Keowee courier. [volume] (Pickens Court House, S.C.) 1849-current, 1905-09-06
[Continued from page 81

drunkenness is not as great in
Charleston with all its blind tigers as
it is in prohibition cities of like size.
You dismiss these with wave of
the hand, because they may make
the people dizzy and then assert most
positively that the Supreme Court
said, "Stifle this vampire that
threatens the health and life of the
community" While it is an indis-
putable proposition that the Supreme
Court has never said anything of the
kind and only used the language
which you quoted as the justification
of the Legislature for enacting the
dispensary law, to better control and
minimize the evils inseparable from
liquor. 1t was merely strongly
worded declaration that the law was
an exercise of the police power.
Suppose the dispensary law was 80
administered that it eliminated the
profit feature entirely, is it not evil
dent that dollar would buy great
deal more liquor than it does now
and it would therefore encourage
consumption and therefore drunken
ness?
1t seems to me that you have
reached the conclusion in your own
mind that the dispensary law must
be "damned if it does and be damned
if it DON'T" and your attitude to.
wards it is made perfectly clear
when you say, 81 do not admit that
the dispensary scheme has reduced
drunkenness, encouraged temperance
and decency and increased good or
der" This in view of the facts that
have been time and again printed, in
view of the opinion of we'll nigh
every close observer in and outside
of the State, that the dispensary is a
long ways ahead of the license sys-
tenn as temperance measure solely,
is the most remarkable utterance
have ever heard fall from the lips of
man who stands 80 high, and de-
servedly, in the estimation of every
good man and woman in the State.
Elf you are content to stand by that
utterance certainly am willing to
leave you occupying that attitude.
One word more and am through.
In the Columbia State of August %
find quoted from the Charlotte
Observer the following "The dis
pensary discussion in South Caro-
lima, complex even at it's simplest, is
much befuddled just now by the fact
that two Popes seem to have played
prominent parts in dispensary af-
fairs. One is the Honorable Y. j.
Pope, at present the Chief Justice of
the State, who once handed down
dissenting opinion as to the consti-
tutionality of the dispensary law.
He was all alone until the legisla-
ture, upon the orders of Governor
Ben Tillman, put Justice MCGOWAN
off the Supreme bench because he
did not favor the dispensary law and
put on Justice e. B. Gary because
he did favor it. Then the dispen-
sary law was declared constitutional,
Pope and Gary concurring, McJver
dissenting" This lie was first sent
broadcast over this State by those
leading newspapers which are now
clamoring for the destruction of the
dispensary and which are the main
reliance of the prohibitionists, al
though they boldly declare that they
do not believe in it any more than
do. This outrageous falsehood thus
revamped and copied from a North
Carolina paper is again set in circu-
lation and / deem it nothing but my
duty, and it is certainly a pleasure
to do justice to Justice Gary, while
the very records of the facts will
show the falsity and venom of the
infamous story.
The dispensary law was declared
unconstitutional in April, 1894, by