The Home and State (Dallas, Tex.), Vol. 11, No. 4, Ed. 1 Saturday, June 19, 1909 Page: 3 of 8
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THE' HOME AND ♦ STATE ♦
June 19, 1909.
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DEFENDING PROHIBITION TERRI-
TORY.
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W. C. Dunn has reported the or-
ganization of several prohibition clubs
since last issue. He is doing fine work.
—
We have no commission from the
prohibitionists or the anti-prohibition-
ists to counsel either in the interest
of their respective causes, and in this
comment we consider neither cause
upon its merits, but some recent cir-
cumstances suggest a thought which
is submitted for the sake of propriety
and peace in the several communities
concerned.
In the first place, it cannot escape
observation that most local option
elections of late have resulted in sus-
taining the status quo. It was -so last
Saturday. Smith and Comanche Coun-
ties remained dry and Dallam County
remained wet. As to results, nothing
was gained by either side, and in all
three counties the people were put to
profitless expense and vexation of
spirit.
It would seem that bad judgment
was exercised by the proponents of
each of these elections.
Common sense admonishes that a
local option election ought not to be
precipitated unless there is a good
reason to believe that the county or
precinct desires to change its status
from wet to dry or dry to wet, as the
case may be. The law allows, as the
law should allow, the people of any
community to alter the status, and
no sound or just view would limit the
exercise of the privilege -of change.
The point is that the privilege should
not be invoked without clear evidence
A TRAVESTY UPON JUSTICE.
Brookhaven. Mass., May 26.—In the
case of the State vs. Trvin Smith and
Joe Thomas, indicted for assault with
intent to kill and murder, defendants
were allowed by the court to enter a
nlea of guilty as charged and pay the
nominal fine of $35 each. This was
the case near Auburn postoffice, in
this county, where the defendants,
while under the influence of liquor,
went to the home of an inoffensive
citizen named H. C. Dykes, one Sun-
day evening about dark, called him
piuuud. • cnarrelLcith_him-
and when Dykes refused to , .cy
with them longer and started back to
re-enter his house, was fired on sev-
eral times by Smith, resulting in Es-
telle Dykes, a 14-year-old daughter,
who was at the door, being shot ,
through one leg below the knee and
having her thigh broken by another
shot.
District Attorney Wall, in an inter-
view this evening, disclaimed respon-
sibility for this disposition of the case.
out of ten attempts to reverse prohibi-
tion are vain. Certainly such attempts,
both in their iniation and in their ap-
plication, should be left to the local
citizens concerned.
The self-interest involved in the li-
quor traffic is like the self-interest in
any line of commerce and industry,
and we can understand its eagerness
for larger trade territory. But this
is one question which the people not
only necessarily determine without re-
gard to investment in the liquor traf-
fic but with bitter resentment of any-
thing like selfish intrusion. When
saloons are banished from a given
territory there is no legitimate local
liquor interest, and if it appears that
outside interests are provoking or
promoting a contest there need be no
wonder if the apparent impertinence
is rebuked with bitterness there and
elsewhere. So long as the system of
local option remains every good citi-
zen who prizes government above sel-
fishness will insist that the people of
each political division be permitted to
govern their own affairs.
HOT SHOT FROM DICKIE.
Here are two very good things from
Dr. Dickie’s speech in the joint debate
between him and Mayor Rose on the
saloon question in Milwaukee:
“I chance to have in my possession
some rather interesting facts, concern-
ing which, of course, you will have
a full explanation later on. I hold
in my hand a copy of the Milwaukee
Sentinel of the date of February 23,
1909. It gives account of the Mayor’s
marching club in a tour through the
South.
“It gives a detailed statement of the
violation of prohibitory laws in the
city of Birmingham, Alabama. It pro-
fesses to have been written after the
party reached Birmingham. It was,
however, by some bit of strange poet-
ical license, published in Milwaukee
on February 23, when the Mayor and
his party arrived in Birmingham on
February 25.
“And, as though that were not
enough to discredit the article, when
I turn to the inner page, where the
article is concluded, I find that the
gentleman who wrote the article goes
en to say that the-legislature is in
The above cartoon, with which.- the Nashville Tennessean hais the
passage of the prohibitory law in that State, is the more clearly un-
derstood when it is known that the figure opposite “the Saloon” at the
brake of the pump represents Governor Patterson, while the sorry
figure in the stern represents the editor of the Nashville American,
Patterson’s organ.
session in Birmingham and that the
Mayor and the marching club had the
pleasure of visiting the legislature in
session. As a matter of fact, the leg-
islature had not been in session in
Birmingham, because it has the bad
habit of meeting in Montgomery, and
had adjourned fully a month before
the Milwaukee party had gone South.
(Laughter and applause.)
“I fear that the beer that makes
Milwaukee famous, sometimes makes
Milwaukeeans befuddled. I am simp-
ly trying to show you that the traffic
is not very reliable when it comes to
defending itself.
T have in my hand a letter clipped
from another paper which is publish-
ed in the city of New Orleans. Press
of time makes it impossible for me
to read that letter; but it is a letter
written in the city of Milwaukee, sign-
ed by the Fred Miller Brewing Com-
pany, A. C. Paul, manager of the ad-
vertising department, and proceeds to
tell the editor of the Times-Dernocrat
that unless they suppress prohibition
news they cannot expect to receive ad-
vertising patronage from this particu-
P lar brewing house, or, for that mat-
ter, any other.
“I am here to say that a business
which dares tell the editor of a great
metropolitan - newspaper that unless
he suppresses the truth they will boy-
cott his advertising columns—a busi-
ness that will do that is an infamous
business. (Applause.) It is a dan-
gerous business: it is an un-American
business; it a business that ought to
die, and that right speedily.”—Illinois
issue.
==-5
Mason County is likely to have an
election in August. That county
would be in the prohibition column to-
day had it not been for the failure of
the officers to do their duty. -They
have made some improvements in the
official family of late.
rarely the case that campaigners from
without accomplish anything more
than to increase the excitement.
Finally, it appears that anti-prohi-
bitionists are not willing to let prohi-
bition territory alone. Whether the
initiative is coming from within or
from without, the fact remains that
generally no substantial result is ac-
complished. In the nature of things
prohibitionists will exert themselves
to the utmost to defend their territo-
ry. Theories and abstract principles
aside, wherever prohibition is enforc-
ed temperance is promoted, and those
who love temperance will not surren-
der a single foot of territory they have
won. It is written in the book of fate
that saloon evils are to be abated,
though whether by limitation or other-
wise in the cities and in certain pro-
nounced sections remains to be seen;
but it is hardly to be contemplated, if
at all posible, that any considerable
part of the prohibition territory of
Texas will restore the saloon. The
tendency on the whole is all the other
way. Therefore common sense and
experience teach that in nine cases
WHARTON COUNTY GOES WET.
The wettest agricultural county in
the wettest district of the State'has
voted to continue the murder mills.
The majority has been greatly re-
duced from the overwhelming de-
feat of six years ago. Wright and
Maples, of the League staff, were in
the fight and did some splendid
work. Wright ably met Hon. W.
L. Hall in three joint discussions,
while Maples put Judge Hanney, of
Hempstead, out of commission. The
antis also put up a hundred dollar
bluff on J. G. Adams, alleging that
thev could furnish a man who could
shut him up with a h-s-s-s-h. Adams
dropped in and they ordered un their
old Corsicana defender, W. W. Ballew.
Adams took their $100 and stayed in
the fight to the finish.
Mrs. M. J. Turner (colored) did ex-
* cePent work among the negroes and
increased their vote for prohibition in
about the same ratio as it was in-
creased among the whites over the
election of six years ago.
The pros are not in the least dis-
couraged, but are in organized nosi-
tion to present the issue in their
next county election and in State-
wide when that wire is stretched.
Every preacher and pulpit was a
dynamo, and all the doctors, with
probably two or three excentions,
were loyal and enthusiastic. Watch
Wharton county in the future and de-
pend on her support for “Texas dry.”
of a majority desire to change.
Of course, the evidence is not con-
clusive one way or the other except
as it is developed by a vote. But peo-
ple do not change suddenly, and when
they do finallly chage they are quite
certain to give positive and unmis-
takable indications of reversed opin-
ions. In the case of Smith County
the judgment of conservative citizens,
aside from their individual opinions
as to prohibition, was that the people
would vote for and against prohibition
in about the same ratio as in the pre-
ceding election, and the election con-
firmed this estimate.
In the second place, wnen there ap-
pears to be reason to expect a revers-
al of the status, we submit that local
citizens should be permitted to settle
the contest among themselves without
the irritating aid of outsiders. Local
option is peculiarly and essentially,
as the term implies, a local affair. The
people of the community alone are
concerned in the outcome of such an
election. It is for them to say wheth-
er they want whiskey sold, and they
should be permitted to determine the
matter for themselves. Imported spell-
binders and hired men, however zeal-
ous and upright they may be, provoke
resentment. Every county of Texas
is plentifully supplied with orators—
oratory is a perennial or a perpetual
crop everywhere in Texas,- and it is
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THE FORT WORTH RECORD.
Elsewhere we reproduce an editorial
from the Fort Worth Record of Wed-
nesday, June 9, concerning the sense-
less calling of elections by the antis in
counties that hav settled the prohi-
bition question and banished the sa-
loons for good. We indorse most of
this article, but dissent from the very
specious argument that outside speak-
ers should not enter the county where
an election has been called. We agree
fully that “local citizens should be
permitted to settle the contest among
themselves,” but they should not be
denied the privilege of inviting spe-
cialists to come and represent them
when their aid is desired. No speaker
should presume to force himself upon
a community in a discussion of this
character, but there is no more im-
propriety in his going when he is in-
vited by a committee or other body 'of
representative citizens than .for an
outside evangelist to come to the as-
sistance of local pastors, for D. J.
Neill to accept invitations to deliver
agricultural addresses to local unions
in any county in Texas, or for the
Record to pay its weekly visits with
messages on morals and politics to
every county in the State. “Every
county of Texas is plentifully supplied
with orators.” Yes, and practically
every ocunty is supplied with local
newspapers, but still the Record ac-
cepts the invitation to “interfere with
local affairs” by paying its periodic
visits.
We desire especially to commend
these words as worthy of exceptional
emphasis, and thank the Record for
giving them wide publicity:
“In tne nature of things prohibition-
ists will exert themselves to the ut-
most to defend their territory. Theo-
ries and abstract principles aside,
wherever prohibition is enforced tem-
perance is promoted, and those who
love temperance will not surrender a
single foot of territory they have won.
It is written in the book of fate that
saloon evils are to be abated, though
whether by limitation and otherwise
in the cities, and in certain pro-
nounced sections remains to be seen;
but it is hardly to be contemplated, if
at all possible, that any considerable
part of the prohibition territory of
Texas will restore the saloon. The
tendency on the whole is all the other
way.”
In conclusion we will say concerning
the work of outsiders in a county that
there ought to be a clear distinction
between those men who are sent by
outside, selfish. interests, and those
who are called by local citizens, moved
by no selfish interests. Fair-minded
journals like the Record should not
hesitate to make this just distinction
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Rankin, George C. The Home and State (Dallas, Tex.), Vol. 11, No. 4, Ed. 1 Saturday, June 19, 1909, newspaper, June 19, 1909; Dallas, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth1569454/m1/3/?q=Lamar+University: accessed May 29, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Library and Archives Commission.