The Manning times. [volume] (Manning, Clarendon County, S.C.) 1884-current, 1909-05-05
A NEW POLITICAL MACHINE.

a NEW rU4&4 ICE14- H2t1S1lANE'
The Sumter Item seems to
think 'sthe Anti Saloon League
of South Carolina bids fair to be
the most effective political ma
chine the State has had since
the Farmers Alliance went out
of business.
We have never doubted from
the start that many Of the lead.
ing spirits in this movement are
prompted by political motives.
The cunning of the band wagon
riders is seen in every county,
they just cannot help forging
themselves forward to reach for
the lines to do the driving. While
it is true there is much pretense,
hypocrisy, and politics in the
present war upon the legal sale
of liquor, there is no gainsaying
it shat the movement has reach
edsuch proportions, it requires a
high quality of moral courage to
undertake resistance. and be-
cause of this, few men in public
life will chance their personal
popularity to express views not
in accord with the popular domi-
nent forces, therefore the move
ment goes along unobstructed
with the politicians IN the lead.
There are, however. some few
active workers who are wholly
unselish, and are laboring under
the haliucination that morality
and piety can be legislated into
the hearts of men; they act as
il they believe the laws of the
land should force an acceptance
ola code Of morals fixed by them
selves, some few of the Prohibi-
tionists who have come in contact
with the world, and the ways of hu
manity, are disposed to be some
what elastic in their practical
ideas, but there are others as
intolerant as are the followers
of the crescent in the East, that
fendishly massacre those who
will not accept the dogmas Of
the Sultan; they are not only
intolerant. but blind in their
fanaticism, they imagine them
selves empowered with the holy
right to demand the enactment
of laws which will enforce obedi-
ence to their will. Those who
will not join them in the crusade
against the legal sale Of liquor,
although men of the highest
type Of morally, are regarded as
impious who need to be lifted
into moral altitude, such as
only themselves now occupy;
when this cannot be done by prac
tical demonstration. then resort
to a legislative club will be made
to force conversion. History
says, the Romish church used
the State to persecute the Dis
senters, and ever since, the acts
of the coercian by the Catholics
have been held up with
indignant warning and scorn by
all other faiths. To force the ac-
ceptance of creed through legis
latiye enactment is assuming
a lordship over the conscience,
and is in violation Of every pl:ln-
ciple Of religion. A man who
for his political enhancement,
or some other ulterior purpose
enlists in the prohibition move
ment, his breath may stink with
LIQUOR. and his morals as rotten
as a leprous victim in a Lazaret-
to, is Immediately absolved Of
his sins, and becomes as pure as
the driven snow, therefore the
practical politician who is guided
by the principle Of damn prin.
ciple its Office | want" hesitates
not to cast aside his sincere con-
victions but blatantly accepts the
popular clamor, he has not the
frankness to be a leader Of
thought Or action.
Many Of these men who are
climbing over the sincere Pro
hibitionists to secure the helm
of the prohibition ship, will,
when they get all Of the politics
they can out of it. scuttle and
desert as they did the Farmers
Alliance. The Item has much of
the past political history of this
State. to base it's opinion that a
huge political machine is now
building under the fostering
care Of the Anti Saloon Leagueof
South Carolina.
It was ever thus, 1876 brought
on a revolution demanded by the
unnatural conditions. In 1890
another revolution came in the
demands of the Farmers Move
ment. which turned out to be a
machine for the manufacture of
fat jobs for shrewd politicians,
now we have another revolution
clothed in the white robes of
morality, and with this, like its
predecessors, the politicians are
loudest in proclaiming it's dog
mas, and most vehement in their
denunciation and oppression Of
those who care more for their
individuality than for the fawn-
ing hypocrisy of scurvey politi.
clans.
Representative Holiingsworth
of Ohio is maxine an effort 10