The Lancaster news. [volume] (Lancaster, S.C.) 1905-current, 1915-09-28
SOME PAST HISTORY.

The following from The Richmond
Evening Journal should be read by
every one who is heartily in favor
of seeing the statewide prohibition
law, which goes, into effect January
1st, next, strictly enforced. While
The Journal is an enemy to prohi-
bition, honestly \ believing that it
cannot be enforced, yet it has given
much food for thought in what 1t sets
forth as to the past history of South
Carolina in it's treatment of the
liquor traffic. Says The Journal:
South Carolina prohibitionists at
last have won victory out of which
Senator Tillman tricked them
twenty-five years ago. In 1890,
when the present senator first gain
ed control and practical possession,
of the state, 1t was about three
fourths dry under local option.
There were no saloons except in the
cities and larger towns. The prohi-
bition issue was made and an ar
rangement something like what we
had here in Virginia last year was
effected. At very exciting general
primary, a separate box was placed
at each precinct in which to vote
for or against prohibition. Many of
the people were so engrossed in the
Tillman fight that they neglected this
extra box, but prohibition won by a
majority of 10000. Senator Till
man, then governor, practically
ignored the prohibitionsists He
was king and could do as he liked |
and he whipped them to heel. He |
became infatuated with the dispen-
sary idea, which has been adopted
by the city OF Athens, Ga. He Great
ed and established the state dispen-
sary with supply and executive head
quarters at the capital of the state
and branches in every important
town and city. Some of the prohi-
bitionists became so enthusiastic over
that Tillman scheme that they actu-
ally accepted employment as dispen-
sers. Men who had worked and vot-
ed for prohibition, including a few
clergymen, took jobs to sell whiskey
over the counter, in packages from
a half pint up, and on preteXt OF fight
ing the blind tigers, catered carefully
to local tastes for intoXicants. The
pay depended on the sales.
The dispensary began in riot and
strife and blopdshed, attended with
proclamations to martial law, NUT
my of part Of the militia and mob
iliZation of all the rest, with raids
and invaSiOns end searches of pri-
vate dwellings by armed rufnans
commissioned as dispensary consta-
bles. On one occasion, at least, the
bed room of prominent gentlewo-
man of Charleston was invaded ana
explored by these Ti1man agents in (
pretended search for Illicit liquor.
De- rs,,,, l,,,, g.. Il. Il
wound up as a state institution, in an
orgy of corruption and scandal as
bad as any that developed under car
pet bag, scallaway cornfield negro ;
rule in the Reconstruction period. (
II was proved that the state not only
killed and prosecuted citizens to es-
tablish for herself a monopoly of the
liquor business, but that she had
swindled and poisoned her enforced
customers. The whiskey sold from
the state dispensary to the local dis
pensary and by them 70 consumers,
at high prices, had been watered
freely and doctored with concentrat-
ed lye to give it age and 'beed' The {
profits were enormous and n large
part Of them was stolen. Men are liv- \
ing in South Carolina today at ease
enjoying fortunes fished from state
and people through the whiskey bust
ness.
THE state dispensary was abolish
ed and counties and citizens were
left to decide, by local option, wheth-
er they should have dispensaries.
Six counties of the forty-five voted
for and established official saloons,
the profits going into the local treas
uries. The counties which voted for
prohibition proceeded to ignore the
law. They had blind tigers on
scale never known elsewhere, men
who imported from other states,
liquor by the car load and kept they
goods in warehouses. Broken down
tin-horn gamblers and petty mer-
chants made money hand over fist
and blossomed out with the finest au-
tomobiles money could buy There
was strong suspicion in some coun-
ties that local officials and blind
tigers formed secret political rings
for mutual protection and advantage
and divided profits. Anyhow officers
of the law on small salaries became
affiuent and financially comfortable
suddenly and mysteriously. In
Charleston, the dispensaries ana
tigers operated peacefully and COM
fortably cheek by jowl; the blind
tlSeis pIdcliCdily open SdlOOnSr sup
plying the night mixed drink trade,
the dispensaries attending to the
original package end. The state dis
pensary had supplied anything call
ed for from the finest champagne,
claret and liquors to the commonest
and hottest corn whiskey. and the
local dispensaries followed the ex-
ample. Grand juries, in Charleston
at least, refused to indict even when
officials made bluffs at arresting and