The Union times. [volume] (Union, S.C.) 1894-1918, 1905-10-06

liberty OF the citizen was eradicated
SO far as the right to buy and sell
whiskey was concerned. He could
not fetch whiskey into the State for
his own use. He had to buy of the
| State, and, / believe, he could not
buy more than half a pint at time.
1t was the most outrageous exam-
pie OF paternalism a free people ever
endured. The Connecticut blue
laws were enacted to make men
religious, and were harmless COM
pared with law to make men sober.
Iillman put up his State barroom
and called it, a, dispensary. l am
not certain but one had to get a
doctors prescription before he could
get even half a pint. There were
complaints as to the quality of the
stuff, and that is not strange. The
State made money, for liquor SELL
ing is profitable business. 1t re-
duced taxation and that made the
tyranny somewhat tolerable.
But this is the age of graft, and
graft crept into the rum trade of
South Carolina just as it had in the
insurance business of New York and
the postoffice department of the
United States. And now South
Carolina is thinking of rcgaining
her lost liberties and with pretty
good chance of succeeding.
If you will take the cranks in the
United States congress who want
the government to do things the
government has no constitutional
authority to do, such as making
railroad rates, regulating insurance
companies, and subsidizing steam
ship lines, and reinforce them with
the cranks out of congress who
would regulate the animal appetite
OF man by statute, and turn the
layout loose with unrestricted au-
thority to govern this country, YOU
would soon have more intolerable
despotism in the United States than
Turkey ever labored under.
For one | would be sorry to see
Ben Tillman retired to private life.
He is an honest man., and the most
independent character now in pub
lie life. He has learned a great
deal since he fetched his pitchfork
into the Senate chamber. He has
found out that other men are as
honest as he. He survived that
|shock. He did even better than
that, he reioiccd over it. He is
more OF statesman than all his
fellow hot-gospelers together, and
he dares do things none of them
would think of undertaking. Ruff
tianly as was his conduct-and there
is much room for further improve
ment in that respect -Tillman has
gained the respect of all his fellows
i'm the senate, and the cordial friend
ship of many of them.
His speech on the death of his
colleague, whose name I do not now
recall, was remarkable production,
and the only intelligent elucidation,
of the political situation in South
Carolina that has come under nv
notice. No man has a proper con-
ception of the New South until
he he has read this speech and med
itated upon it.
AS for myself suppose it is dis
graceful for me to say so-but l pre-
fer the Old South. There was some
thing about it that is lacking in this
commercial age, something that no
nation can do without and retain
the respect of anybody whose re-
spect is worth having. Unless this
epoch shall manage to retain some
of that spirit of the Old South ex-
pressed in an address of one of Ben
lTillman's predecessors in the United
States Senate the last session of the
thirty-sixth congress, tho chapter
that tells our story Of the first de-
cade Of the twentieth century will
be an ugly one in the history of our