Clinch Valley news. [volume] (Jeffersonville, Va.) 18??-2019, 1914-06-19
OUR NATURAL RESOURCES

The Roanoke Times has been run
ming series of articles written by
Editor Williams in which the matter
of statewide prohibition is being bis
cussed i'll an exhaustive manner. q. II
is plain, however, that the times is
attempting TO stay the tide of prohi-
bition in the old state. There is moth
ing new in final stand of this sort
made through a medium and man
of undOubted influence and ability. 1t
is another instance of history re-
peating itself. There were learned
men who stood for human slavery
after the nation and the world had
passed into a civilization in which
this monstrous custom had no part
Even ministers of the gospel sought
to prove the divine pprobation of
the traffic in human beings by holy
writ, and basing their arguments on
obsolete and barbaric? conditions
thought their position right and held
up the result of their deductions to
please the advocates of human slav-
cry and confound the adherets of the
new thought. 1t is so today with the
traffic in liquor. There are those who
believe that it is better under sys-
tenn of regulation and special privi-
lege grained to it's distributors, tina
to allow a condition to grow up in
which tire will b illegal traffic and
the woes in its train. There is no 9TH
er question involved in the contention.
No man has the hardlhood to claim
that the sale of liquor has a redeem
ing thing i'll its favor. 1t has long ago
been considered an unSound financial
policy for community to grant Ii
cense. | has been demonstrated time
and again that the same amount of
money invested in other enterprises
would give more work and wages TO
the people. Experience has taught
us that it not only hurts those adj
dicted to its use, but that it extends
its baleful influence to the innocent
and helpless. 1t takes out of the ranks
of the worlds workers hundreds and
thousands who might be useful and
makes them their offspring a charge
on those who do work. The people
have tried the regulated saloon. They
have tried local option. They have
tried the dispensary and other meth
DDS and fled to one scheme after
another in desire to combat the grow
| ing tendency of our citizenry to re-
duce the standard of health and NOR
ais through agencies of stimulants.
The fact that the people have real
lied for many years that something
had to be done wipes out any con-
tention any advocate of the traffic
may have. We stand today and face
the proposition of how best to con-
troll and stop the havoc.
The daily Telegraph believes that
as the world grows older men see
with clearer vision, and are better
qualified to solve the perplexing prob
lens of government, and are meeting
one after another these problems and
solving them. The men and womn
of this country are its greatest asset
We must keep them up to the high
est standard of mnhood nd womn-
hood to make he nation potent and
| strong. If there are those who shirk
treir part in the production of the
things that go to furnish subsistence
and by vicious habits and idleness de-
crease the productiveness of the ma.
tioi as a. whole, a remedy must be
means to make every man bear ar
equal part in the burden of enterprise
and effort, the worlds work could be
done in four hours day. If we coulc
dissipat the vast army that we EN-.
ploy to guard the delinquents, nurse
the sick, take care of the INDECENT
and irresponsible and instead of these
people being as non-producing ele
ment transform them into a produc
ing element, we would have taken {
T, long step toward national betterment
In the conservation of our natura