The county record. [volume] (Kingstree, S.C.) 1885-1975, 1909-07-08
of proh!bitory amendment to the
State constitution held April II,
1889, the amendment was defeated

1899, the amendment was defeated
by an enormous majority. Two
counties only in the entire State
gave it majorities. Ga March Is,
1908, the lower house Of the Leg
lslature passed a license bill by u
vote of PA to 107. A few days
later the Dill passed the Senate by a
vote of three to one, and On March
p, received executive approval and
license became the law of the
State. The cities of the State stood
overwhelmingly for license, their
vote in the Legislature being 121
to s in its favor. More noteworthy
is the fact that the rural members,
taken separately, voted for license
in the proportion of 81 to 76.
Representatives of both political
parties were also in favor of license.
Massachusetts, tried prohibition
from 1855 to 1870. She found the
law vain and injurious and upon
the testimony of her Governor and
best citizens, fatally hurtful to the
cause of temperance. After fifteen
years of earnest trial she also re-
pudiated the law, and when in
April, 1889, strenuous effort was
made to again engraft prohibition
upon the constitution of the State,
it failed. The farming population
threw its weight with that of the
cities against the amendment. One
town ouly in the Commonwealth
gave It majority.
The campaign was one of excep.
ticual interest. The terms and time
of the fight were dictated BY the
proh!bitionists. They were ably led
and their cause was advocated by
hundreds Of speakers. They deluged
the State with literature and brought
into action an army of workers re-
rarkable tor its numbers. No meth
Cd known to the politician was left
untried in the efforts to carry pro-
hibition.
As elsewhere, the prohibltionists
tried to make it tappear that all mo-
ralitg was on their side, all immoral.
ltg opposed to them. This assump-
ton failed of its purpose.
Tie Influential journals of the
State, almost to unit against the
amendment, exposed the fallacy and
threw their influence in behalf of
license. Profting by past experience,
they fought with a vigor born OF
conviction. The religious papers
ioiued hands with the powerful dai-
lies. aud, making conscience of the
fight, the Christian Union, the Con
gregahonalist and the Christian Reg
ister hurled their thunder against the
adoption of the amendment.
Nor was the press unsupported by
the church. Many scores of the most
eminent clergymen of the Common.
wealth, comprising the brain, the
dignity and the worth of the minis
try of the State, united in remon-
strapces against the adoption of pro.
hlbiton. Among the ministers so re-
monstrating were Rev DR. Phillips
Brooks, Rev DR. Savage, Rev DR.
Brooks Hereford, Rev DIR Cyrus Bar
tol, Rev DR. Peabody and the Rev
Father Courty, the President of the
Catholic National Total Abstinence
Society Of America, and many others
of celebrity-men revered for char
acter and purity of motive. Many of
these great divines preached from
their pulpits against the fauaticism.
United with them in the crusade
against prohibition were five of the
seven colleges of the State. President
Eliot of Harvard in an open letter
condemned the effort to make men
good by law.
The opposition to the amendment