The herald and news. [volume] (Newberry S.C.) 1903-1937, 1908-12-08
Georgia : footsteps and inauyurate,
if it can, Statewide prohibition.

Georgia : footsteps and inauglrate,
if it can, Statewide prohibition.
! At a meeting Of prohibitionists,
held recently in Columbia, it was de-
| termined to force fight for a State
wide prohibition law, and a commit
tee was appointed to draw a bill and
look after the matter Of getting can
didates in the field.
South Carolina now has twenty-one
dry counties under local option, ard
twenty-one in which there are dlspen-
saries under State regulation, which
would make it appear that public SEN
timent is about evenly divided.
Under these general conditions it
has been determined to make the
fight and the battle is on.
We shall not attempt to advise
South Carolina as to what she ought
or ought not TO do in the matter Of
| changing her present |; VS. regulating
the sale Of liquor, but we may be par
doned, perhaps, for suggesting that it
would be we'll for the people Of that
State and their lawmakers to look
about them, to familiarize themselves
with present conditions and to profit
by the lessons Of experience before
rushing headlong into an alleged rem
edy which may prove worse than the
evil.
Before following Georgia too blind
ly, it might be we'll, perhaps, for that
State to send a conservative commis-
sion here to study the operations OF
and the actual conditions under the
Georgia prohibition law.
It may be safely assumed that the
prohibitionists of South Carolina do
not want legal travesty on their sta
tute books.
It stands to reason that the conser-
vative prohibitionists Of no State
want to retain liquor without taxation
and without regulation.
Before acting, then, it might be we'll
for South Carolina to look into the
operations of the Georgia law parti-
cularly in the cities, in the moonshin-
ing districts and, in fact, some of the
country counties which are legally dry
but actually wet.
It might be we'll, too, for South
Carolina to consider her OWL expert
ences under the dispensarv law and
the manner in which it was viewed
and violated in Charleston and other
cities and sections of the State.
We are presenting these facts not
for the purpose of discouraging but
rather. if we may be permitted, of di-
recting the movement, in the hope
that it will steer clear Of the shoals on
which similar energies have too often
gone to wreck.
The law-abiding element every
where, and Of almost every shade Of
opinion upon this subject, will well
come the elimination Of the barroom;
it has gone from Georgia and it has
gone to stay.
South Carolina has not had a legal
barroom in years and probably Will
never have another.
But law and order advocates can
not sanction a travesty that is weak
both in term and in enforcement.
If South Carolina, therefore, is de-
termined to change her present sta
tute on the subject-and it may be
that it is far from satisfactory
should be careful not to swap the de-
vii for a witch.
There are ways of getting at things
and there are other ways.
And South Carolina has abundant
example, both at home and right upon
her borders, to urge her to proceed
cautiously and not to make fool Of
herself by passing laws that cannot be
enforced. If she is satisfied that her
people will stand for State prohibition
all right, but if she is in doubt, it
would be the part Of sense for her to
give them just that for which they
viii! stand.