The Banner-Democrat. [volume] (Lake Providence, East Carroll Parish, La.) 1892-current, 1902-04-26
COMMUNICATED
COTTON SEED AND WHISKY

4
Mr. EDITOR The past season has
been prosperous one to the planters
in the vicinity of Lake Providence.
have never raised finer crop; l plant
ed exclusively Jackson's African Limb
less seed and the yield averaged one
bale and half to the acre. 1t is the
most prolific seed eyer planted; the
stock being limbless, it can be planted
in narrow rows and close, in the drill.
But this prosperity has brought mis-
fortune. The negro men and women
are drinking to great excess, and are
fast becoming lot of drunken vaga.
bonds. l.
have sent to Lake Providence since
last Septem Der by my tenants $4,000
in cash orders, two-thirds of which has
been spent in whisky. crap-shooting
and on dissolute women. The drunken
orgies of Saturday evening at Lake
Providence are extremely disgusting
aud shocking to all sense of decency.
Under police protection l have been in
the slums of New York and Paris, and
IN the White Chapel district of London.
but | have never witnessed such moral
turpitude as I saw in Lake Providence
one Saturday evening not long ago.
| looked into one saloon, behind lattice
work, and l saw negro women expos
ing their persons for the price of a
drink to a lot of drunken men, and
these women the wives of other men.
and the language they used was horri-
BILE.
If we have few. more good crops.
the negro men and women of East
Carroll will become a lot of druken
beast-human cattle. Then who will
be here to cultivate our fine river
bottom lands?
The planters should call halt. hold
q meeting to devise means to regulate
the whisky traffice and if possible. to
save the negro race from self des-
truction and our young white men
handling whisky from decentralization.
My negroes tell me there are
several saloons run by negroes. in
which negro men meet every Sunday
to drink and play craps behind closed
doors in those saloons.
Doubtless what IS done in Lake
Providence of a Saturday night and
Sunday in the way of crap shooting
and whisky drinking by negro men
and women, is done in every saloon IN
this parish. and perhaps, worse, be-
cause no policemen are near and the
license to sell whisky IS cheaper in the
parish than in the town. talked to
two members of the Police Jury and
begged them not to lower the license
this year. but put it higher yet they
reduced the license SO per cent. What
relief is,there'to be found when the Sun.
day law is dead letter and the whisky
power dominates this parish? Are
our church members and good citizens
always to lie dormant and not exert
the great moral power they always
have in every civilized communityP
Did not the preachers and christians
break up the lottery crime in Louis
lamar Can they not stamp out the
whisky power that controls electionsp
j have never heard preacher in East
Carroll inveigh in the pulpit against
the appalling drunkenness and gambling
that is almost universal in our parish.
What has DIR. -Parkhurst done in New
York for reformp Who caused the
election of Mayor Seth Low? What
carried Cromwell's armies to victory?
The Hymns they sang when they went
into battlei What caused the settle.
ment of America at Plymouth Rock
in 1920, amid the hardships and the
dangers of savagesa The power of
and religious enthusiasm!
Indeed the religious sentiment of
people when aroused. is invincible.
The church represents the conscience
If people. and when aroused, can de-
eat at elections the whisky power. i
Why cannot a church committee
aid these saloons of Sunday and get
,roof, which our district Judge tells |
ne cannot be had on account of the
perjury of witnesses before our grand |
md petit juries.
AN OLD PLANTER |