The times-news. [volume] (Hendersonville, N.C.) 1927-current, 1935-04-22
CALLS THE SOUTH TO LEADERSHIP

Clarence Poe, editor of The Progressive
Farmer, sounds this solemn warning anu
call to service to the South:
Zone of the tragedies of the age IS that Amer''"
has rejected prohibition without preventing re-
turn of any of the evils which resulted IN prompt
ton. We were told that the saloon would not re-
turn 1t has returned. We told that dry states
would be protected They not only not protect
ed-no pretense is being made of protecting them.
II was TO have been presumed, for example, tEat
dry states would continue to be protected against
Touor Advertising On the contrary, hundreds or
periodicals are now permitted to food our homes
with anurng liquor advertisements advertise
rrents which picture all drinkers as healthy happy,
handsome and prosperous; advertisements which
would forever conceal all the CHASTITY tragedies o.
drinking which nearly every thoughtful man HIS
seen among his own acquaintance in real life; the
drinker detected and bleary-eyed, losing his job,
impoverishing or abusing his family, endangering
the highways, and finally Perhaps sacrificing his
health. reputation. and life itself Must not the
South highly resolve that it will take up the fight
anew and carry on a perpetual campaign of educd-
ton as to the ruinouS moral, physical, and mental
effects of alcohol? We must of course face facts,
and if permitting the sale of light wines and beer
would greatly reduce the use Of the more danger
Gus hard liquors. that fact should be frankly faced
But the South should refuse to surrender to the
present nationwide effort to make all America al
cohol-soaked with the resultant wholesale increase
in poverty, crime, degeueracy, and disaster. Here
indeed is chance for the South again to display
leadership that will enrich and ennoble its entire
future"
The TimeS-NewS agrees with Clarence
Poe that the South should oppose with all
the might of an aroused people the pres
ent nationwide effort to pickle this coun-
try in alcohol and debauch its population
with strong drink. wholesale poverty,
crime. degeneracy and disaster will re-
suit, as Editor Poe believes, from this de-
livery of the country to the manipulation
of the makers and sellers of alcoholic bev-
erages. The South should withstand and
oppose to the limit this movement to liquor
soak the country.
Today the liquor business is costing the
United States, directly and indirectly,
enough to make the country prosperous, if
the money spent for booze was turned into
the legitimate channels of trade. This
money would feed and clothe and furnish
homes for millions; and yet in the face of
the existing conditions, with millions on the
relief rolls, the people of the country are
being encouraged and urged, not only by
the brewers and distillers and distributors
of booze but by certain politicians, to waste
their money for drink
DR.. Henry Louis Smith, one of the most
distinguished citizens of North Carolina,
has been investigating in Virginia, where
we are told the ideal system of ''liquor con-
troll has been established. He found, for
example, that in Danville the State liquor
stores are doing business of $4,000 4
week; and DIR, Smith states that a major
ity of the patrons of these stores are ne
groes and cotton mill operatives - poor
people, who are spending their bread anC
clothing and house rent money for alec
hol, and who are being encouraged anC
urged by the State of Virginia to do so.
DIR. Smith found the conditions pictured
in Danville existing everywhere in Virgini;
where liquor stores have been established
That is the ideal system Senator JOIN
Sprunt Hill proposes for North Carolina.
Responsibility for what is taking plac
in the country and for what is to folloy
rests in large measure upon the presen
national administration, which led the figh