Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1904-03-04
SAM JONES GROWS WISE.
Georgia Evangelist Learning That
Dispensaries Are Worse Than Sa.

Sam Jones writes to the Atlanta
Journal from Gainesville, as follows:
I have spent three days Of this week
in South Carolina, and I have been
thinking considerably over what I saw
and heard on this trip as we'll as on
other tours through South Carolina.
I spent last Monday night in Charles
ton. Our train on Coast Line was late.
We got to Charleston about 9 o'clock.
I inquired at the hotel for a decent
restaurant. I was referred to one In
the block Of the hotel. I went in, or
dered my supper. At the table next
to me were four young men, not eat
ing but drinking. They were full when
1 got in: they were fuller when l got
OFT. When 1 got back to the hotel 1
rerrarked that there seemed to be
more to drink than to eat at the res
.aurant they referred me to. That
brought on more talk, and the dispen-
sary, with all its characteristics, was
discussed.
A gentleman standing high in the
financial and political life Of South
Carolina proposed to me that he would
show me something II I would go with
him, and accepted his invitation, an1
within two blocks he carried me into
six full fedg:d Charleston blind IT,
gers. He sa there were 300 Of them
there. Some Of them were raided by
the state and city constabulary fire.
quently. Others were immune; they
never had been raided.
There are fourteen state dispensa-
ries in Charleston. I suppose they only
10 a small per cent of the business in
liquor. The dispensaries must close at
o'clock in the evening, and open at
6 o'clock in the morning, but the blind
tigers do business after the hours Of
.he dispensary, and they do business
until the wee small hours OF the
morning. The names and places of
these blind-tigers are as well-known
in Charleston as the clothing stores of
George Muse and Eiseman, or the dry
goods stores of Chamberlin- johnson
and Keely In Atlanta. The dispensaries
in the smaller towns do a large bus
mess, and perhaps the only liquor
business of any Of them worth speak
ing Of; but they do business, selling
bust head from sixteen cents a half
pint bottle to 50 a quart. The state Is
the wholesale dealer and furnishes all
the dispensaries, and the states profit
Is made in their profits as they sell to
the county and town dispensaries. For
instance, each dispensary pays the
state dispensary twelve cents a bot
tie for that pop-skull, which the town
dispensary sells for fifteen cents, and
it has the stamp Of the state chemist
on it, reading nothing chemically i'm
pure in this liquor" I do not know
why they do not stamp on the bottle,
Nothing morally impure either" The
one would go as far with me as the
other.
l once favored the dispensary as a
choice between the saloon and the dis
pensary, for the following reasons:
First, thought the dispensary would
put the bar-room crowd and the liquor
interests out of politics. and we all
know what a potent factor they make.
Secondly, that the license feature. by
which the Golfers of the town and
state are enriched would be done away
with and thirdly, because / believed
less liquor would be drunk. But the
South Carolina dispensaries demon
strate that liquor is in politics worse
in South Carolina than any state in
the Union. And secondly, that the
taxrayers are getting more money out
of it. And, thirdly, that there Is more
iuuor drunk out Of the dispensaries
of South Carolina per capita in my
candid judgment, than out of the FULL
fiedged bar-rooms in other states. 1t
will take South Carolina hundred
years to recover from the effects of the
dispensary: for dispensary liquor not
only debauches the poor devils that
drink it. but the dispensary will de-
bauch the whole state in its politics
and morals l am as much against
the open saloon as I ever was. l am
as much against the dispensary as |
am against the saloon. and for the
same reasons.
And l keep saying that If whisky
is a good thing, then turn it loose, and
let it flow ankle deep, and hang dip
per on the limb of every tree and give
the world all the good there is In 1t. II
it is bad thing, then down with and
out with the whole business in eXtenso.
Greenwood, S. c., has never had a
dispensary. For first-class citizenship,
intelligence. morality and decency she
stands without a peer In that state.
Clinton, S. c., believe, is another OF
the same stripe But whenever you
find dispensary you will find de-
bauched sentiment, and a growing
greed on the part Of the taxpayers to
push it's business, and to increase it's
profits.
The best elements of South Caro-
lima are against the dispensary, the
worst elements of South Carolina are
against the dispensary. and these two
classes together do not make major
ity in that state. 1t is an anomalous
state of things if the best and worst
elements Of society be together against
|anything.
do not remember that I have met
a single minister in South Carolina, or
devout Christian man who wasn't
against the dispensary; and the worst