The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1908-04-22
tion LEGISLATURE and a prohibition

" Al AtHSNJ H>f
| State has barred liquor. Tennessee
has voted the saloon out of all bur
four of its ninety-six counties. Ken
lucky has nearly a hundred OF its liz
counties entirely free from saloons,
and seventy-fve per cent. of its pop
ulation are living in prohibition ter
| ritory. Two-thirds Of Louisiana has
no saloons. In Florida three-fourths
of the State has voted no license.
In Texas 14S of the 246 counties have
wiped out the saloon, while ffty-one
other counties are partially prohisi-
ton, so that in only forty-seven coun-
ties of the State is liquor freely sold.
In South Carolina about half the
counties have voted no license. In
Virginia seventy-two counties out OF
11S; in West Virginia thirty out OF
fifty-five, and in Maryland fourteen
out of twenty-three prohibit the sale
of liquor Twenty out Of twenty
seven millions of people south of the
Mason and Dixon line live in no liquor
territory. There are drinking
places, legal and illegal, in New York
than in the whole South.
The temperance movement Is TAX
ing hold on the North. BY a majority
of $4,000 out of a total vote of a
little over 100000, the new State of
Oklahoma declared for prohibition.
Maine, Kansas and North Dakota are
enforcing their prohibition laws with
new vigor. Two Of the three counties
Of Delaware have prohibited the sa-
loon. Fifty-two per cent. of the peo-
pie of Ohio and Indiana are living in
prohibition territory. Prohibition
claims ffty-eight of the seventy-fve
counties of Arkansas. The rapid
progress Of the movement may be
learned from the story Of Missouri.
On January 1, 1905, there were three
counties which prohibited the sale of
liquor; to-day sixty-four Of the lis
counties of the State prohibit the
traffic. In nineteen other States adj
vanced temperance legislation has
been enacted, while there has not
been a single measure adopted by any
State favorable to tho liquor traffic.
An effort is being made in the present
Congress to secure such legislation
as will respect the rights and policy
of the States which see fit to prohibit
the liquor traffic.
There is not a single case on rec
ord where a county, or city, or town
that closed it's saloons has reported a
decrease of business. Much is being
said by the liquor interests about the
money which they and allied interests
pay to the city, State and National
Government for taxes and licenses
and the Philadelphia Liquor Dealers
Association recently declared in reso-
luton adopted by their convention.
ITO eliminate the saloon would be to
undermine the foundation Of the
country's revenues" This country
does not depend upon blood money
for it's support. The fact is the coun-
try would be better off without the
traffic and taxation upon every other
business would be lessened. For
every dollar that the liquor interests
pay to the country it costs the coun-
try $40 to maintain the asylums,
homes, almshouses, jails and such in
situations as are created by the liquor
habit and to maintain the courts and
prosecuting machinery. The saloon
Is a highwayman of the baser sort
and a pirate of the worst type. 1t has
simply been tolerated because it
seemed impossible to get rid of it.
But now the issue is drawn, the battle
is on. The foe is adroit, cunning, re-
%sourceful, INSCRIPTIONS, desperate.
1t is rlarshalling its forces for a con-
fict, the impact Of which will shake
the land. Christian men must meet
this foe with infiexible and deter
mined purpose. In facing the conflict
it should be clearly understood that
the warfare is not against a legiti-
mate business, a business which men
have an inherent right to pursue.
The traffic is on a status entirely diff
ferent from any business enterprise.
There is no inherent right to sell
liquor.
The Christian men of America, if
they were wise enough, could take
America for any moral issue. The
manhood of America can rule. But it
must put principle above party and
conscience above compromise and
duty above S The manhood Of
America, united in the effort and in
diligently directed, can, if it will, put
an end to the greatest economic and
moral plague of the age by outlawing
the saloon.
There are signs of progress-a rad
ical demand for the play Of honesty
in business life, a new movement for
the abolition of gambling in all
places, a determined purpose to abol-
ish the saloon. These movements
are in harmony with the Divine econ
omy and purpose and that is the as
surance of their triumph. God is in
His world and God is working. There
never was an age in which so many
people were working for the better
ment of life. With an all-controlling
purpose, begotten of faith in God and
nurtured in love Of man, multitudes
are working to better the conditions
of life, and that Christ, in whom God
is reconciiing the world unto Himself,
is drawing men into the circle Of His
infinite love, into the sway Of His
beneficent purpose and keeping them
there until He shall come to reign in
all the world.