The Union times. [volume] (Union, S.C.) 1894-1918, 1912-03-01
WHAT TOM FIELDER DID
The One Man Who Could Have
Secured the Evidence Which
Damned the Old State Dis
pensary and Who Did Secure
It-HiS Work Reviewed.
(From letter to the Yorkville Enquirer
by the Hon. J. 8. Biice.)


by the Hon. J. 8. BIiee.)
If there was one liquor
house that swindled South Carolina
out of more money than any other
during the reign of the State dispen-
sary it was the Richmond Distilling
Company. and at the time the Ansel
commission was removed by
the present governor, this same Fell
der you speak of had suit pending
against them for five hundred thou
sand dollars. and they had offered
to compromise this suit for one hun
dred thousand dollars in cash. Also
it was the intention Of the commits
sion to require any dispensary Off
cial who had taken money from the
State to restore the same.
Now as a citizen Of South Caro-
lima, who loves his State and who
has served his State without asking
for any reward for his services, and
knowing the criminal trials of the
dispensary officials were mere po-
itical battles, had l remained on the
commission l should have certainly
attempted to have had these parties
make restitution regardless of wheth-
er they were ever tried in the crimi-
nal courts or not.
From the establishment of the
State dispensary system in July,
1893, until its abolition in February,
1907, a period of nearly fourteen
years, there were charges of rebate
and graft made on the hustings, in
the newspapers and on the floor of
the house and senate in Columbia,
but these charges were always met
With scorn and derision, and even
the honest yeomanry Of South Caro-
lima attributed them to political
prejudices. The State of South
Carolina spent thousands of dollars
through. a committee appointed on
motion of Cole l.. Blease investi-
eating the State dispensary, and
while Lyon and Christensen, of the
committee, did faithful work, they
only succeeded in stirring up some
black slime on the surface of the
reeking and rotten dispensary cal
dron, and the State dispensary ad-
vocates, your friend Blease among
them. on the floor of the senate
dared and defed them to 60 into the
criminal courts on any of the evi-
dence they produced. 1t is true,
after they made their report, every
honest man in the State believed the
system was rotten, and acting on the
belief the legislature abolished the
system, but everybody in South
Carolina believed it was impossible
to'ever prove in any criminal court
that any one connected with the sys-
tenn was guilty of fraud and of lar
ceny. But in 1907, when Thomas
b. Fielder appeared on the scene of
action and stripped himself and
went down into the black and seeth-
ing dispensary pit, he came back
with his hands full of positive, in
disputable written evidence of the
guilt of the dispensary officials and
of liquor houses. Fielder. and Eel
der alone, produced the evidence
that satisfied everybody, friend and
foe, of the dispensary system that
stealing, and good stealing, had been
going on to such an extent that it
was reduced to a system. Tom
Fielder is no saint and he is no pro-
hibitionist. He is one of the attor-
neys for the Liquor Dealers Asso.
citation now. Che was not at the time
he was employed by the commits
sion,) but he is the man who fur
nished the evidence that forever
damned the State dispensary sys-
tenn, and the people OF South Caro-
lima owe him debt of gratitude for
his work. / know Of no lawyer in
the State of South Carolina, and 1
know something about the bar of
this State, who had the legal and
detective ability combined to do the
work Fielder did, and assert there
is not a lawyer in the State could
have done it. So If by Felder's
rake of" you mean that fees the
State commission paid him under q
written contract, / assert he didn't
cost the State dollar, and through
his efforts money was put in the
State treasury and his fees and that
money put in the State treasury was
money which would otherwise have
gone into the tills of corrupt liquor
houses that had been swindling the
State for years and that Thomas 3.
Fielder fairly won and richly de.