The Lexington dispatch. [volume] (Lexington, South Carolina) 1870-1917, 1907-08-21
Wednesday, August q, 1907.
Dr.. 2. =. Dreher.

We publish in this, issue a paper
from DR.. r. H. Dreher of st. Matth-
ews, on the new county question.
The doctor charges US with "conspic-
uous injustice" in the articles we have
written on this question. Any body
can make charges of this. character,
if their self-respect will permit them,
hut the doctor and all his Calhoun
county advocates combined cannot
prove it. In fact, we are satisfied
that they cannot fool their own sense
of Justice (?) to the extent that they
would be willing to believe such a
charge. But the learned doctor will
be proved to be ''conspicuously un-
iust,'' an indulger in the "veriest
rot,'' a ssinger of slurs," and q
..double dealer'' in his handling of the
new,county question. He has charged
MS with all of the above and more.
When argument and reason have
abandoned him, he has resorted to
unkind untrue, and personal charges
against the editor of this paper. Such
conduct in newspaper controversy
must be born Of desperation and for
eipn to the better nature of the one
who makes use of it.
The learned doctor says, "You
quote an array of figures which is
neither fair nor true" We say they
are both fair and true and the Acts OF
South Carolina will prove both. He
says he supposes the comptroller gen
ERALS report is our authority for the
tax figures we have furnished, but
how he can suppose about the matter
when we plainly wrote that our au-
thority was the statutes of South Car
olina we are at loss to understand.
He certainly ought to be able to read
print.
He says, s'It is incredible how peo-
pie can loose by going from 4 to 2
mills levy county" How he could
have possibly distorted anything we
said into meaning that, even in the
widest flights Of his imagination, we
cannot conceive. ne certainly does
not mean to contend that in going to
Calhoun county from Lexington coun-
ty any body would be going from 4
to 3 mills county. That would not
only be s.conspicuously unjust" on
his part, but it would brand him as a
dealer In the ''veriest rot" Certainly
Lexington Is not four mills county,
and no one would have the hardihood
to assert that Calhoun viii be, If
formed, q two mills county. His own
figures, subsequently given in his own
article, prove the falsity of both as
sertions.
He says that he finds from the
comptroller generals report "a report
not in existence for 19o7) that the tax
levy for Lexington county is II mills,
and yet in twenty lines below that
statement he gives Lexington's tax
levy as 81 mills. Is that "double
dealing?'' That sounds very much
like it! Certainly the doctor ought
to allow the comptroller general to
make his report for 1907 before he
quotes from it. Ifhe does not, people
will be inclined to think the doctors
assertions and assumptions to be,
what he charged US with being,
ssneither fair nor true" If he will
take the trouble to write the comp
troller general he will find that the
report from which he purports to
quote, will not be published earlier
than December next. "In the ways
that are dark and the tricks that are
vain the heather Chinee is peculiar"
Again the doctor says, Orange
burg's tax levy is mills, and by i'm
plication insinuates that we did not
give the correct figures, when we gave
the tax levy for ordinary county pur-
poses at 2 mills. What we gave is
correct and he knows it. If Orange
burg has mill levy for road pur-
poses, then good and well, but doctor
don't try to figure it against the levy
for ordinary county purposes in other
counties. That would be unfair and
misleading. We gave Lees tax for
sinking fund, because that was incl
dent to back indebtedness created
upon the formation of the county and
not an independent matter such as
levy for road and school purposes. II
Calhoun county should require road
improvements and amplified school
facilities, she like Orangeburg, and
other counties, would have to levy a
tax for that purpose. But even if we
take the doctors own figures as he
l +hor bo admits that Calhoun