The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1907-07-17
THE GREAT DESTROYER
SOME STARTLING FACTS ABOUT
THE VICE OF INTEMPEHANCE.
The South is the Section Of This
Country That is Doing Most to
Lift the Curse Of Drink-Silly


A tradition fondly cherished by
| millions of Americans was rudely
| shattered the other day at the James
town Exposition. Every %schoolboy
knows what the Governor Of North
| Carolina has said from time imme-
mortal to the Governor Of South Car
DINA when these two dignitaries met.
It is a legend as firmly fixed and ac-
cepted as the legend that the Pilgrim
Fathers actually landed on Plymouth
Rock. But at the Jamestown Fair
the Governors Of North and South
Carolina only looked at each other
sternly and sadly. II am sorry"
said one, "but I happen to be a tee
totaler." 81 am sorry" said the 9TH
er, "but I happen to be a Prohibition
ist."
The Baltimore Sun can well be par
doned for seeing in this prosaic per-
version of an historic formula "the
passing of a civilization" It halls
the Norfolk contretemps az a sign
Of the times. Half loosely, but also
half seriously, it maintains that the
old South has now finally vanished
that the days are gone in which con-
VITALITY dominated in the world Of
social relationships, when 1.-The jug
marked the man and the demijohn
the gentleman"
Ocular demonstrations like that at
the jamestown Exposition are, in
fact, needed to uproot old notions and
open the public's eyes to the coming
of a new order. 1t is hard to believe,
in the face of traditions to the con-
trary, that the South is to-day the
section of the country which is doing
most to lift the curse Of intemperance
and to combat the crimes which flow
from indulgence in liquor. Accord
ing to the comic journal humorists,
kentucky is populated chiefly by
%"colonels," whose sole aim in life
IS to prevent an under-consumption
of that States far famed distillery
output. Yet in two-thirds of the
counties of Kentucky the sale Of in
toxicants is absolutely forbidden. The
Texan Is similarly pictured as a from
tiersman with a sombrero, an insatia-
Bile thirst for liquor and an uncontrol-
liable passion for faro or draw poker.
Yet Texas has just passed a rigid law
against all forms of gambling, public
or private, and has in operation a
local option system under which a
large part of the State has elected to
abolish the sale of liquor. The local
option movement has made notable
progress in many other States. In
Tennessee many towns and cities
have become dry" South Carolina
allows it's counties to choose between
prohibition and the institution of
county dispensaries. In Georgia, Ala
bama, Mississippi and Louisiana the
sale of liquor has been also greatly
circumscribed. Compared with Sec
lions in which the license system
rules, the South has really come
much nearer eliminating a fruitful
u Of poverty, misery and crime.
The 'South's notable advance in
this respect is due in the main, per-
haps, to economical pressure. 1t has
in the negroes a labor class whose
efficiency would be destroyed by easy
access to cheap and maddening slim
ulants and whose potency for disor-
der would be dangerously magniied
by the temptations of drink. AS a
measure Of self-preservation. the
South is turning toward prohibition,
or that strict regulation of the sale
Of liquor which will confine it's use to
those least likely to be injured by it
or least likely to infict in return an
injury on the community. The South
is willing to abridge individual free
dom in order to secure greater in
dustrial efficiency and greater domes-
tic tranquility, and in so doing its
| people show a sound instinct. They
are willing to turn their backs on a
tradition begotten of an older order
and we'll enough in its day, but which
conflicts with welfare and progress
under the altered conditions of this
era.-New York Tribune Editorial.