The Laurens advertiser. (Laurens, S.C.) 1885-1973, 1903-11-04
THE ADVERTISER.
LAURENs, =. c., Now, a, 1908.
The Leading Southern whiskey State.

The whiskey business would have
been practically dead in South Caro-
lima by this time had not the dispen-
sary law been enacted. That was per-
haps the single expedient by which the
life Of the business could have been
p~erpetuated in this state The his
tory OF neighborlng Southern states
for the last ten years proves it.
Texas and Mississippi are practically
prohibition states. Only in q few
counties is the whiskey trade permitted.
The came is true OF Tennessee. Fifty
counties are "dry" in Alabama.
Thirty Of the forty counties in Florida
prohibit the sale of intoXicants. Fifty
Arkansas counties are 'dry". Of 137
counties in Georgia probably not more
than ten or q dozen have barrooms.
More than q hundred have absolute
prohibition. In North Carolina sixty
Of the ninety-seven counties have pro-
hibition. In both North Carolina and
Georgia some counties have local dis
pensaries, similar to ours, except that
each is an independent county concern
and there are no state dispensaries.
In these states the people vote as be-
tween dispensaries, bar-rooms and pro-
hibition. The latter prevails in nearly
all the counties.
In other words, it Is the simple fact
that within the last ten or fifteen years
almost the whole South has voted itself
dry. In the larger towns and cities,
like Augusta, Atlanta, Birmingh am,
Savannah and Jacksonville, the bar
rooms arc retained but whiskey has
been driven almost entirely from the
smaller towns aud the rural districts.
The prohibition sentiment has grown
rapidly and, what is more to the point,
the laws are enforced. One may go to
"dry" towns of North Carolina, for
example, as we did this summer, and
never hear of o "blind tiger" The
New York Sun points out that in the
South, following the elimination of the
negro vote by suffrage qualifications,
prohibition has been generally adopted
as the law.
In South Carolina the dispensary was
accepted by the prohibitionists In the
legislature of 1892 as a compromise
msasure-as a 'step towards prohibit
ton" After the people had voted
for prohibition their representatives
gave them a state whiskey selling sys-
tenn of saloons.
What are the results?
In the first place we have the legal
lied sale of whiskey more generally es-
tab'ished in South Carolina than in
any other Southern state. North
Carolina has 81 whiskey selling coun-
ties (many of these having local dis
pensaries) out of 81 counties. South
Carolina has about 80 whiskey selling
counties out of Al.
South Carolina has about two dry
counties. Georgia has over 100.
How is that FIR a "step towards pro.
hibition2
The city Of Charleston has about fif.
teen legal places for the sale OF wills.
key and beer and the illegal places
number in the hundreds. Is AuSusts,
Ga, or Atlanta, Ga, in any worse con.
dition, with open bar rooms? In the
city of Columbia, there are five or SIX OF
more legal beer and whiskey places and
''tigers" are plentiful. In short, there
has been no improvement in South
Carolina in the large towns as com.
pared with the large towns of other
Southern states. Nothing has been
gained for temperance by the dispen-
sary system in them. In the small
towns in South Carolina we have the
dispensary as against prohibition
throughout the South.
The dispsnsary has probably made
South Carolina the leader of Southern
states in the consumption Of whiskey.
\ That is the distinction that our state
has won and is maintaining.
In the second place, the dispensary
has firmly engrafted the whiskey bust
ness on the state. 1t has scared and
bluntei and cauterized the sentiment
for prohibition. 1t would be almost i'm
possible for South Carolina to adopt
prohibition now, by counties or as a
whole. The dispenssry is paying. 1t
is paying Laurens, county ana town,
about $12, 200 OF more each year. Ten
years ago Laurens town was unanimous
against the dispensary. 1t was neces.
sary to create negro landowners by
gift in order to vote a dispensary on
the town. Now, however, it is proba-
BILE that the people would vote for the
dispansary rather than prohibition.
The dispensary pays. The people who
drink dispensary whiskey are paying
u taxes. The pocket nerve has beer
touched, not only in L.urens but
throughout the state. The outlook Ia
that South Carolina will hold her place
as the great whiskey state OF the South
because she is making money out Of
the business.
Twenty years go prohibition was
not practicable in this town. Condi-
tions were not settled. Law sni order
had not assumed their sway and the
decentralization following the War and
Reconstruction still fingered. All that
has changed. Prohibition would be
practicable here wv, just as 1t is in
hundreds OF towns from North Caro-
H. %. G~I.f~.-