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THEICHARLOTTE NEWS, MARCH 27. 1908. 8 Sweep Of Temperance Tide In 1 he South Is Not At All Abated WILL IRWIN, in Colliers Weekly for February 23. In the pa-st two years, ami especially in the year 1!07, the country has awak ened to realize that we have a Prohi bition Wave." Xot until Georgia and Alabama had gone 'dry" and prohibi tion had become the main issue in the Tangled polities of Kentucky did the public in general perceive it. Now, at the beginning of the year 1!0S. nearly one-halt' of the area of the United States is dry: and more than one-third of our people are living under prohibi tory laws. The movement has gone further and faster in the south than any where else; but it is unielt only in the Rocky Mountain region and in the Central states of the Atlantic coast. Georgia is dry: Alabama has passed a prohibitory law: Mississippi has fol lowed just as ihis articlo goes to press. In Tennessee one can buy liquor in but three small districts. Kentucky has only four wholly "wet" counties; Florida only a fringe along the sea coasts: Texas is more than half dry; Missouri and Arkansas, community by community, are falling into line; the election of January 11 in Shreveport finished the "manufacture and sale" in all the northern half of Louisiana: it is highly probable that within two years one or both of the Carolina will vote for state-wide prohibition. Starting from the seaboard at Georgia one can travel now to the borders of Colorado or Xew Mexico and cross in passage only one narrow strip of wet territory the delta counties of Missis sippi. Even these will be dry by next January. The movement has been only a little less strong in the north. Maine. Kans as, and North Dakota are wholly dry: but they came in on earlier move ments. More recently, great areas of Illinois and Indiana have come under prohibitory law. Ohio, which has al ready gone dry in many spots through ward and township local option, seems on the point of passing a county local option law. Nearly one-half the area of Chicago is under ward prohibition laws. And even where the movement for absolute prohibition has had no ef feet, cities and towns are showing a more earnest disposition to enforce the old and half-forgotten laws for regulation of the liquor traffic. Why is it? What has been working in our people to create this sudden rev olution of moral feeling and political opinion? It is the purpose of this series to answer that question in so far as it is possible to speak with any authority on a problem which goes down, as this one does, to the basic principles of the social structure and to the roots of human nature. Before we begin, let us brush aside certain considerations which cloud the main issue. This habit of taking a drug which gives a temporary stimulus to all the powers of men and which, being a drug, carries its own form ol slavery and degradation, is almost as old ps society. The remotest tradi tions of the world (vide Genesis, 9:20. and especially the North European na tions, represent men as drinking ano getting drunk. It were better, prob ably, that alcoholic stimulants tuu. never been discovered: but men, and especially Anglo-Saxon and Celtic men have taken the drug so long that it? use is intertwined with nearly everj institution, good and bad, in our mod ern life. That the elimination of this drug habit by education, by the accom modation of custom, would be for tilt ultimate good of the human race, is al 1 most a truism. Yet to me it seem; impossible that any one should say, in the present state of knowledge on the subject, whether the attempt at sud den and complete suppression of tlv habit by law would result in good or in evil. Prohibition even in the face of a fifty-year-old experi":- : ! in Maine is still largely an experiment. So I shall take sides neither for nor against prohibition as a political theory. It is for me only to find the cause of thi: remarkably strong and steady move ment, and lo tell the news. The caus first; and before the deeper and fin; causes, let me take up those reasona ble arguments by which prohibition politicians have won their elections How has it gone in the south? The north has generally and super ficially assumed that the drunken negro has brought about this prohibi tion wave. Although hardly a main cause, the economic and social cor ruption of the black people by theii southern saloons has at least been a picturesque and compelling argument The southern white still regards th" negroes as his subject people; dear if they keep their place: to be chastised if they do not. Economically, the agri cultural regions of th 3 south are still mainly dependent upon negro labor. The low negro saloon, which has gone on degenerating year by year, is a great cause of idleness and inefficien cy. Ten years ago, when the commit tee of fifty mades its admirable study of the saloon in its relation to eco nomics, the results showed pretty clearly that the negroes were every where far more temperate than the whites. But corruption has gone fast in this decade. By old custom the negro plantation hands and the small independent farmers on leased lands ncverwork Saturdays. That is "store day," when they pile into the towns to trade and to drink. The cheap sa Inloons, with inducements in the way of women, gambling and worse, gather them in, strip them of their tiny earn ings, and bring many of them over to Monday morning in the arterstage of a debauch. In those plantation re gions where the saloons are ninnning it is Tuesday or Wednesday before all the hands are settled tlown to work again. It is even worse for the negro lessees. They spend in these de bauches the money that should go for tools, for seeds, for payment on their leases; and this reacts in loss upon the lords of the land. It is highly probable that any body of whites as poor and improvident as these planta tion negroes would drink more than they do: but the south is characteris tically impatient with any form of ne gro vice. Then, too, that crime of the negro which is the sensational feature of the southern race struggle is encourag ed and intensified by liquor and by drugs which the negro gets in his low boozing-kens. To it the negro dives directly pander. However much to blame the whites were for the Atlanta race riots of 1900, the way of liquor with the negroes had a great deal to do with it. A little of this kind of thing goes a long way in forming southern opinion. Then comes a purely economic con sideration. Large parts of the south are working to take from the North Atlantic region its old supremacy in manufacturing. It is a vital struggle tor industrial rehabilitation after the depression of "reconstruction." Wher ever, as in factory towns, there are many laborers, alcohol tends to play havoc with steady industry. The fac tory owners and business men of any manufacturing community, north or south, are usually against the saloon. At its best a luxury, and the most wasteful of all luxuries, it can most easily be dispensed with in a commu nity which is in the stage of industrial struggle. No point of the prohibition argument seems to be better taken than this. In the south, and under the new prohibition regime, the dry com munities have usually grown and pros pered after the first strain of adjust ment: the others have tended to stand still. 1 am aware that this has not hcen the general rule in the older pro hibition territory of the north; but it has been true in the south. The Moral Argument. The straight moral argument v:::"' not be overlooked. The south is the most intensely American part of the country. In blood, feeling and insti tutions it is the relic of the old Amer ica before the war. It h:'s the old- time American religion very largely Protestant Evangelical little touched by later ideals. "The south.." said a professor in a Georgia theological sem inary tlie soutli Has uad many trou- )les, but, thank God, evolution and the higher criticism are not among them!" The Protestant Evangelical churches all look with unfavoring eyes upon "strong drink," and the less they are touched by the Protestant form of Mod ernism the less complaisant they are. The Methodist Episcopal church car ries a total-abstinence cl rinse in its discipline book. The Baptists, with out stating the thing so formally, usual ly favor abstinence: the Presbvterians lean decidedly to that opinion. Missis sippi, in blood the most American state of the Union, has gone over to irohibition almost from this cause alone. "A new Puritanism in the ourh," some one has called it. As I shall try to show later, this is not a new Puritanism at all: it is the same old feeling, now turned into a force by a new political system. Eliminate the question of the drunk en negro and the causes at the north are about the same. Probably the inoral and religious appeal has had less foioe in those middle-western commu nities which have gone dry, and the economic argument vastly greater force. Experience has shown that pro hibition tends to raise real estate val ues in suburban residence communi ties. Family men, whatever their own practice in the matter, like to bring up their families apart from saloon influences. So it happens that no large city of this country is without its prohibition districts or suburbs. Xew York has i's N"w .Icsey towns, Chicago its Hy.le Park district, San Francisco its Palo Alto and Berkeley, Boston its Cambridge and Brookline. Manufacturing districts have gone dry through the belief of employers and business men that the suppression of liquor means increase of output. Lastly, there is a greater and more remote cause in both north and south which conies nearer the heart of the matter. Everywhere the saloons have ! disobeyed in the most flagrant fashion I all rules made for their government tnd regulation; and when put under pressure to reform they have fought back through their characteristic Am erican alliance with bad politics. So insolent has been the attitude not only of the saloon-keepers but also of the' brewers, distillers, and wholesale liquor men, that many communities have gone dry .simply because of the disgust which this attitude has bred in good citizens. Men who do not ob ject to the moderate use of liquor, men who use it themselves, have held the balance of power in these prohibi tion elections; the result shows how they have voted. South and north, such men returned me the same stere otyped answer. "I do not object to moderate drinking. I drink myself. But I would rattier go without it than stand for the saloons as they have been running things in this town." This brings the question down to that basic cause which is behind the corrupted negro, behind the pernicious effect of the traffic on industry, uncon sciously behind much of the purely moral objection. The American sa loon, always a peculiarly faulty and vicious system of distribution, has fall en of late into such evil ways that our civilization is" sick with it. So cially and politically, it has become a nuisance. In these days of forced re form from within, even the "larger interests" of the liquor traffic partially admit this. When the Model License A CURE FOR MISERY. "I have found a cure for the misery malaria poison produces," says R. M. James, of Louellen, S. C. "It's called Eleci.c Bitters, and comes in 50 cent bottles. It breaks tip a case of chills or a bilious attack in almost no time; and it puts yellow jaundice clean out of commission." This great tonic med icine and blood purifier gives quick relief in all stomach, liver and kidney complaints and the misery of lame back. Sold under guarantee at Wood all & Sheppard's drug store. League, a back-fire reform started by the Kentucky distillers, held its con vention in 'Louisville last January, the speakers talked of little else than the "reform of retail abuses." The brewers of Ohio, of Texas, of Illi nois, have admitted that the "low dive" should be eliminated, and are scratching such places from their lists. And one can not study the prohibition communities, north and south, without realizing that this reform is aimed not. ' so much at the consumption of alcohol as at the saloon. As an institution, the American sa loon was born of bad stock. It is the legitimate descendant of the English bar, the most vicious form of distri bution in Europe. The drinking places of the continent existed primarily for sociability, and only secondarily for the consumption of liquor. The Eng lish bar, as distinguished from the tavern, existed primarily that men might drink. Further, it did its very worst to spread the use of distilled spirits, the intoxicating essence of those beverages in which men took alcohol until two centuries ago. Our saloon grew up and developed on the old frontier. Although it was a center for the crime and evil living which marked the limit of our western ad vance, it had its uses. With the big vices of the frontier went its big hero isms, and probably it needed some strong form of stimulant to nerve men for those daring ventures of life and fortune by which we conquered a con tinent. But after the border had pass ed on, the saloon remained, a survival of frontier disorder after frontier hero ism was gone. It came in time to exist solely that men might drink perpendicularly, might pour down liquor and yet more liquor. Although it had everywhere ks virtues on the social side, althonugh the "poor man's club" had its socio logical value, the drink was the main thing. In regions untouched by the humanizing influence of later conti nental immigrants, the very furnish ing of an American saloon proves its purpose. Unless it runs gambling games or is a resort for prostitutes, it has hardly ever any place to sit down. One is expected to buy a drink, standing: to pour it down. If he wants to remain, he is expected to buy an other or to have another bought for him on the vicious "treating" system. No better device was ever found for making habitual drunkards out ol" oc casional drinkers. American men came to drink without sense or grace rime or reason. Every schoolboy knows that we spend more for alcoholic liquors than we do for bread and meat. b Of course this institution, as it drift- ed closer to absolute vice, gathered al lied vices about it. The American sa loon, unless checked by laws steadily backed by vigilance on the part of good citizens, tended always to rapid degen eration. Out of this condition of affairs came the teetotal movement, aimed at that drinking habit in which Americans have gone so fast and so far; and, just before the civil war, the first pro hibition movement, of which the Maine law is the only relic. Tht prohibition Avave of the fifties, cut short by the civil war, crystalized in the American saloon one tendency which did still more to degrade it. In cider to beat the regulations made for their curbing, and in order to de teat the attenmpts at prohibitory laws, the saloon men and the "liquor inter ests" in general allied themselves with bad municipal politics. There follow-f ed that tight union between the pow ers that rule and the powers that prey which han nearly every American city before the reform movements of the past ten years. It is worth while to stop and analyze that alliance. The part of government which comes nearest to the individual citizen, the one which really most con cerns him, is the police function. It is usually within police power to enforce or to neglect the enforcement of any law for the regulation of dissipation or of vice. At first the saloons found a way to control the police directly by "inductments." But the system grew; it paid better, it worked better in every way, to control the politicians wrho had the appointive power over the police. To these politicians the saloon had great inducements to offer. To begin with, it had become, as I have said, in a sense "the poor man's club;" and tho working man is the backbone ji iUe primary election svstem for it is at the primaries, not at the general election, that the gang usually does its work. The saloon-keeper must be a. good fellow; nc Had always a per sonal following. It was a neighbor hood gathering place; a convenient political unit. So the saloon-keeper, for value received in the way of "pro tection" and favorable legislation, worked to reliver votes, to bring the ward heeler close to his tools. With this gradual degradation of both poli tics and retail liquor traffic, the sa loons went one stage further. They became headquarters for the "repeat ing" system, for ballot-box stuffing, for all the downright iniquities by which the gang, when pressed to it, main tained its control. Further than this, the saloon-keepers furnished forth, still furnish forth, most of the sinews of war. Not always directly, it is true, although in many towns and cit ies the collection is made directly be fore every primary or general election, but by various tricks and devices, which run with the complexities of the system. Tammany Hall, for example, maintains its grip in New York, up holds that system of police graft which no police commissioner has yet been strong enough to break, and protects the army of small grafters which flourishes in its shadow, by filings from the nickels and dimes and quarters which go over the bars of New York for drinks. It is probable that this system be came, in the end. more of a burden than a help to the saloon-keeper. In many communities it became black mail. Over the head of the saloon keeper hung always the fear that the gang, if he refused to come down, would revoke his license. That is the whip to keep the saloon-keeper in line; having the police power, which holds the saloon license privilege in the hol (low of its hand, the politicians can and do out out of business any man who squirms. So- the politician is the deep sea on one side of the retail liquor dealer: and driving him on the other side is the devil in the shape of the brewery. This is the paradox of the whole situa tion; that the branch of liquor manu facture which produces the lighter and less intoxicating form should be the main agent in degrading the business. (Concluded Tomorrow.) Schedule in Effect January 12, 190f Daily Charlotte and Roanoke, Va. 10:50 arn Lv. Charlotte, So Ry Ar 6:00 pn 2:50 pm Lv. Winston, N & W Ar 2:00 pin 5:00 pm Lv Martv'Ile N & W Ar 11:10 pm 7:25 pm Ar Roanoke, N&W Lv. 9:20 am Connects at Roanoke via Shenandoah Valley Route for Hagerstowu and all points in Pennsylvania and New York, Pullman sleeper Roanoke to Philadel phia. Additional trains leave Winston-Salem 7.30 a. m. daily, except Sunday. If you are thinking of taking a trlj TOU want quotations, cheapest fare reliable and correct information, as ti routes, tr&in schedules, the most com fortable and quickest way. Write ant the information is yours for the ask ing, with one of our complete Map Folders. V. B. Devil, M. F. BracKi Gen. Pass. Agt. Trav. Pass. Agt BoMoke. Va. Now is the time lo MfeWtifolk&Wstern mmg We handle the Baldwin Line which is the only Refrigerator on the market that has rubber lining around the doors which makes them air proof, and prevents the doors from getting too tight or too loose. It costs more to make them this way, but we sell them just as low as other makes. Let us show you our line. ernng 16 N. College Street. kirt trb. n a Cedar It is about time to put away your Furs and Winter Clothes and make arrangements to take care of the always pop ular Shirt Waist. We are showing a line from the smallest to the largest and from the cheapest to the best Cloth Covered Box, 27 inches long, 13 inches deep $2.50 Cloth Covered Box, 30 inches long, 15 inches deep $3.50 Cloth Covered Box, 33 inches long, 17' inches deep.. .. Matting Covered Box, 21 inhes long, 13 inches deep.l Matting Covered Box, 30 inches long, 15 inches deep.. Malting Covered Box, 33 inches long, 17 inches deep.. Matting Covered Box, 27 incches long, 9 inches deep.. Matting Covered Box, 31 inches long, 11 inches deep.. Matting Covered Box, 40 inches long, 11 inches deep.. Matting Covered Box, 43 inches long, 11 inches deep.. Matting Covered Box, 45 inches long, 11 inches deep.. Solid Red Cedar Box, 36x15 inches Solid Red Cedar Box, 48 inches by 24 inches Order the size you want. It " Parker-Gardner Company Furniture Carpets Tears in mortal miseries arc vain Homer. I 4 Farming Tools OF THE MOST MODERN TYPE AT MOST MODERATE PRICES ALLEN HARDWARE GOMPANY I. I. .i ifrj. .fr .fr begin thinking about getting erator & Benton Charlotte, N. C. Boxes CSiests will be shipped on approval anwher? you like. Pianos Pianolas OETSOC t Another Shipment of a Little More Than has just arrived and we are with the best goods at most . i i . .3 $ uur assoi untiii is secomi have examined our slock. 3 Charlotte Hardware Com Not How Cheap, But How Good r,. . 7 f if "il I ffliUW: If, during youi -enovatin reason, you iid that you have some old beds that have served their day, or if you decide to furnish an other room, come in and let us fit you up with a handsome Brass or Iron Bed neat, comfortable, cleanly a boon to the busy houskeeper. Iron Beds as Cheap as... $ 2.75 Iron Cribs as Cheap as $ 5.75 Brass Beds as Cheap as $25.00 We are showing also a strong and varied line of Felt Mattresses. Sole agents for the "Red Cross Mattress." O U 0 Cash or Easy Terms. Do You Remember What We Said last Week About Well, we could not say too mucli as they have no superior as to quality and scarcely an equal. When you buy a "Charter Oak" you buy the BEST. Besides the best stove on earth we carry the most complete retail stock of general Hardware in the South. Look at these specialties: Corbin Locks and Builders' Hard ware, Charter Oak Stoves and Ranges, Altas and Revere Paints, Community Silver Ware, Gillette Razors. Draper and Maynard's Base and Foot Ball Supplies, Miller and Freeorand Pocket Knives. The world cannot beat this line of Spe cialties. All the BEST of their kind. wedtiin Phone 65. 2 now in position to supply y(.m- W;U1S reasonable prices. ' 4.,. !-... 1 iu aunt-, wuu i uuy AUiUing until you AT riger Furniture Brass and Iron I AND McC Cash or Easy Terms. WW'HW""K",?!"?'?'!'v ' iardwan (INCORPORATED) 29 East Trade St. ny t . 1
The Charlotte Observer (Charlotte, N.C.)
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March 27, 1908, edition 1
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