Keowee courier. [volume] (Pickens Court House, S.C.) 1849-current, 1905-08-16
POLITICAL RIGHTS OF A MINISTER.
Rev. g. r.. Harmon Takes Issue With Senator
latlmer-The Belton incident.

.trict Conference made by the Belton
correspondent of the Anderson Daily
Mail and copied in your issue of
July ~, was decidedly Latimerian
and somewhat partisan. 1t must be
apparant to majority of those who
were present at the debate that the
report was by no means impartial,
aud must have been made solely for
the purpose of stating and defend
ing Mr.. Latimer's position. We claim
that the discussion of the liquor
traffic with all of it's attendant evils,
it being great moral question, is
perfectly legitimate and proper at a
District Conference, especially 80
when the discussion is precipitated by
a United States Senator, a member of
the church and prohibitionist, in
defense of what has proven to be
one of the worst forms of that traffic
Mr.. Latimer claimed that he only
wanted to enter a protest against be-
ing read out of the church simply
because he believed that the dispen-
sary was the best solution of the Ii
quor problem. In the first place no
one knew Mr.. Latimer's sentiments
on the question. In the second place
no one was reading Mr.. Latimer nor
any one else out of the church. Mr..
Blackman said there were only two
men in his church that favored the
dispensary and they were going to
move away. Some one said "And
you are glad p Mr.. Henry said
only two men voted to retain the
dispensary in small town in his
charge and he did not know who
they were. Some one said: "And
you don't want to know" l don't
either Mr.. Backman or Mr.. Henry
made any reply. This is what Mr..
Latimer calls being read out of the
church, and against which he entered
such vigorous protest.
If Mr.. Latimer had entered his
protest and said no more no one
would have replied further than to
enter a disclaimer. But, unfoltu-
nately he did not stop there, He
made spirited and passionate de-
fense of the dispensary as being the
best solution of the liquor problem.
He solemnly warned the preachers
against entering politics and against
bringing politics into the church. He
threatened them with Mr.. Gonzales
and his high license policy and with
the opposition of Senator b. r. Till
man. One would have thought that
Mr.. Latimer was much more afraid
that we would vote the dispensary
out of South Carolina than that we
would read him out of the church.
And his fears are not altogether
groundless.
1t 80 happened that it fell to the
lot of this scribe TO reply to Mr..
Latimer. The Belton correspondent
said that Mr.. Harmon "lambasted"
the dispensary. certainly did enter
protest against the dispensary and
every other form of the liquor traffic.
l endeavored TO show that the AL.
mighty God whom we serve prohibits
evil of every kind and that his chill
dren must take and unalterably
maintain the same attitude toward
it. The liquor traffic in all its forms,
the distillery, the blind tiger, the
open saloon and the dispensary, is a
gigantic evil and only evil continually,
prolific source of crime and COR
ruption and that, therefore, the
Christian people if they are true to
their God and to their high calling
must stand for prohibition first, last
and all the time. This, too, is not
altogether political question but
if, even it were, the Christian peo-
pie and even the preachers are citi-
zens of the commonwealth md have
the right to discuss political ques-
tions. But it is also great moral
question, and may, therefore, be le-
ultimately discussed in the pulpit