The herald and news. [volume] (Newberry S.C.) 1903-1937, 1906-05-18
The Dispensary In South Carolina.

htlaitu SeOFSlan. 80 ... ~ d. t.. -. +,
There can be no doubt but that the
good people Of South Carolina are
stirred to their utmost emotions upon
the question Of the state iispensary.
In Georgia this institution has
worked in satisfactory and success
ful way. In Rome, in Athens, and in
other places it's results have been in
the main entirely satisfactory to the
people, helpful to public revenue, re-
ducing disorders, diminishing drunk
emess and vindicating itself in a
wholesome way.
But in South Carolina the dispen-
sary seems to have fallen into the
hands Of the political ring, who have
made it al enginery of corruption,
fraud, trickery and every other unho-
ly thing that distresses politics and
disturbs public integrity in the state.
Even so steady and conservative
paper as the Charleston News and
Courier speaks of the dispensary as
the Essential iniquity of the times,'
and declares that the issue Of de-
stroying it subordinates and over
whelms every other issue that con-
Germs the people of South Carolina.
1t declares that. beside this institution
entrenched in spoils and corruption,
the state itself had come to look small,
picayune and puny; that ga perni-
cious political machine" has grown,
that "bereaved lobby" has develop
ed, and that the "willing ring" in ev-
cry county exhibits the energy, as well
as the eagerness of swine, who
scuf1ingly Chamber over all obstacles
to the swill trough. It declares that
the alignment in this question ana
campaign is all array Of honesty
against larceny, Of virtuous citizens
against vicious government, Of COM
mon decency against spreading COR
ruption. The gross corruption, says
the News and Courier, testers every
where, it is too palable and too i'm
pudent; and to prate of cleansing and
rehabilitating this thing, born as a
make-shift and subterfuge, nourished
for partisan advantage, and through
all it's years reeking with ever-in-
creasing offence, is to trifle with facts,
to deny the obvious, and to fight on
the side of public crime.
The shibboleth of the hour in South
Carolina is "the dispensary must be
destroyed.'
It is difficult to imagine how two in
stitutions could work so differently
in two comrade states, lying side by
side, with only narrow stream di-
viding them. The dispensary in
South Carolina is described by vir-
tuous and conservative papers as the
sum total Of all iniquities. In Geor-
gia, it is looked upon by able and con-
secrated statesmen as the only posi-
BILE solution, within conservative lines,
of the liquor question in the state.
Here, then, we have a wide and
sweeping difference. The only posi-
bic explanation to be found is in the
fact that from carelessness, and apa-
thy, and Indifference in South Caro-
lima, the dispensary has been allowed
to develop into a vast political ma
chine. That seems to be the burden
of the complaint and the gist Of the
iniquity in it.
If then in Georgia we shall be able
to learn wisdom from the mistakes or
South Carolina, and to compass and
surround our dispensary institutions
with such conditions and with such
safeguards as will shut out the ele-
ment Of selfish politics, and prevent
the creation of a political ring around
its workings, and at the same time
preserve the good features which have
given much of pleasure and of salts
faction to thoughtful statesmen upon
this line, the state of Georgia will be
able to save to the moral element of
the times great experiment and a
great agent of usefulness for the tenn
perance cause in the future.
If the dispensary without politics
is good thing as the experience of
Georgia seems to have demonstrated,
then if Georgia can further demon
strate that it is possible to have the
dispensary without politics, Georgia
will have done service to Carolina
and to the great cause Of temperance
throughout the country and the world.
Wherefore, the injunction would
seem to be clear, and the duty obvious
to those who are advocates Of this in