The Lancaster ledger. [volume] (Lancaster, S.C.) 1852-1905, 1900-07-28

that it cannot be usSiied on
moral or economic grounds. So
far as laws are educativo in their
effect upon tne minds of men, a
prohibition law lifts them up in
their moral ideals, and so becomes
a great civilizing and moralizing
influence among men. The dis
pensary is the very opposite and
that is one of my chief charges
against it. 1t was to be hoped
that the dispensary system would
bring home to the consciences of
the people the sense of their direct
and immediate responsibility for
the liquor traffic and all it's at
tendant evils, responsibility
which exists under any system
of liquor selling and which has the
approval and consent of the law.
1t was hoped, l say, that the
dispensary system would bring so
squarely home to the conscience
of the people direct moral re-
sponsibility for the business that
it would become intolerable to
to them and they would be forced
by the protests of their own bet
ter natures to get out of the busi-
ness. But if the dispensary is to
be used as An agency to teach the
people that the liquor traffic is
justi6abIe, is, in fact, so justitiabIe
and good that they themselves, as
component parts of the State can
afford to engage in it, it becomes
a means of debauching the public
conscience. That is just exactly
the use to which it is being turned
toda,. The license system con-
fuses the conscience of the peo-
pie it beguiles them with the
plea that they are really taxing
the evil business, and thus many
Of them fail to realize their re-
sponsibility, or think they have
discharged it in taxing bad
business. The dispensary brushes
away all that illusion. 1t makes
the responsibility direct and un-
questionable, and it is bound. in
the nature of things, to have one
Of two effects upon the people :;
either the dispensary by bringing
home to the consciences of the
people their responsibility will
arouse their conscience as If it
we're touched with hot iron, and
drive them out of the business,
and drive the State out of the
business aud lead inevitably to
prohibition, or it is bound to
deaden the consciences of the peo-
pie, until they acquiesce tamely
in the fact thsC thev are all liquor
dealers and justify the business to
themselves, and fall in a dreadful
moral decadence. And the ten
dency is in that direction. Why,
friends, 1T ought to burn every
mans face, it ought to burn
every mans heart, it ought to
stick knife into the centre of
every mans selfrespect, the idea
that you and | tonight are liquor
dealers That 4 what we are. And a
man that will tamely sit down
under that and acquiesce in it and
say it is all right, and he likes the
business, and it is very good
business, AID 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 very same process of moral
decadence that the barkeeper does
when he first embarks in the
deadly trade.
A prohibition law is the State
saying to its citizens and teaching
them that the traffic in intoxica-
tiAg beverages is wrong. 1t is
the voice of the great State saying
to its young that the business Is
bad and dishonorable and hurtful
to Your fellow man, and you can :
not afford to 60 into 1t. 1t is the
State, the great State, pointing
the thoughts of its children up.
ward and directing their minds
toward larger and justsr and more
humane conceptions of their moral
relations to their fellow man.
The average life of a people
cannot go higher than its laws,
and we will never lift the average