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

} down in it's boasted moral aims,
which is violated every day in the
year by anybody that sees fit to do
it and which, in addition to that, is
vicious in moral principle, but they
oppose prohibition, forsooth, because
somebody would violate it, although
they must admit that it is correct in
moral principle.
thas been openly charged that the
preachers and the barkccpcrs are in
an alliance, led by Col. Hoyt, to de-
feat the dispensary. That charge is
too absurdly false TO receive II mo-
ment's credence from any human
being who has the slightest lingering
regard for truth left in him. United
States Senator Tillman, who made
that charge, knew it to be false when
he uttered it. The charge cannot be
Interpreted as anything else but a
mean and contemplate effort TO
break the force of the almost unani-
nous advocacy of prohibition by the
preachers, and served its author as a
good occasion also to throw CONTEMPT
upon class of men for which he has
IN many other ways expressed his
contempt. 1t may be true that some
OF the liquor men are fighting the
dispensary. shall not undertake to
state what their reasons are. |
am not the keeper of their con
sicncos and | am not in an alliance
with them. But will tell you this
much is clear: The State has pro
hibitcd their selling liquor as in
dlviduals on the ground that the
business is wrong and detrimental
to the public welfare, and then the
State turns around and goes into the
business itself, and thereby declares
that the BUSINESS is right and con
ducivc to the public welfare. The
State forbds .hcm to engage in the
business and lnen the State is edu-
eating them aud all its citizens in
the idea that liquor selling as Il
beverage is justifiablc on economic
and moral grounds. The State, in
its bundcring attempt to correct and
restrain a bad business, is teaching
Its citizens that there are good and
sufficient reasons to engage in it, 1t
Is very certain that man should
infer that when State forbids him
to engage in a business because il is
wrong and hrrtful and then turns
about and engages in that business
itself, that is an act Of tyranny by
the State, and also an act Of dishon-
esty by the State towards it's citi-
zens. And isn't the State by that
very act teaching its citizens to disc
hey its own law?
All laws have an immense cduca-
tional influence. The dspcnsary
system is radically wrong in its
educational tendency. 1t inculcatcs
a radically wrong idea. One Of the
happy features of the prohibition
ystcm is the educational influence
of the law. 1t cducatcs the con
science and thought of the people
along right lines. 1t teaches that
the liquor business is wrong wrong
in principle and hurtful in its effects,
and that it cannot be justified on
moral or economic grounds. SO far
as laws are cducativc in their effect
upon the minds of men, prohib-
ton law Fits them up in their moral
ideals and 80 becomes great civil
izing and moralizing influence among
men. The dispcnsary is the very
opposite and that is one Of my chief
charges against it, 1t was to be
hoped that the dispcnsary system
would bring home to the conscicnccs
of the people the sense OF their di-
rect and immediate responsibility for
the liquor traffic and all its at
tendant evils, Il responsibility
which exists under any system
Of liquor selling which has the ap-
proval and consent of the law. And
it was hoped that the dispcnsary sys.
tom would bring so Souarcly home