Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1906-08-21
The Meaning of 1t.

For a people who have always
been free and independent to realize
that they could possibly be reduced
to any other condition is next to
impossible; but those who will do
some serious thinking just at this
juncture will hardly be able TO escape
the conclusion that the great issue
in South Carolina is not who shall hil
the various offices; but whether the
people shall continue TO enjoy the
privilege of self government.
The South Carolina dispensary was
originally established for the alleged
purpose of reducing the liquor traffic
and controlling it in the interest of
morality and sobriety. The expert
ment was in many respects a plaus-
ible one and although there was lots
of well-founded objection to it, un-
der the peculiar conditions that
existed at the time, the people were
willing to submit to a fair and i'm
partial trial.
of the thinking people Of the state at
the beginning of the dispensary agi-
tation was how to improve the condi-
ton of a number of people who had,
by the use and abuse Of liquor, re-
duced themselves and their de-
pendents to hopeless poverty and
want 1t was purely a matter OF
humanity. the working Of that higher
and better feeling in mankind that
seeks to help and uplift those who
may be in distress. But now the IL
uuor problem in this state involves
all that 1t ever involved and a great
deal more. Practical experience has
shown that if the dispensary system
has decreased the consumption In
one locality, it has increased 1t In
another; that any good that may be
marked up to its credit in one local
ity is more than counterbalanced by
the harm that has developed in other
localities.
Under the old conditions the liquor
evil preyed principally upon individ-
uals. Under the new conditions II
has retained it hold on individuals
and entwined its death dealing coils
around the vitals of the state. For
merly the independent individual
bar-keepers were looked upon as
menace to present good order and the
future of a good government; but
growing out of the new system there
has developed an organization that
has proved itself ten times more vi
cious and a hundred fold more pow
erful.
People who were fondly imagining
that they had a voice in the govern
ment of the liquor traffic the same
as in various other matters, can not
have failed to have had their eyes
opened during the fight for the pas
sage of the Brice law. That fight
showed that the control Of the dis
pensary machinery had been remov-
ed as far from the people as posi-
BILE Things had been so arranged
that the three individuals called di-
rectors could establish the sale of IL
quor in any community in utter dis
regard of the desire of the voters.
The only exceptions were in cases of
counties that were prohibition pre-
vious to the passage of the dispen-
sary law, and these counties were be-
ing steadily and surely violated.
Even though a community might re-
alize that it was being poisoned
to moral death by state liquor, there
was no legal way by which the SOW
ereign voters could secure relief.
There was nothing in the Brice law
except the right of majority of the
voters to enter an effective protest
against the continuance of the sale
of liquor in counties where such sale
had proved nuisance, yet this law