The Columbia herald. [volume] (Columbia, Tenn.) 18??-1935, 1913-11-28
DEMOCRACY AND THE LIQUOR
INTERESTS.

S@WSSnNSI FNS TIE LI&O0n
INTERESTS.
Ex-Governor Patterson has had a
great deal to say since his CONVEX
sion to statewide prohibition about
the necessity of the democratic par
ty "divorcing itself from the liquor
interests"
1t is about time the truth was being
spoken on this matter. The demo
cratic party in Tennessee never was
liquor party, never had any affilia-
tions with the liquor interests, and
there was never any ground for any
body making such a charge against
! it until Mr.. Patterson, denouncing the
machine" promising reform and pos
ing as the champion of the people,
rushed out of Shelby county in 1906,
bearing aloft the Excelsior" banner
of good government, strong-armed
John |. Cox out of the guebrnatorial
nomination, became governor and be-
gan to use the liquor interests to
build up his political fortunes. He
aroused the antagonism of all the
temperance forces of the state, he
was responsible, in a measure, for
the precipitation of the fight for state
wide prohibition, and when it broke,
he himself led the liquor army, that
is to- say, he led the army in whose
ranks the whisky people fought.
1t is unnecessary to bark back into
the acerbities of that unfortunate and
calamitous struggle. 1t is enough to
say that Carmack was beaten only
after the most gallant fight against
the greatest odds ever waged by one
man in any state, and against cor
ruption fund the size of which only
Patterson, Duncan B. Cooper and Aus
tin Peay know, but which was not
short, by the lowest estimate, of six
figures. In the convention that fol-
lowed, has triumphed as the liquor
candidate, Patterson ordered and Sc
cured, as he had a right to do, Ii
Quor platform. To do 50, he threw
161 delegates out of the convention.
1t is true these delegates did not in
tend to carry out the wishes of ma
jority of the people of their counties,
but they had been duly chosen, new
ertheless.
Two years later, Patterson again
led the fight in the Democratic party
of the whisky men, who put up anoth
er and perhaps stilllarger campaign
fund for him, in an effort to elect his
judiciary ticket.
|, Last year when Benton McMillin
had been nominated for governor
and the state convention was about to
agree on a compromise liquor plank
that would satisfy the Independents,
who was it that threw himself into
the breach and forced the adoption Of
a strong local option liquor plank?
Who sent the famous note to Sena-
tor Hill McAlister, in the roomwhere
the committee on resolutions was in
session, that became the draft of the
plank that became the party's decla-
ration on the liquor question? M. R.
Patterson. Had it not been for Pat
terson and the manner in which he
used the liquor interests to build up
his machine, the democratic party
would never have split. Carmack
would not have been candidate for
governor and the long train Of mis-
fortunes which overlook us would
have been averted.
1t comes with exceedingly poor
grace, therefore, from Mr.. Patterson
to talk about the duty of democracy
ito divorce itself from the liquor traf
fic." Personally responsible for the
party's plight, the connecting link be-
tween it and "the liquor traffic" as
long as it existed, it would appear
in much better taste if Governor
Patterson would use the soft pedal
when he talks about the alliance"
between the Democratic party and
liquor. Since his conversion, that
alliance" no longer exists. and he
ought to let up on that matter
Jackson Jacksonian.