Keowee courier. [volume] (Pickens Court House, S.C.) 1849-current, 1908-01-15
WILL PROHIBITTON PRcHiBIT /?
\ Look Into the Past. the Present.
the Future

II = r.l N
Childress, Texas, Jan. Is. Special:
This is a beautiful Sunday morning.
b Church bells are vying with each
other In their call of the faithful to
their devotions. Light-hearted and
happy children are vending their
way thither to learn of the meek and
lowly Jesus, who came into the world
TO save the souls OF men;
Under the influence of a perfect
day we are constrained to offer up
our thgsnks to a bountiful God for His
goodness. 1t does not eeem at that
i on such q day there should be cause
! Tor sorrow or reproach among men.
Indeed, there would be none were it
not for the dark blot OF a sad trag-
edy, wtich Ia betng ena6sed ia our
A man scross The street Is Idying.s .s
Dying! but notfas men should die,
who have lived q, good and fafthftii
life. Hesfs prematurely dying of d
self-infiicted cause, just as thousands
of other men arc dying. every day,
from that accurHed sin, alcoholism.
lie is a. husband and a father, q man
ofZsSeen intellect, who In a few short
years accumulated an independence,
and but recently, at the age of 40,
retired from active business. En-
dowed with exceptional capabilities
for good, God expected better things
at his hands. Somewhere, at some
time, he was tempted and fell, and
the tempter being the stronger, he
never recovered form the fall. He
~ Is there now, in the last death strug-
gle, surrounded by his faithful wife
and sorrowing children, who sadly
await the flight of his spirit Ito an
= swer before the God who gave it.
have been thinking about this man
for several daysS In fact, have
thought of but little else.
How much are the Christian peo-
pie of this land to blame for this
mans suicide? There has long been
in my mind an idea that Ssystems OF
civilization and Christianity, which
permit this self-destruction nave
something wrong in practice, if not
In foundation. The law says that q
man who takes his3own life, or that
of another, Is guilty of murder; and
while this Is Gods law, 1T has been
accepted and Incorporated In the
laws OF Christian civilization. for
ages. Christian civilization makes
another law which allows men to
make whiskey, and also allows men
TO become self-murderersA by drink
ing it. Christian society places, the
v van tuROh thS JuuIACkSl dhu. y&rV
Christian society takes to her bosom
the whiskey maker, the man who is,
In every moral sense, as bad as the
murderer. 1t is of no avail to polish
1t verswith thread-bare arguments
os personal liberty. The cold fact
remains that the manufacturer OF
whiskey Is trafiicking in the damna-
tlon of human souls. ~ WS8
&f But there Is another phase of this
great unsettled question--one that
the average person gives no thoughts
1t Is the keynote of the whole prob
lem. and when the great mass of
Christian people are brought face to
face with the cold, hard facts, the IL
ever settled. The. law creates the
whiskey manufacturer, and through
his agency more than one mum dred
thousand men fill drunkards' graves
every year But who creates the
whiskey maker? The Christian voter.
Therefore,. the responsibility really
narruws down to the voter and upon
him must rest the blame. Any whis-
key manufacturerso sor dealer will ex-
cuse his business by saying 1t is just
rs legalsas the grocery business, and
he Is perfectly correct from legal
II oint ofiyiew, for the Christian voter
has legaltZed the business. The voter
has never realized his personal re-
sponsibility, losing sight of the fact
that, as an Individual, he is an inte-
grant part of the government. When
the voter can be brought to realize
his individual responsibility for the
whiskey evil, the solution is at hand.
There are certain voters who have
always voted for prohibition. Fro
hibition, as taught and practiced for
the past and present, simply means