The Laurens advertiser. (Laurens, S.C.) 1885-1973, 1907-08-21

anu VIII oS CoupelHeu W accept JOBS at
smaller salaries.
LAUREES, GEORGIA AND PROHIBITION.
While The ADVERTISER is firmly
convinced that it is e~xpedient for Lau-
rens County to abolish the sale of whis-
key, it is not especially DESTROYS to agi-
tate the question. Nevertheless, there
is something that we insist upon say
ing.
Every South Carolina county adjacent
to Laurens has prohibition and one of
them, Greenwood, has never had a law
full liquor shop. Every man of common
sense knows that while some whiskey
is illicitly sold in these counties, the
traffic has been reduced to a minimum
so that drunkenness has been in large
measure eliminated. There is not one
fftieth part of the whiskey sold in
Spartanburg now that was sold in the
dispensary days. Not long e a news
paper man of Greenville used this Ian
guage to the editor Of THE ADyERTI-
SER: Gas for me, l am a prohibitionist.
Why, in the dispensary days it seemed
as though we would have a murder
every Saturday night in Greenvillc.
Now they hardly ever occur"
THE ADVERTISER is not a prohibi-
zionist OF principle and has never been.
In some places we think that licensed
saloons are most expedient. We think
that prohibition is best for Laurens be-
cause it al be enforced in Laurens
and we believe the majority of the best
people, especially Of the intelligent,
~hard-working, debt-paping and money
making farmers who were and are en-
thusiastic followers of Senator Ben
Tlllman, think that prohibition will i'm
prove labor conditions as we'll as pro-
mote law and order in this county.
What we started out to speak of is
the passage of a state prohibition law
in Georgia which will go into effect on
the first day of next January. This
will make it much easier to enforce
prohibition in Laurens. There will be
no saloons or liquor stores in Augusta,
Atlanta and other Georgia cities. Most
of the North Carolina counties have
prohibition. The time has come, or will
come with the beginning of the new
year, when the importation of whiskey
for personal use even will be attended
with more inconvenience than ever.
Under these conditions, it is practically
certain that prohibition can be enforced
coticfaotprilu in 7 ou.opc
We have no objection to a man
favoring the ~dispensary but he can no
longer claim to be a probibitionist on
principle and vote for dispensaries "as
the best solution"
In a few months it will be ridiculous
to say that prohibition cannot be en-
forced in Laurens as well as the laws
against assault and battery and petty
larceny are now enforced.
Let us not deceive ourselves. If we
retain dispensaries in Laurens, let us be
frank enough to admit that we do not
wish to be deprieved of grog-shops, let
US acknowledge that whiskey and beer
are good things and that we must have
a place where they can be bought con-
veniently. And moreover, hat we wish
to obtain a revenue from the drinkers
of whiskey and beer. Let us not pious-
~ pretend that we hold on to whiskey
shops because we can't prevent whiskey
sales when the counties on the other
side of the Saluda and Enoree prevent
them. Let us not make a laughing
stock of Laurens County.
However, the matter should not be a
political issue in Laurens. 1t should not
affect in the slightest degree the cleo
ton of Senators and members of the
House next year. Our opposition to
the state dispensary was based on the
wish to get the issue out of state poll
tics. Therefore we wished a governor
and a legislature elected who would op-
pose the state dispensary. This required
The ADVERTISER to array itself against
some of it's warm friends who differed
in equal sincerity with it. A number
of the best and strongest men in the
state went down last year because they
were on the unpopular side of the dis
pensary question but the people will
stand in their own light if they remem-
Dor it against such men as Messrs.
Manning McMahan and Sloan who ran
for governor and Messrs. Cunningham,
Gray and the others who ran on one side
or the other in this county.
The safety of the democratic party in
the county and state lies in the burying
Of hatchets and now that the whiskey
question is local it should be left out of
politics.
Hunting For Trouble.
I've lived in California for 20 years,
and am still hunting for trouble in the
way OF burns, sores, wounds, boils,