Los Angeles herald., 1909-08-30
NEW SOUTH TO
AID THE NORTH
WILL REPAY WIPlNG OUT OF
SLAVE TRAFFIC
NEXT FIGHT TO BE ON WHISKY,
SAYS ANDREW PARK
Attorney Outlines Long Struggle
Against Traffic Before Large
Audience In University
Nj. e. Church

the subject discussed by Andrew Park
at University Methodist Episcopal
church last evening. Mr.. Park was en-
gagged in temperance work in the south
for many years, beginning when he was
10 years of age and covering the period
of q bloody struggle between the In
ternal revenue officers of the United
States government and the "moonshin-
ers" in the swamps and mountains of
the south.
Anything, however opposed to moral
law, that has the sanction, either by
permission or approval, of the law or
the land, Is regarded as right by many
people," said the speaker. ut has al
ways been so. 1t will always be so.
This la their standard of right. 1t
matters not how diametrically opposed
to the moral law it may be, If 1t serve
their purpose in gathering filthy lucre'
into their Golfers they will point to the
statute permitting it, and thus attempt
to justify themselves. This was the
plea in behalf of American slavery,
and so popular was it that no longer
ago than 1886 the Methodist Episcopal
church. in It's general conference as
sembled, denounced, humiliated and
suspended two ministers who had dared
to say from the pulpit that slavery was
wrong.
To-day any minister In this COM
munion of more than 100000 commu-
nicants who would dare say that Amer
ican slavery was right would be ex-
PEELED summarily from the church. Let
the opponents say what they please, it
remains that our entire system of COM
mon law and jurisprudence Is founded
on the Bible, and whatever creeps into
that by way of legislation, however re-
pugnant to the Bible such law may be,
the popular mind will accept 1t as right
txa.y .Iy. s1afo 30 ~
1t permits. At one time. in many Of
the states. the law sanctioned by license
commerce In the virtue of American
womanhood, and the law remained
upon the statute books until the su-
preme court, through sheer shame, said
1t was contrary to public morals, and
thus declared 1t unconstitutional.
Government Is Blamed
"Sueh IL the status of the whisky
traffic In the nation today The gov
eminent of the United States licenses
il, and that license Is, to the popular
mind, an approval and sanction Of the
traffic. And there is no use in enter
Ing into any hair-quartering apologies
for the nation or state or municipality
that licenses It, When 1t grants the
license 1t approves the traffic. And
when 1t accepts a tax 1t becomes a
party to the traffic and co-conspir-
ator to the crimes committed thereby.
Now, / want this audience to go
with me to the southland and see 1t
as II was at the close of the war.
Everything we had was gone. Slavery
was gone. Fences were dilapldated.
Houses were burned. The farms were
grown up to rubbish. The cotton gins
were destroyed. Our flag was gone.
(Thank God for that. We got better
one for it, Our hopes were gone. All
was gone except that which is in
herent to every true southerner-love
of home and faith in God
II looked upon the once rich chestnut
tresses that adorned my mothers head
plated to comeliness by deft hands
of colored maidens-but now as dead
as the fallen leaves Of winter from
starvation. Nor meat nor bread nor
salt was there in our home for weeks.
Nothing to eat but the peas that were
raised for the stock, and they cooked
without salt or any kind of seasoning.
For five long years every thread of
clothing, warp and woof. that clothed
the large family was the product of
her hands by the light of day and by
glimmer of the pine knot III the open
fire by night.
War Opened Doors
1.-THE nation was then incumbered
with great war debt. The whisky
dealers had demanded of the federal
government, at the outbreak of the
war, as condition of furnishing funds
for the prosecution of the defense of
the government, that the several states
which had procured statewide prohi-
bition should again lay down the bars
to the traffic. This was conceded and
the close of the war found the nation
open to the liquor traffic.
THE liquor dealers always have ad
vocated a whisky tax and whisky
license. They know this is their
strongest hold upon the nation and
upon the civil polity. Hence an internal
revenue tax amounting to about twice
the cost of manufacture was imposed
upon whisky and brandy, the principal
alcoholic drinks then manufactured in
the south. Only the federal courts had
jurisdiction to prosecute violations of
the internal revenue laws. and the
judges of these courts generally were
men sent from the north to preside
over these courts and the jurors were
selected from one political party.
''This seemed like a foreign court.
The tax seemed like a foreign tax
taxation without representation, and
many rebelled and slipped away to the
swamps and into the reeesses of the
mountains and began the Illicit manu-
facture of whisky. They were called
'moonshiners.' But they lovede their
homes, and many are the incidents
where the son and sometimes the
daughter have died, rifle in hand, de-
Tending their father from being taken
away and tried by a foreign court.
Their business was wrong, but the gov
ernment's business was wrong in tax
ing it;
they began to see that the whisky
traffic was their greatest enemy. They
discovered that their young men whom
they sent to college were subjected to
the temptation Of saloons on every
corner. Then they built other colleges
in sparsely settled rural districts where
there were no saloons, but the saloons
followed the colleges and built their
stagger pens at the very edge of the
college campus. The legislature, as of
Tennessee, then enacted law that no
saloon should be maintained within
radius of four miles of a chartered in
stitution of learning, provided that
should not apply to Incorporated towns
and cities.
Through the process of the four-mile
law the greater part of Tennessee was
rid of the liquor traffic. Finally all the
territory of the state was freed from
the liquor traffic except Nashville,
Memphis and one or two other of the
large cities. But men like the immortal
Carmack continued to fight it until he
was shot down and murdered on tho
streets of Nashville by two of the
emissaries of the whisky ring, and
that because he had the courage to
voice his convictions In the columns of
his paper, the Tennesseean. But when
the streets of the capital were baptized
with the blood of this Christian states