The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1905-09-06
VOLUME XLI---NO. l2.

might formulate. 1t readily became
partisan measure. 1t was done be.
fore the people had time to cool and
think, and within the ranks of the as.
cendant faction there was no Immediate
kicking. Having become law, Judges
and juries enforced it, in some cases
Competition, being un-
lawful, was crushed. The blind tiger
found himself alone in his fight against
the State. The law ahidins oitizsn
who did not sympathize with the sys-
TEN, would not support him, and he
has been effectually driven from the
field. Your people asked Tor bread,
you gave them a stone. Oh! the
graves dug since thenl-for fish you
gave them the serpent. Ohl the
homes across whose sacred thresholds
he has since then dragged his
poisonous form and his noiscme coils.
Excuse US, speaker, for just q mo-
ments pause, drop Of sentiment.
we would like to keep sentiment out
OF this discussion, but we can't,
Hearts are warm, dollars are cold,
Tears will we'll up sometimes when
We remembcr how much of life's hard
licks struck for bread have gone to
save others from their just part Of the
tax burden. Are taxes so hard to
bear, education 80 dear, crime 50 diff
cult to suppress that the State must
embark in the liquor traffic? Your
pillar of defense is the saving Of
taxes. Whose taxes? You claim to
have made it q SUCCESS financial
success. Yes, give any man the ex-
elusive field with the power to SUD-
press competition, with all the ma
chinery of the courts and an army Of
salaried constables, and it will require
no sagacity to make brilliant success
of the liquor business. The States
true place, as we conceive it, is to
police the traffic by watching it, by
exercising due espionage over it, cur
failing its extravaganoes, minimizing
its evils by all proper restraints, or
it you please, by suppressine it
altogether; but we fail to find sound
precedent for monopolizing it. Vino
is to police the State? What power
shall curb her greed when once she
tastes this easy won blood money2
What shall prevent her from adopting
any Of the tricks of the dealer to serve
the main end? What is her record
along that line2 What clean handed
official stands ready to enforce the
moral features Of your system?
Those charged with the enforcement
of the law have broken the very backs
OF your comprehensive blind tigers.
What more have they done? Now
and then a show is made of enforcing
the other features, but the main fight
has been to pat down competition.
That you have done effeotually, 50 far
as dealers within the limits of the
State are concerned, aud if inter-
State law had not prevented you, you
would today be keeping back ship
ments from without for private use
and doubtless selling meaner goods
by reason of that suppressed compe-
tition. If you will link together the
incongruous, the incompatible-the
financial and the moral, or rather if
you insist that you can do both at the
same time and under the same sys-
tenn, you might try the experiment of
prohibiting the sale in the State BY
the individual, abandon the sale with
in the State by the State to the oiti-
zen, repress by all lawful means or
cFou OuIaHAu vi, Lue use OI lnEOXtCAnCH
by the citizen, and thus promote good
morale, and then embark on stupen-
dous scale in the manufacture by the
State for sale without the State. Ia
this way you will not be buying
abroad to sell to your own people and
thus sending money away, but you
will be exporters Of the. goods. In
this way you could relieve every tag
payer of that odious burden you are
so troubled to meet, and the name
taxpayer would be lost from the
States vocabulary and the county
auditor and tax collector would soon
find, like Othello, his occupation gone.
No, seriously, your system has been
fairly tested-weighed in the balance
even when rammed down the throats
Of the people and suffered by them to
be tried-and found wanting essen.
tally as moral or police measure.
AS tax measure, it is violatiye Of
that cardinal doctrine that taxes shall
be uniform and equal-in this it is
grossly unjust, and is vastly removed
from true solution Of the liquor
problem. 1t must CO." xxx