The Dawson news. (Dawson, Ga.) 1889-current, 1907-01-30
From the Golden Age.

The battle now being Waged III
Terrell holds interest for the whole
country. 1t furnishes an object lesson
and is fruitful of study. Seven
years ago thirteen barrooms were run
out of the county and four dispen-
saries took their place. From a
financial standpoint the Terrell coun-
ty dispensary has been success
if any dispensary ever was-and
Terrell has had the questionable
honor of leading number of other
counties in Georgia, and perhaps 9TH
err states, into the awful snare.
How much money does Terrell
make from her legalized petted and
pampered dispensary? Let us see.
In round numbers the dispensary
sold last year one hundred and TWEEN
ty thousand dollars worth of Whis-
ky, paving into the county treasury
about twenty thousand dollars. And
the friends of the dispensary throw
their arms around it and cry out:
Save the dispensary to us and for us!
It is our financial darling. 1t pays
all our county taxes, educates our
children, makes our trade better, is
the very life of our commerce, and
-hurrah for the dispensary!
And to support this position pur-
chasable negroes are having their
back taxes paid and are being reg
istered ito beat the band. Left to
the white people, Terrell county
would go dry two to one. These
whisky men know that the debauch-
cry of the negro ballot is their only
hope and by ways that are vain
this debauchery is going on. It is
generally understood that the whole
sale liquor dealers are pouring mon
ey into the hands of the dispensary
sponsors while the few white men in
Dawson and elsewhere who are fat
tening on this slavery of the negro
are turning loose their own coin free
ly to save their "darling's" life.
Think of the basis of contention:
Terrell county paid out $12O,OOO
last year in order to get $4,000.
At that rate her people have spent
$40, 900 in seven years in order to
get $4,000 back in taxes. What
governmental folly! Leaving out
every moral consideration, does not
every sane man know that nearly
a million dollars left in the hands
of the working, drinking classes
would have produced a far better,
a far healthier, state of business
than to have had this enormous sum
consumed by debauched labor or sent
into the Golfers of wholesale liquor
dealers from Dan to the gates OF
sheol?
The editor of The Golden Age ac-
copied a joint invitation with Judge
S. A. Roddenberry, of Thomasville,
to hold Joint debate" like that
recently reported at Whigham, but
after arriving on the scene we de-
cided that instead of one of us throw
ing up a hat for the other to shoot
at, we would let the liquor men
themselves furnish the target and
both of us would take dead aim and
fire The crowds, both Saturday and
Sunday, were immense and the inter-
est intense. Judge Roddenberry's
speech was declared to be the most
powerful arraignment of the liquor
traffic since Henry Grady died. The
man is nothing less than wonder
when the batteries of his mind and
heart are on fire against the
liquor demon The writer submit
ted a few scattering remarks" en-
ioying peculiar inspiration in the full
fillment of the lOng-cherished OppOr-
tunity to strike the latest, sleekest
dispensary in all the line of legalized
deviIment in Georgia.