Atlanta semi-weekly journal. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1898-1920, 1902-03-06
CARTERsVILLE. Ga.

thing is going their way they are
shouting happy, but when they see
and know IL is going the other way
they rear and pitch and cuss and say
they are going to take no more sass,
they will die first; but they take 1t and
they don't die. 1 suppose the saloon
keepers of Rome and Sister LoveJoy
must feel very bad over the defeat OF
the saloons I'm Floyd county. They all
did what they could to defeat the dis
pensary and perpetuate the saloons. l
am glad they busted, though / want
il distinctly understood l am not the
champion, and never will be, of the
dispensary, but 1 know as well as
know my name that morally, socially
and from every standpoint of decency
a dispensary is better than saloon.
First, 1t takes the liquor interest out
of the hands of barkeepers, whose
greed for gain makes them ransack
the earth for victims to their traffic,
and also makes them potent factors
in the politics of the town and county.
No community knows this better than
the people of Floyd county, for the
whisky gang of Rome has been the
most potent factor in the politics Of
that county for years and years. When
you take a barkeeper's barroom away
from him he is like a negro at white
primary-he Just amt in it. The lone
soonest human being / ever saw was a
colored brother who in former years
had done business at the polls, to see
him standing off on the day OF the
white primary, lonesome, woebegone,
feeling like his day had passed.
I heard when was in Chattanooga
the other day that some of the Rome
saloon keepers had been up there look
ing for places to set up. l heard also
that they had been down to Atlanta
looking around, and when you break
them up I'm one place 1t is like running
the "soiled doves out of one city
they flock to another, and they are
just as much ''soiled doves" in one city
as in another. A man who has long
followed the liquor trade and traffic
soon comes to believe that he can't
make a living at anything else, and
many of them say, ''If could make
living at anything else 1 would not
keep a saloon" and my only reply to
them Is that whenever the day came
with me that could not make liv-
ing without getting behind counter
and dishing out damnation at ten cents
a drink to my neighbors / would go
deliberately out TO the corporate linn
its and blow my brains out. suicide
is a better citizen than a saloon keep
er, dead or alive.
I understand that some of the sa-
loon keepers are nosing around in Bar
tow now seeing If there amt an open
ing over here, since the supreme court
knocked out our prohibition law, and
there are a lot of us mad about that
yet, and while we have no law against
the sale Of liquor, we want them TO
understand we have got a sentiment
here in Barrow county against II,
majority of the good people OF this
county at the polls have said they
didn't want any whisky sold in this
county, and the red-nosed supreme
court may reverse that decision In a
legal sense, but they can't do 1t in
moral sense. If any fellow has the
temerity to put up saloon anywhere
In this county and a crowd of kuklux
comes up here from Mexico or comes
over from Australia and takes him out
in the woods and fixes him so he viii
have to stand up and eat for the next
three months, will have at least more
respect for that crowd from Mexico or
Australia than have for the supreme
court of Georgia, at least so far as the
temperance question is concerned In
Barlow county. I have been thinking
some time would take a day off and
go down to Atlanta and examine the
color of the noses of our supreme
court judges. They may be all lily
white, some of them may be pale pink
and others blood red. 1 will not know
definitely until take-a day on and
see.
Woe be to the man who goes against
the sentiment of the decent element or
a community. Sentiment is like the
atmosphere about us-wholesome and
harmless until storm centers are
IN the
air, and righteous indignation or right
sentiment stirred to fits highest pitch
Is but a moral cyclone before which
everything whirls and moves. live In
Barlow county, have lived here from
childhood, by blind tigers, dispensaries
or saloons and IL any little town or
corner of this county thinks they can
set UP in that business we viii meet
them at the tanl1-that is If the court
knows herself. and she think she DO.
I can't believe that a license can be
gotten in this county for barroom,
though they are talking 1t In big shape
over at Emerson, but / don't believe
the council of that town Will turn that
traffic loose upon the homes OF this
county to wreck our boys and ruin our
citizens for the pitiful sum that they
would get out of It; but perchance they
do. then we will call an election for
this county forthwith, not for dispen-
sary. but for what we had before the
supreme court got in its ticks on us.
NV advice TO the Rome saloon keepers
and the saloon gang is. Quiet down,
bows. take your medicine like little
man and retire gracefully. Seab is In
the saddle, the dispensary will do busi-
ness. and do II better than you ever
did II and do 1t more decently than
YOU ever did It. They will sell better
liquor and sell It cheaper.
AS far as the morality of the ques-
ton is concerned, when any COM
munity licenses a bar then they are a
party to it with all that the barroom
means, and they turn the thing over
to another man TO do what he can
with 1t, but a dispensary is in the
hands of the county. They close at
shutdown, they open at sunup. They
violate no liquor law, they have no
interest in the violation of law, drunk
ards and minors cannot buy II.
I regretted very much that my own
sickness prevented me from being pres
ent at the Guerry meeting in Atlanta
the other night. am Query man.
keep saying that Query is for some
thing and Query is agin something,
and am for everything he is for and
I am agin everything he is agin. He
stands for something, he stands
against something, but when 1 look at
Terrell I think of the fellow who was
Dragging on the train that he could
tell anybodys politics by their looks.
They said well try your hand on this
crowd He looked at one gentleman and
said: you are a gold bug" Yes, sir,
he replied, That's my sentiments"
He turned to another and said, You
are a free silver man." Yes" he said,
"and am not ashamed of il, either"
Pointing to another he said: You are