The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1896-03-04
Making Money out Of Vice.

The ~dispensary system Of South
Carolina is being watched pretty close
ly by students Of social problems the
world over. Its results and tendencies
can not be summed up as yet with very
much assurance, but there is a growing
conviction that whatever might be
said for such a system, conducted in
good faith, solely as a police measure,
nothing can be said for it conducted
by the State for the profit there is in
it. AS a scheme for making money
out of the vices Of the people and
building up the State institutions on
a financial basis laid in the debauchery
of men and the PRONUNCIATION of vice,
crime, and insanity, it is one Of the
most ~atrocious schemes eve set on
foot. State Commissioner Nixon
made his report the other day on the
results of the dispensary for the last
year. We find him congratulating
himself and the State on the large
amount Of sales made in the dispense
ries and the prospect of increasing the
State business in debauchery. Here
are the words he uses:
"It is gratifying to me to be enabled
to state that the operations of the dis
pensary have been profitable for the
period of my incumbency in Office a
profit of s133, 467. II having accrued
from the sales of the past II months,
while the unearned profit outstanding,
December 10, is $25, 571.85, making a
total earned and unearned profv for
II months of $3.50, O39. 62 on 1903, O55.63
total sales by me for the corresponding
period
Was,there ever before a State Official
that declared in en- official document
that an increase in the business Of
drunkard-making was gratifying p
What is more, Commissioner Nixon
is elated over the prospect of still
further increase, and after telling what
he thinks ought to be done to insure
this increase, he adds:
"It is absolutely necessary to pro-
vide increased facilities to meet the
requirements Of this growing trade,
and if the suggestions thrown out by
me are not adopted, it will be impos-
sible to measure up to the expectation
Of the public
The depreciation Of the public
forsooth What Governor Evans, the
author of the %dispensary bill, and
| Senator Tillman, its chief hacker, as
sured the public was that the bill was
one designed as a temperance bill to
reduce the liquor traffic. Tillman' s
Supreme Court sustained it on the
ground that it was a police measure
and only incidentally a revenue meas
ure. Yet here, less than three years
after it's enactment, we find that the
State commissioner, to whose hands is
entrusted the administration of the
system, is so far out of harmony with
the spirit of the law. as at first pro-
claimed, that he really measures it's
success by the growth of the business
and is devising new facilities to insure
such a growth. 1t is a most notable
sumersault, yet it is just what was to
have been expected and what we
clearly predicted.
The profit in the dispensary system
is the poison that will make the whole
system stink in the course Of a few
years. It will do for the dispensary
just what it has done for the license
system. The license system, and es-
pecially high license, was at first
taken UP as a restrictive measure, but
the revenue has come to be the only
feature that interests the minds Of
officials and the whole license system
has become a mere revenue system,
the success of which is measured by
the increase of revenue rather than
the increase of drunkenness.
A house divided against itself can
not stand. If the ~dispensary is to be
operated with a view chiefly to success
as a revenue system, it must prove a
failure as a means for the repression
of intemperance. If it is to be made
a success as a means of repression, it
must prove a failure as a revenue
measure. It cannot be a success in
both directions. The State should
make it one thing or the other .-New
York Voice, Prohibition.