prohibition move
ment IN North Carolina. The writers,
a few of whom any North Caroliuian
| can easily recognize, are sure that the mil
! somehow about to come. Think of that
momentous majority against the move
| ment OF a few years ago 1t IS pltlful to
see good men fooling themselves 10 death.
! had talk about Prohibition in North
! Carolina with one OF the agitatorS Of the
| cause here who is greatly in favor of send
! ing missionaries there, But worse than pitt
! ful is the purely Internal dishonesty Of the
politicians {some on each side Of the queS
! ton( who use it, and who used it in North
! Carolina as tverybody knows for the
same uses the devil puts the Scriptures to.
In certain circle here there are few
men who are awfully agtated about
| drunkenness in the old State The sub
| ject is one that no honest man can fail to
| be agitated about. | have not often seen
a more discouraging sight than your own
''grog alley" presents on Saturday night.
+! Our ancestral mOnkies in Africa had more
| decency and dignity a million years ago
than the drunken crowds of negroes and
| worse crowds of whites that sometimes
gather and swear there; and there has not
been a six months of my memory but
somebody was killed by drunken man
at some of the little towns on the railroad
that runs South from Raleigh. Vet few
good men and all the preachers continue
to delay the day of civilization in this mat
ter by preaching prohibition. That is a
pititui sight. I've seen it in Kansas and
Iowa and Missouri They've kept it up in
Ohio for 30 years They are at it now in
New York, while men of good Judgment
are doing their best to procure a high
license law The more the preachers and
the Prohibiti0nists preach Prohibition the
longer it will be in every State-in North
Carolina, in New York and in all the rest
before any sensible action is taken in
the matter, or before the disgraceful state
of affairs is mended one whit. 1t is the
widest scheme ever advocated by sensible
men. After years and years of agitation,
and at time when party ties We're loos-
est, the Prohibition candidate for the
Presidency in 1884 received less than one
and one half per cent. of the vote cast
got nothing in fact. In the OF States
where elections were held last y..,r, he
PrGlibitionists poi2d only , or / pes cent
of the vote. If IL could ever be carried
and could really stop the traffic, in God.
name we ought to work for it. But it j.
just as practicable scheme to work fol
the entire regeneration Of man by legSla
tive enactment or popular vote a for Pro
hiiition
They have done well in Georgia So far
+ There they have q law BY which any coun
ty Cor any township, | believe) may holC
elections at stated times to decide Whethe
, liquors shall be sold or not You can carr.
such places and enforce it too; and it i
q very blessed arrangement. Then in th'
, towns and country alike the imposition o
a very nigh license tax is the only schem
] that has met with succeas. They are nov
trying here to get 9 law passed which vii
impose 81, 600 annual license on sellers Q
p spirituous liquors and 800 on sellers 0
,. malt liquors only. That would shut up man
, | shop where mean whiSkey Is retalied
+ But these same gentlemen who expect L
+ see all liquor selling atopped by law ar
+ opposing the measure with prayers an'
rhetoric and quotations from >criptur
n and much holy zeal, aud denOuncing every
; body who favors .Iegalizing" the traffic a
guilty of extending the evil There ar
q two classes Of men that are good III thi
q world chiefly as warnings examples
q youth of what manhood should not be
p and they ara professional reformers an
: old fogies One kind proposes to tur
+ the world over, and the other kind get
g awfully angry if anybody proposes 70 tur
a over a new leaf.
;, What a good thing it is that Senate
o Vance has come squarelv out against tt
a reform of the civil service When it
/ seen that the reform and the sentiment
favor of it goes on grandly. slowly, surel.
without consciousness of obstruction eve
when he has put himself in its way, n