The Columbia herald. [volume] (Columbia, Tenn.) 18??-1935, 1912-10-18

among the Patterson-McMilln people
about local option is a very low grade
OF common nonsense. If they mean any
thing by it at all, they mean that where
the people OF community have voted
against the saloon, the law will be re-
spected. They give as the reason for
law violations in Nashville, Chattanooga
and Memphis, the fact that the law was
imposed upon them without vote. The
falsity of this argument is demonstrated
by the fact that in Knoxville, where a
strong majority voted the saloon out,
the whiskey business is now being con-
Quoted almost as flagrantly as in Nash
ville..
Saloon Lawless.
The truth is that the saloon is essen.
tally lawless. The whiskey business il
iawless. 1t has never submitted to legal
restraints anywhere. If you regulate il,
1t violates the regulations. If you segrs.
gate it, it sneaks across the forbidden
line. If you close the front door, the
back door is opened. 1t obeys the law
only where it is compelled to obey it.
The regulated saloon is myth, and tho
Model License League is a fraud.
Two years ago the Regular platform
said that the saloon problem was
moral and economic question, but this
year they have admitted the truth that
it is also a political question. Some Of
the greatest political issues that have
ever confronted the states and nations
of the earth have involved consideration
of right and wrong, which made them
moral issues.
We have Travelled too far around the
cycle of civilization to waste much fur
Their time in the argument that the sale
and use of alcoholic drinks is the worlds
greatest curse.
The history of the human family is q
record of its struggles with this evil
thing. According to statistics, it has de-
stroyed ten thousand men to every man
killed in war. Millions of men have sue
cumbed to it, and great nations have
gone down before it. 1t is the curse OF
the rich and the poor, the high and the
low. 1t has debased manhood, defiled
womanhood and filled the world with
WIDOWS, orphans and outeasts. 1t has
been condemned by religion and morals
for over three thousand years, and now
science says that it is not a food, but q
poison; not stimulant, but narcotic,
and the fruitful cause of disease, weak
ness and death.
The philosopher has spoken against it,
the pulpit has Numbered its anathema,
and the state has taught the little chill
dren its ruinous effects. mere are yet
men in the world, however, who claim
that the state-the public must do
nothing to check the ravages of this
monster, but must sit still with closed
eyes and folded hands and offer no re-
sisance to the greatest seourge of hui
mainly. These men say that it is wise
only to build and equip hospitals, asy-
lums, poor houses and prisons for the
victims of this destroyer.
Country and City.
But the people of Tennessee do not
subscribe to this doctrine. They have
long since decided, in the light Of reason,
that the sale of whiskey is not bust
ness, but a crime. 1t adds nothing to
the sum of human wealth. It sucks the
life-blood from the business prosperity
of any community.
They have also decided that if the
four-mile law is good for the country, it
is good for the city. If it can be en-
forced in the country, it can be enforced
in the city. If the clandestine violation
in the country is punished, the open,
public, continuous violation in the city
must also be punished. If it is a crime
to secretly sell pint in back alley
in small town, it is a greater crime to
hand it out openly and brazenly from
the gilded bar-room, with its nude and
lewd pictures, in the great city.
What, then, is the question before
the people? The question is whether or
not the liquor power shall be permitted
to entrench itself in the large cities OF
this state and nullify the laws OF our
commonwealth. II is the question of law
enforcement against anarchy-the great
community.
What is the situation with which we
contend!
1t is this: The four-mile law has been
accepted and respected by the great
masses of the people in the country and
the small towns. Their officials have
enforced it reasonably well, and the en-
forcement of it is growing stronger every
day. In the cities the law has not been
enforced. No effort has been made to
enforce it in three of the cities. The
officials have positively and publicly re-
fused to enforce it. Hundreds of sa-
looms are running wide open-not blind
tigers, but two-eyed tigers, with gold
trimmed spectacles. They no longer
claim, as of yore, that the law cannot
be enforced. They simply declare that
they will not enforce it because ma
jority of the people do not want it en-!
forced.
And who constitute this majority
whose behests they obey rather than
the law of the land and their official
oaths? The saloon-keepers, gamblers
and dive-keepers and their numerous
hangers-on, black and white; large
element of corrupt politicians composing
the city and county machines, who are
in league with the law-breakers; a con
number of business men, who
still think the sale of whiskey bus
mess, and who would rather enthrone
the devil than lose a dollar; and the
big floating population which flocks to
the cities of our land.
Problem of City.
This combination, this condition, pre-.
sents the greatest problem in the Amer
lean government today-the problem of