Edgefield advertiser. [volume] (Edgefield, S.C.) 1836-current, 1912-04-03

ures and facts lndlsputable, and the
most renowned type of orators, on
any and all phases of the subject.
| All these will be introduced if nec-
essary, and no pains and sacrifices
will be too great to defeat the re.
establishment of the dispensary in
Edgefeld.
/ When the announcement was
made to one of the most beloved
teachers in our graded school at
Edgefeld that petition was being
circulated for an election on the
dispensary, her eyes filled with
tears, and she said, Surely not
surely after all our teaching and
efforts to instill into the hearts of
the boys and girls under our care
the evil effects of these things
surely the men are not planning
to put this temptation before their
children-Alas! that the men of our
county should SO betray us.
| And just here lies an inconsist-
ency! The laws of our state require
that our children be taught in the
public schools the evil effects of in
toxicants and narcotics on ths hu-
man system and the teachers are
doing it wisely and well. Did you
know this? Did you know that by
mandatory law, the teachers all
over our nation are instructipg our
children that alcohol is a narcotic
irritant poison, not having food
value, not a stimulant but para
lyzant, and these teachings based
on the latest findings of science? If
this teaching is considered SO i'm
portant that every state requires it
by law, how can we consistently
place that article before our chill
dren in such a way as to tempt
them?
The blind tiger argument meets
US on all sides, and that is an evil
not to be minimized, and our mu-
nicipal, state and federal authorities
should do their duty in suppressing
it; it is their business 80 to do, and
they should have the full co-opera-
tion of the good citizenship of the
communities in 80 doing, which we
fear they do not always have. That
is no argument however. We can
say to our children, bad men will
sell whiskey clandestinely, if pos
sible, as they do other evil deeds,"
but we can not give them salts
factory reason why we sanction the
legal sale of whiskey. We do not
want them to know their fathers
would license any evil that bids for
their destruction. 1t would lower
their ideals of true manhood. The
young men of the future who drink,
however will probably be the chill
dren of those with little conscience
on these matters.
1t is strange too that some of our
people, most of them old bachelors
or childless men have suddenly be-
come so anxious about the improve
ment of our schools. Edgefeld town
has practically free schools, both in
town and at the mill, but not all the
children are in schools. You will
find that though every school in
our county may be absolutely free,
the children of the people we wish
most to reach, will not be in the
schools, because it is their fathers
who will be paying the revenue.
They will be the ones who would
be spending their money for whis-
key, instead of for shoes and cloth
ing and school books, and theirs are
the little girls who will sadly stay
at home from school to cook, to help
their tired mothers and sew and
sweep, while the boys and men go
to Edgefeld to get their dispensary |
draught. This is a pathetic picture
that the men of our county should |
paint indelibly on the canvass of
their Imagination.
1t is fact too that liquor reve-
nue. does not make school attendance
any better. Figures show and can
be produced that children in dry
territory attend schools more regu-
larly and much more largely than
they 90 in a wet" territory, even
when the schools have the benefit of |
the revenue. 1t takes something |
more than little revenue to keep
child in school. The school may |
be ever so free, the teacher ever so
good, and high salaried, the school
room ever so comfortable, but to
keep the child in school, there must
be sober and interested father in