The comet. (Johnson City, Tenn.) 1884-1916, 1908-07-09
WATTERSON PLEAS'D
Great Kentucky Editor
Greets Tennessean.
PROHIBITION NOT FAVOR'D
Congratulates Gov. Patter-
sons Wise Stand for
Jeffersonian Dem.


The victory in Tennessee for good
government and JeffersOnian Demo
cracy against paternalsm and hysteria
will lift the heart Of every true Demo.
crat and of every thoughtful friend of
good government throughout the
length and breadth of the land.
The prohibition movement, pretend
ing to aim at temperance, is, in reality,
scheme to confuse religion and poll
tics, and under cover of the false issue
thus created, to set up in the South a
Puritan hierarchy subversive, not on.
ly of individual freedom, but of the
character Of the people and the popu-
lar respect for established law.
Years ago New England, except in
Maine, which stands a monument Of
perady and pharisaism, threw off the
rotten and threadsare garment of pro-
hibition. For a long time it has
served to conceal prescription and in
tolerance. Beneath its folds were
bred generations of hypocrites and
lawbreakers plying in the name of the
public welfare the profitable pursuits
of smuggling. adulteration and extor-
tisn, nowise promoting virture or re-
aScing crime; the dishonest politician
working the excitable, or the merce-
nary, among the preashsrs to his self.
ish and unholy schemes.
The old Puritanic ideas of church
and state come down from the days of
witch batting, and the old paternalistic
plan Of sumptuary legislation, exposed
and extinguished by Jefferson in the
South, we're invoked to dupe the weak
and credulous and sentimental, while
santimonious fanaticism and rank po-
litical corruption went band in hand to
lord it over the people In the name of
God and morality. The love OF liber-
ty, no less than the good sense of New
England alone in the state of
Maine, where the Republican party
has used prohibition as at once its big
stick and voting machine-threw off
at length the yoke of a church and
state used for party purposes and pro-
fit only, threw off the mask of false
hood and bigotry ministering to the
demorilization Of character and de-
grading the potency and dignity of
law, threw off the flimsy pretext of
favortism and class distinction, and,
as a substitute for prohibition which
did not pi ohibit, adopted an enlight.
ened system of statutory regulation
which would be respected and could be
enforced.
But fanaticism is sleepless. Bigot-
ry knows neither rest nor scruple.
The obselute spirit Of the blue laws,
almost dying out of Yankeeland, saw
in the far South an opportunity for
their revival. SO, concealing its
Cotton Mather Unabridged in the
back pocket of it's ample duster and
holding it's Bible aloft, it went to
Georgia and whispered to the people
in the back counties. "Here's a slick
plan to keep the whiskey from the
niggar." 1t took like wildfire.
We are told that when the Greeks
set up their wooden horse in Troy the
poor trojans danced around and sang
songs of jubilee and builded honfres
Just as the poor GeorgiaRs did-iusi
as the poor Tennesseans were invoked
to do by Mr.. Carmack and his mis-
taken followers. When the Trojan
horse was played out in New England
it was hauled first to Georgia and ther
to Tennessee. For illustration the
following Associated Press telegram,
under date Of Saturday night, came tC
us from Chattanooga. It tells its owr
story:
Thousands of women and children
paraded the streets here this morning
in the interest of ex-senator Oarmack
candidate for the gubernatorial nomi
nation. Banners bearing all sorts o
pleas to voters were displayed such as
"vote fer home and mothers,
"vote for ysur boys" "Booze Of
brsad!" and many others.
At the polls, women sang hymns ant
little girls begged men to accep
, CaEmack badges. Tallyhos loaded
with singers went from precinct t.
precinct, and no voter reached thu
polls without being besieged b.
women or little girls to cast their bal
lot fer Oarmack and prohibition.
What kind of government shoulC
we have if such influences as thes,
came to be common to our politica
lMe? The spectacle OF excited womel
and children psrading the streets anC
and gathered about the polls is botl
pitiable and CHASTITY. Their very sin
cerity is proof of their menace to tn,
public safety and order. If Eucl
agencies fell within reach Of the read!