Keowee courier. [volume] (Pickens Court House, S.C.) 1849-current, 1900-08-01

parts of the State, can afford to en-
gage in it, it becomes a means of de-
bauchlng the public conscience.
That is just exactly the use to which
1t is being turned to-day. The IL
cense system confuscs the conscience
OF the people; j, hcguilcs them with
the plea that they are really taxing
an evil business, and thus many of
them fail to realize their RESPONSE
bility, Or think thcy have discharged
1T in taxing bad business. The
dispcnsary brushes away all that illu-
sion. 1t makes the responsibility
direct and unqucstionablc and it is
bound in the nature of things to
have one of two effects upon tho
people, either the dispensary, by
bringing home to the conscicnces of
the people their responsibility, will
arouse their conscience rs if it were
touched with a hot iron and drive
them out Of the business and drive
the State out of the business and
lead inevitably to prohibition, or it is
bound to dcaden the conscicnccs Of
the people until they acquicsce tamely
in the fact that they are all liquor
dealers and Justify the business to
themselves and fall into dreadful
moral dccadcncc. And the tendency
Is IN that direction. Why, friends,
it ought to burn every mans face, it
ought to burn every mans heart, it
ought to stick knife into every
mans sclfrcspect, the idea that you
and tonight are liquor dealers
That's what we are. And man that
will tamely sit down under that and
acqnicscc in it and say it is all right,
that he likes the business and it is a
very good business and it brings
very good profit, it saves him taxes
and he is satisfied with it and will
stay in the business; the man that
does that has passed through the
vcrysamc process Of moral !dccadcnco
that the barkccper does when he first
cmbarks in the deadly trade.
a prohibition law in this State
saying to its citizens and teaching
them that the traffic in Intoxicating
beverages is wrong 1t is the voice
of the great State saying to it's
young men that the business is bad
and dishonorabc and hurtful to your
fellow man and you cannot afford to
go into it. 1t is the State, the great
State, pointing the thoughts of its
children upward and directing their
minds toward larger and justcr and
more humane conceptions of their
moral relations to their follow men.
The average life of people cannot
90 higher than its laws and we will
nevTlift the average life Of our State
above the moral degradation of the
liquor business and clean our hands
OF 1t until we rise up in our might
and IN our sense of responsibility to
Almighty God and to our follow men,
and particularly to our children, and
say: We will have none Of it! We
will not he in the business We will
say to them it is wrong, it is wrong.
\ cs, if the evil men in our communi-
ties are so numerous and 50 powerful
that they shall tie our hands so that
we cannot enforce it, at any rate we
will do this: we will write it down
in the statute books that our BOYS az
they grew up may read it there, that
it is the very deliberate judgment of
the lntc cligcncc and the conscience Of
the people Of South Carolina that the
liquor business is wrong and cannot
be Justified economically or morally
or any otherwise, and that much at
any rate will be gained.
| don, want my boy to grow up
to be taught by the State that the
liquor business is n good and honora-
blc and justIiablc thing. And that
is what the State is now saying to
every boy that is growing up among