The Newberry herald and news. (Newberry, S.C.) 1884-1903, 1893-11-29
THE DISPENSARY NOT PROHIBITIoN.
The Real Prohibitionists Urged to Arouse
"A Convincing ArguInent-The Dis
pensary In No Sense a Prehi-
bition Measure.
Zone Of several Papers read before the
Newberry w. c.. r. u

w" UClIS W W L. ~
If the cause of prohibition ever stood
in need of the earnest prayers and act
i've work of its friends it certainly still
needs them; for what has been given
US IS certainly in no respects what pro-
hibitionists asked for and voted for.
They asked for bread aud were given
q stone. They asked for prohibition
and were given Instead State traffic in
whiskey. They insisted that individ-
ual traffic in whiskey was morally
wrong and sinful, and they were made
participants ia this moral wrong and
sin by having the State engage in the
traffic.
We may say that the Dispensary
law has one or two good features in it.
One of these is uDquestionabiy the
closing of the dispensaries at 6 o'clock
D. m., for it was no doubt under cover
of the darkness of the night that the
worst often es were committed in the
bar-rooms. But we see no reason why
the bar-rooms might not have been
closed at night by law as the dispensa-
ries are. The forbidding the sale IT,
drunkards and minors is also good
feature. But this was forbidden by
law to the bar-roorns also; and 1t is
continually being violated or evaded
by the dispensaries just as it was by
the bar-rooms. Here in our own town,
we are told, the worst drcnkard has no
difficulty in procuring whiskey through
a negro as proxy. AS to whether or
MT the forbidding the drinking on the
premises is good feature of tue law,
I am inclined to think has two sides to
it. Under the Dispensary law whole
bottle has to be bought and carried of
the premises to be consumed. 1t is
likely carried home and drunk in the
prese euce of wife and children, the con-
sumner lying drunk, perhaps, until 1t is
fuishsd. Under the saloon system
the moderate drinker took drink or
two. perhaps, on the spot, and all its
effects bad left him before be got
home. Or even if he got drunk be
likely did not reach home until be was
sober, so bis family was spared the dis
gusting sight of seeing husband and
father in state Of beastIy intoxica-
ton. 1t may then, l think, be ques-
tionable as to whether selling by the
bottle under the Dispensary is any i'm
provement over selling by the drink
under the saloon system.
But the most serious objection to the
Dispensary, perhaps, is that it tries to
make respectable by law what is III it.
self disrespectable and demoraliZing;
that it tries to make a virtue out of a
vice; and that it makes all of us--men,
women and chiidren-participants in a
traffic which we have been taught to
regard as such terrible moral wrong.
The evil effects of this law are already
plainly visible in the fact that we find
people engaging in the dispensaries
who would never have thought of ac-
cepting employment in bar-room;
that not only those who were consid-
cred good Christian people, end are
members of churches, engage in the
whiskey traffic under the form of dis
pensaries hut that we find even min
listers If the Cos, Eel, and, worse still,
perhaps, even women, who have been
known aS ardent advocates OF prohibi-
ton, engaged in the extraordinary
work of apologizing for and defending
these State bar-rnoms In view, then,
of the demoraIizing effect already visl-
bic on some Of our people, and the
danger that real prohibition may have
been rather driven further of than
brought nearer by the Dspensary law,
I repeat that if the cause of Prohihi-
ton ever stood in need Of the earnest
prayers and active " "ork Of lis friends,
it certainly needs them still.
In conclusion, I will read contrast
between Dispensary and Saloon, drawn
by Rev. Mr.. Hartzog, of the Methodist
Church:
"The saloon is an individual enter
prise, the dispensary is monopoly.
The saloonist is social outlaw, the
dispenser is an officer of the law.
''The saloonist sins openly; the dis
pepser screens himself behind the
State. The saloon is a tighting rattle
snake 10 the middle of the road; the
dispensary is cold viper concealed in
the grass. The saloon creates drunk
ards; the dispcnsary creates drunkar S
and hypocrites.
The saloonist sells; the dispenser
dispenses. Selling is acknowledged to
be wrong; dispensing is thought by
some to be right. The fiotsam and jet
sam of social life may sell; the children
of God may dispense. The verb sell
is changed by law to dispense: and
by statutory enactment vice becomes
virtue!
"The saloon deceives not the moral
sense: the dispeusary is the prince Of
conscience stupifiers. A Christian who
would scorn to sell whiskey believes it
proper to dispense whiskey.
"Verily a new dispensation hath
arisen, or perhaps an old one redivivus.
Centuries ago the Pope of Rome sold
permits 10 do things forbidden, under
the specious name of 'dispenses.' His
tory repeats itself.
''If whiskey-selling is right, the
State should not have monopoliZed q
legitimate business; if wrong, the State
should not have embarked il it,"
A BRIDEGROOM AGED 90.