The Columbia herald. [volume] (Columbia, Tenn.) 18??-1935, 1897-08-20
MUNICIPAL MATTERS.

heelerS Tor the w nlSkey IdTty are
up to their old tricks, and, as usual,
are claiming the earth. To hear
them tell it, of the twelve hundred
registered voters, eight hundred of
them are theirs. They are buying
the registration papers of the cOlored
brother, and their Nashville friends,
will furnish them with money
galore.
This is all the veriest rot. They
are whipped, and they know it.
They have been whipped ever since
the last election, and they are going
to stay whipped until some day in
the distant future when the chris
tian, moral, law abiding, order low
ing folks of Columbia are caught
mapping. Not until then will the
whiskey ring rule this town.
The Reform Party have something
else to do than to talk politics for
buncombe; but when the time for
organization and action comes, they
will be found ready. And the day
after the election, this whiskey gang
will look about as disconsolate as
they did on their return from Nash
vile one bleak and dreary day last
winter. Some of our readers will
remember their big boasts and loud
talk on that occasion, and how easily
they were knocked out on the first
round.
That same five thousand dollars
they had for the last election, they
are still spending, sin their minds"
The Nashville whiskey dealers
hav'nt any surplus to loan to their
drowning Columbia friends. 1t takes
all they can rake and scrape to en-
terrain the Legislature every two
years.
And what if they had money galore |!
What would they do with it? Do
they think Columbia with its schools
aud churches and christian homes
and business interests at stake,
would sell out to them! Do they
think the public mind has so soon
forgotten the riotous Sundays and
all night debaucheries and midnight
murders before this Board was
elected!
Do they think the public eye has
so soon forgotten the offensive sight
of lewd women in flowing Mother
Hubbard's providing the streets as
soon as the shades of evening fell
Do they think the mothers and
fathers have forgotten how Sunday
saloons and gambling bells were
run wide open, and how their minor
boys were pulled in and tieeced!
And if they have forgotten, do they
think that the pulpit and the press
will not remind them over and over
again, before the election day!
If they do, then, to use their own
vernacular, that is where they "over'
look their hands
Neither our friends nor our enc.
mics need not be impatient OF
alarmed for fear the fight will not
be made hot enough to their liking
There should be saving of nervou:
energy, for it may be need ed. The
lines between right and wrong, be.
tween temperance and drunkenness
between bad morals and good, be
tween good order and drunken revel'
ry, between good citizens hip anC
bad, between the home and the sa
loon, will be so plainly drawn, anC
men will be so severely judged by
the company they keep, that if any
halfway good man-any man who
loves good morals, sobriety and good
order, through prejudice or misin'
formation happens to get on the
wrong side, he will wish a Thousand
times that he hadn't.
But it is too early to wax warm
yet. We will save our fire for the
proper time, and then we will joir
the good people of Columbia in pro
tecting their homes and perpetual
ing good government.