The Laurens advertiser. (Laurens, S.C.) 1885-1973, 1907-12-18
Entered at the postofice at Laurens,
S. G.. as second class mail matter.
LAURENS, S. c., DECEMBER IS, 1907.
THE LATE STATE DISPENSARY.

At a cost Of SO, 900 the American Au-
dit Company has investigated the books
Of the late State dispensary. The in
vestigation has enabled the commission
winding up the concerns affairs to re-
cover for the State much more than
49, 900.
The auditors report reveals the rot
tenest mess ever heard of in South
Carolina, possibly excepting the aggre-
gate stealings during the Republican
regime.
The Investigation had direct refer
ence only to the last year OF two of the
dispensary's existence; but the auditors
report hat the rottenness extended
many years back-or, in other words,
that they found no traces of records
properly and correctly kept at any
time. Some of the important books
could not be found at all-had evidently
been destroyed in order that proof of
improper conduct might not be discov-
cred. Sometimes the same firm was
paid twice for the same whisky. Some
times the concern had thousands Of dol
lars in the banks which did not appear
on the books-which, presumably, might
have been checked out and %misappro-
priated without the public being the
wiser. The auditors could make nc
head nor tail to the books, and were
forced to depend on the honesty of out
side whisky houses to pay debts owing
to the ~dispensary. Some of the whisky
houses could have escaped paying hun
dreds of dollars, because there was no
adequate record of the transactions in
the ~dispensary Office.
There is no estimating with accuracy
how much money was filched from the
pockets of the people Of South Carolina
in the thirteen years. One year, when
the sales were two million six hundred
thousand dollars, the net profit vas less
than one per cent. The Richmond News
Leader estimates that during the life of
the concern the stealing amounted to
about five million dollars. We guess
that, owing to mismanagement and dis
honesty, an average of about a quarter
of a million dollars a year, or a total of
about three and a quarter million dol
lars, found it's way into the pockets or
stomachs of somebody else which ought
to have gone into the treasury of South
Carolina.
In 1892 forty thousand out of seventy
thousand South Carolina Democrats
voted for prohibition in the primary,
and if their mandate had not been trod-
den upon and spurned by Governor B.
S. Tillman there would have been no
State ~dispensary. The governors ex-
cuse was that eighteen thousand people
who voted for governor had refrained
from voting on the question.
In 1898, long after the State was
filled with the smell of corruption, Mr.
Featherstone would have been elected
governor and the State dispensary
killed had not the influence of Senator
Gilman saved it for eight more years.
In 1900 the late Col. James A. Hoyt
would have been elected governor and
the State dispensary abolished had not
Senator Tillman stumped the State in
its defence. 1t was, as he said, "his
baby"
In 1906 the people of South Carolina
voted in a primary that il be abolished,
in spite of the fact hat Senator Till
man stumped the State, begging that
it be purged but saved.
Senator Tillman has done greater
things, of their kind, for South Caro-
lima than any man who has lived.