Pine Bluff daily graphic., 1908-04-26
PICKS BAD BOY"
 ON PROHIBITION

LOulSFllle IS prosperous dllu tuc whole state ought to be, with it's fine climate, rich soil and good people. While there are snow banks along Lake Michigan and the winds are wicked and the winter over coat is still in evidence, here the trees are in blossom, the fields are blooming, and the people OH the street are oyercoat- less and perspiring But dear old Kentucky is not as happy as she should be. Down the state the Night Riders are trying in the best manner they know how, to down the Tobacco , Trust, by burning their neighbors to- | bacco. killing and whipping many who want to sell their tobacco for the price ] the Trust offers, and get out of the l tobacco business, and go away some where that they can have quiet life. The condition is not cheerful, and our "Old Kentucky Home is having trou- | bleS of her own. Judges are charg- ing grand juries that they must get a move on and stop Night Riding. murder, incendarism, and anarchy giving opinions from the bench that times are in worse condition than i they were during the war; the gov ernor is trying to stop the trouble, without calling out troops, knowing that a million troops could not pre- vent a man with parlor match from setting fire to a tobacco warehouse. It is a sad case for neighbors in such i each other that families feel that not only their property is liable to be burned any night, but to go to bed feeling they may be killed before morn l ing. Raising tobacco or any farm product is no easy business, but when crops are planted and tended all the destroyed in an hour, it is no wonder the farmers feel like hitching up the old team, loading in the family and going away from their homes before ii is too late. We of the North can i hardly realize such a condition, with our communicates SO "chummy' that ncighb0r would do them the least harm. The road that, leads away from home is going to be the sorrow Ill road that many good families of l Southern states will take if the fight f lng of one Trust is to set neighbors ] 5y ears. and yet many people will American Tobacco Company. They say the farmers are ground down i by the Trust. and when they buy a l two ounce bag of tobacco for l5c
 made largely of stems of their own tobacco. that they have sold for loc a pound they get hot under the collar
 heated?
 Then the ever present prohibition wave is making the people tired. and there you are. It is over thirty years since the first town in Kentucky. the town of Mayfield. went dry, and they tell me there has never been a day during all those years when man could not get drink in Mayfield but piOus politician started the Mayheld drvness. and the ball has been rolling ever since, until now, there are only 13 counties in the state that are not dry. Farmers who formerly raised corn and sold it to the distillers, in many parts of the state' quit raising corn, except what was needed for home consumption by moonshiners, and started raising tobacco, and now that it is smoked up by the Night Riders, there is gloom and despair, and re yenge on too many faces. Every county that is dry gets liquor some where. and men that have talked with today. say there is more drunkenness in many dry towns in the country than there is in dear old Louisville. which is about as wet as any place Sunday, they, say, you can't get drink to save you, but l shall be iii Tennessee next Sunday. where it is dry some, but not so alfred dry. | talked with man today who had lived in a dry town in this state for two years. andhe said he would not go through the experience again for mil lion. He believes in personal liberty takes a drink if he feels like it. as We do in Milwaukee, and when the fight was on, he voted wet, and talked some on the subject, perhaps too much. But when the "dry season actually came he lived up to it, though he had bottle or two in the house He says the whole dry party became spies on him and other former vets, I !: c1oYrfhc and hP