The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1916-01-05
PROHIBITION PROHIBITS.

Some twenty-five years ago, in an
election ordered on the question OF
prohibition, the State of South Car
DINA voted to prohibit the manu-
facture and sale of intoxicating IL
ouors in the state, but the people OF
the state are just now coming into
their own. The state became a pro-
h;bition state on Janu:ry 1st; 1916.
But we do not ieve that the
twenty-five yea. have been lost to
the people Tho want prohibition. In
thai time the people have had a
chance to try thoroughly the plan Of
having liquors sold under state au-
thority, by sworn bonded officers
of the state. The people had al
ready learned that the sale of liquor
by individuals was an evil which
could not be tolerated, but there
were those who believed that a pro-
hibition law would be a farce, and
that the ends of temperance could
be promoted by a system of state
management. This plan has been
thoroughly tried, weighed in the bal
ance and found wanting. Neither
state management, county manage
ment, nor community management,
has been able to take the corrupting
influences out of the whiskey bust
ness.
But the dispensary undoubtedly
cid a great deal of good, especially
in those towns which had formerly
had bar-rooms.. It may be true and
doubtless is, that there has been more
drinking in the rural and industrial
communities, because people were
encouraged to buy liquors in quanti-
ties and carry it home, rather than
drink in the towns where there were
vigilant police officers. But on the
whole the ~dispensary did some good
in the way of promoting temperance;
no observing man will deny this, we
think.
But in the twenty-five years, the
people themselves have grown to
hate intoxicating liquors to an ex-
tent not hitherto known in this
country. The cause of temperance
has grown of its own force and by
reason of the fact that it commend
ed itself to the good ems Of the
thinking people of the state.
Accordingly, when the liquor bust
ness had failed as a business to be
handled by individuals, and when the
state management of the purchase
and sale of intoxicating beverages
proved to be a corrupting influence
in the state, and an unsatisfactory
way of handling a business which
cannot be handled rightly, the peo-
pie of the state arose and demanded
that the manufacture and sale of
liquors in this state cease, and the
state through the sovereign voters
has so decreed.
And prohibition will prohibit. 1t
may not stop the sale of Eqours to
our people, it will not do this. But
the amount of liquor which is con-
sumed by the people of Abbeville
county will grow less and less as the
years 60 by, because liquor is out
lcwed, and so is the man who
drinks it to excess, and every man
who drinks it, sometime or other,
does so to excess.
The Wholesale Liquor Dealers
Association has for years commended
that prohibition increased the con-
sumption of liquors. But their &C
tons have not supported their
preachments, else the people who
make up the Association would not
always fight prohibition laws. They
will tell you that they want to do
legitimate business, but the records
of the courts of this and other states
show that the liquor-sellers are will
ing to do any kind of business if they
may only sell liquor, and the votes
and the wishes of the people have in
times past counted nothing with
the liquor-seller when he wanted to
sell liquor. 1t was BUSINESS and
not legitimate business that he
sought, and because prohibition de-
creased the sale Of liquors, the Ii
quor-seller has always been and al
ways will be against prohibition.
The estimates from the Treasury
Department of the United States
show what prohibition has done and
is doing for the liquor trade. 1t
is stated that the prohibition laws in
the several states, and the fight