Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1912-08-06
LYorkville Enquirer. July %, 1s1O.]

IYorkville Enquirer, July %, 1901
The Columbia State Is printing COL
umns to show that Mr.. Featherstone
is inconsistent in that he once adVo-
Gated local option and now stands Tor
statewide prohibition. We are not
very much impressed by the States s
arguments and we don't think the
state is either. We rather see in the
situation that the State realizes full
we'll that Mr.. Featherstone is the real
anti-liquor candidate, and the man
who must be licked out of the second
primary to give the other fellows a
show. Our contemporary position Is
a little bit embarrassing to itself
though. 1t knows full well that MI
Featherstone is a very able man OF
high purposes, and that he Is In no
sense a crank. 1t would much prefer
to see him in the governors chair than
Mr.. BleaSe, for instance, and for that
reason it is just little hampered. But
there is nothing inconsistent in Mr.
Featherstone's political record. He
mas understood all along that states
1lu counties partake in large measure
of the same characteristics as individ-
uals. When the state was sodden with
dispensary liquor, he understood how
absurd it would be to appeal to 1t as
whole to come back to decency. He
knew that there was no way. to get at
tention except by appealing to the in
dividual counties to stand for the right
of having to say whether they should
have prohibition or continue in the
way they were going. The idea won
after a long fight. But just as an in
dividual who has once been addicted
to the use of liquor. reforms and goes
back to drink, so counties and states
are liable to the same danger. The
state is now prohibition with the eX-
ception of six large counties. There is
still large minority of liquor people
in each of the dry counties. Mr.. Feath-
erstone understands very we'll that If
things are allowed to continue as they
are, with the majority sentiment lull-
ed to sleep maybe in the fancied secu-
rity of better conditions, there is dan
ger that the element which looks to
the dispensary for political prestige,
may again ride to power on the still
gnawing appetites that once guaran-
teed their supremacy. The only safe
thing. he understands full we'll. Is to
outlaw liquor entirely in every county
and to make the return of the legal
sale of liquor impossible, except on a
majority vote of the people of the
state. The Columbia State is for local
option on EXACTLY the same principle
that Mr.. Featherstone was for local
option, except that it wants different
thing. Mr.. Featherstone has always
been for prohibition, and is for prohi-
bition now. The Columbia State has
always been for liquor and is for IL
quor now. The Columbia State wants
local option in Richland, because II
knows that local option will ensure the
sale of liquor in Columbia. If 1t
thought local option would drive liquor
out of Columbia, it would be opposed
to local option. Mr.. Featherstone
stood for local option as a means of
driving liquor out of a great many
counties that could not get rid of 1t In
any other way. and if he had not be-
lieved that local option would have
had just the result it did have, he
would not have stood for it. He feels
now that all but thirty-siX counties are
right and he wants to make them all