Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1895-07-26
SOUTH CAROLINA'S WAY
Rev. Thomas Dixon Pronounoes the Dispen.
sary Gigantic Success
blind Tigers Are Running, but the
Absence of the Saloon
Works Well.
pecial Dispatch to The Evening Star.

Special Dispatch to The Evening Star
COLUMBIA s. c., July 26.-The Rev,
Tom Dixon, the well-known New York
preacher, made a lecturing tour through
South Carolina recently, ard he seems to
have observed closely the dispensary law
and its workings. The following opinion
of it expressed by him is taken from a pri-
vate letter of a gentleman In New York to
a friend in South Carolina. Said the Rev.
Tom: 1.-THE state closed up ali the bar
rooms and opened up instead places where
all forms of liquors could be bought from
the finest to the poorest, but none of 1t
could be consumed on the place. The off,
Ger in charge has no interest in the profits
or success of the business. as he gets a sal
airy. 1t was inaugurated and put into effect
by the Cyclone Tillman, then governor,
now United States Senator. It met with
the greatest opposition and the severest
criticism, but anything from him would
nave been the same. 1 honestly believe
that IL an angel had stood on st. Michaers,
IN Charleston, and said that * was a d.
vine order that the dispensary be estab-
!ished, it would have been the means Of
Keeping the whole people from church. such
was the feeling against it when it was
established Now, l say. without fear Of
contradiction, that it is working with ben
-eht to the. vast majority Of the people.
1 spent twentyfour hours in Charleston,
the city until o'clock in the morning and
never saw any city SO quiet except Port
land, Me-, and there the same conditions
exist, except the South Carolina law is a
poor edition Of the Maine law where liquor
Is sold only on prescription. In South Car
oina 1t Is sold to any one. The revenue
feature Of the dispensary law is it's worst
feature. 1 never saw man or woman in
the city under the influence of LIQUOR I
spent the Fourth of July in a city of 5000
in South Carolina, where half the popula ton
Is colored, and not an arrest was made for
drunkenness or for disorderly conduct
did not see one person In the slightest I'M
der the influence of liquor.
They drink in South Carolina of course,
but as you lessen the tenn ia tion you lessen
the drunkenness. They have eight dispen-
saries in Charleston now instead of three
hundred bar rooms. and instead of all the
attractions of a 6rst-class bar room they
present nothing mere attractive to the
passerby than the plainest hardware store,
where you buy tenpenny nails and monkey
wrenches. Oh, no. no one ever thinks Of
going to a dispensary on account of its
attractlveness You see only the shelves,
with the goods stacked away on them and
a plain bulletin board on the wall, giving
III detail the latest price on the goods.
1.-The blind tigers are running, and just as
1t always was, any fool can get drunk
without going to the dispensary-can get
drunk at any time. I believe that South
Carolina, with her impulsveness and her
disposition to lead. has given to the world
the solution of the whisky problem, and
that it could be extended to the other forty
odd states with advantage to civilization"