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- - ~ -,-. ) e<I4~ ~ - ~-" N~. -*~ xs .~ -3, V r -~.v-' ~~1 a--f VOL. XLII. No 101 P NEWBERRY. S. C.. TUESDAY ALTGLST S l9Uo TWICE A WEEK. $1.50 YEAR TILLMAN SPEAKS AT EDGEFIELD MEETING SENATOR SPOKE FOR TWO AND A HALF HOURS. He Gingered Up a Little and Talbert Got Angry-Incident Laughed Off. Senator Tillman spoke for two hours and a h'ali at a mass meeting at Edgefield on Saturday, at which time the dispensary question was dis cussed by a number of prominent ge-ntlemen. There is a movement on foot in Edgefield county to vote out the dispensary and it was decided to have a public discussion of the question and to have speeches on both sides. There was no excite ment except for a few moments wh en Col. W. J. Talbert interupted Senator Ti'l-man. who, it is stated, kept his wits about him and smiled the affair away. The following report of Senator Tllhman's speech is taken from the Colimbia State: Tillman's Speech. Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Fellow Citizens: It is six years since I have had the pleasure of addressing a pub lic meeting in this my home county. On that occasion the issue was the same on which we have today. The people have passed on this question five or six times and settled it by overwhelming majorities. That year the aggregate vote for the two I candidates who were running as dis pensary candida* -s was 28,ooo more -than. the prohibition candidate got, %t there are some people in South Carolina who have never been will ing to submit to the rule of the ma jority. They think they know more, that they are beter than the masses of the people, that they have the right to dictate to them what they shall do. So here we have again this same old 'bone contention brought forward for politicians to gnaw on. But why en ter upon a discussion of this subject. I propose in response to your invi tation to discuss the principles under lying it, and the wisdom or unwisdom of the policy which is proposed; but before I do -that I want to have a word personally with you. Ff-een years ago by the suffrages of my fellow citizens I Was taken from my farm ten miles below Edge field and sent to Columbia to dis charge the duties of chief executive. After four years' absence, with only an occasional visit here. I was elect ed to the United States senate and for nearly ni years I have been filling as best I could the responsi'ble duties of that position. These two great offices, the greatest in your gift, you have conferred upon me, have been sotrrces of great gratification to me. but my countrymen they ha-ve also caused me to be an exile from home, they have carried me from among you, you whom I love better than any people on earth. I am a stra' -:r in my own .land, and but for a old men whose heads are gray or oald I know scarcely 2o men in this au dience. You all know me; some feel aggrieved if I don't step forward and call you by name and shake your hand, but I have met so many people in so many states that faces pass be-, fore me like a panorama, and I can not longer recognize men. I't is not because I feel any hgher than you, for I am still plain Ben Tillman. I -have always regarded myself your servant and not your master. "The Price of Silence." I am- here today to discuss this question. Some have said it was im proper and out of place for a Uni'zed States senator to 'neddle with local affairs. These men have felt aggriev ed because I will not consent to shut my mouth, and close rny eyes :e the condition in which I am as much -mterested as you are. and They have demanded of me the price of silence. I ain't built that way. Thank God I ain't bulit that way. (Laughter and applause.) When I get too cowardly to stand up in your midst or anywhere else and speak the truth as I see it and understand it thei I will have become too cowardly and worthless to represent you anywhere. I know I shall make enemies. I know many of my best friends are to day lined up in antagonism to the liquor system which I devised. Be cause they have changed am I to surrender my conviction? I again say I ain't bulit that way. The office of United States senator is a high and noble one, but the office is not worth the price which some men de mand of me. Therefore .I am here in answer to your invitation to tell you what I think, not to dictate-I know you are not built that way, you do your own thinking, and not as I say. What is the issue? How shall we sell li quor or whether we shall sell it at all? That is the whole proposition stated in a brief sentence. There are three systems that have obtained in the state, not in the state as a whole, but in parts of the s-cate: one is the license system, the old bar room system, the second is the dis pensary system under which we are now working, and the third is proh'i bi'tion. The ingenuity of man never devised any more than' those three syste'ms for liquor control. Which one of those is best? You have heard eloquent and strong arguments, facts and figures as they were pre sented in favor of prohibition. I confess to you as between prohi bit.ion and the barrooms, saloons or any system of license, I am a prohi bitionist. But will prohibition pro hibit? I say no. These other gentlemen say yes. Let's give the facts. Assails Prohibition. We had prohibition in Edgefield about 1884 or 1885. When the dry council was elected you could not buy whiskey la,wfully in the town of Edgefield :s a beverage; the only way you could buy it was to get a certificate from a physician and go to some drug store with the doctor's prescription; if you needed some aqua fortis-what other Latin phrase do they employ? A voice: Sjirituous frumenti. Tillman: Some of you> fellows who used it recollect, but I have forgotten the formula. (Laughter.) I know this, that prohibition in 'the town of Edgefield was a hissing and a by word, and that there was just as much drunkenness then as there ever had been under the saloon system; and certain physicians who lived in this town then grew absoluftely rich by giving prescriptions or certificates to Johnson, Smith or Jones whto ap plied to them that they needed th-is stuff for their healTih. (Laughter.) A voice: Those physicians you speak of are dead and gone. Tillman: I do not want to speak ill of any dead man, and I do not inl tend 'to. Whenever it has been tried it has had the same result. And above all it has taught 'the people to be hypocrites to go to the doctor and say, "I have got .the belly aohe.' (Laughter.) My objecxion to prohibition is, we are not yet angels, more the pity I do not see any wings sprou-ting or anybody's shoulder; we are sinfu hnman beings, made by God A!. mighty in His wisdom with short comings and the weaknesses of man we have our appetites, and it is ir the nature of the beast to gratif3 that appetite for stimulants, andi he cannot get it lawfuly he is goins to ge't it some other way. There ha~ always been and always will he a dte manid for liquor as a beve age simp.o b)ecause man likes the taste and it: effect, not because he is sick. no bece he needs it as a medicine, bu simply for his stomach's sake as Paul said to Timothy, and somebody will always be ready to supply it for the money. Th'at being the case, I have tried to deal -with this question as a true man and from a common-sense standpoint to treat men as I find them and not as I would have them to be, but to try and teach them to minimize and reduce the evil of whiskey drinking. I have not indulged in liquor myself, but I have seen it, some of my family have suffered from it, I have seen its misery, the misery it causes: I have seen too much not to know that if we could destroy the formula of al cohol either from fermentation or anything else it would injure the med ical profession in their business, de prive men of their valuable stimu lants in certain diseases, but the sum of human misery would be reduced. But the best thing in my judgment as a practical man is to treat men as they are and to try to teach them to restrain their appetites as far as prac tical and minimize the evil of liquor drinking. You have heard a good deal about blood money. Somletimes I get awfully sick in the senate when I hear a fellow get up and twaddle about what he knows nothing of; when I hear preachers talking about the drinking of whiskey being blood money. I look back to the history of the world, I find that no man, no preacher, priest or states man ever dremned of attempting to prohibit the use of liquor until about 75 or ioo years ago, have not under took until the last 8o years to say that man should ner drink or that it .waS a. sin. I do not hesitate to say I can find in the Bibe a dozen or two dozen texts recognizing the use of liquor to where you can find one which denounces it. Where does the sin come in? The sin does not rest upon Bible authority, it rests upon the preacher's authority, and I object to any preach er changing the scripture to suit his fanaticism and to make me* swallow his religion. (Laughter ard cheers.) You cannot show me in the scriptures except in one or two isolated cases where the use of wine is denounced as a sin, and I can show you a dozen passages where it is spoken of other wise. When any man talks to me about blood money T put him down as an abominable ass. T do not intend any't'hing personal. I cannot see any possible exense for any one to make such charge. .As To Blood Money. I saw the other day where some man said that rather than see his children educated on blood money he would prefer to see them grow up in illiteracy. I do not blame him for saying tihat .if he believed it was blood money. Bumt it is not blood money. Where do you get the authority for saying .it is a sin to use liquor? There is no doctrine of that sort in the Bible You can find plen-ty of texts .as to the abuse of liquor, getting drunk and doing things th-at a man will do when drunk which are sin.ful. I agree to t.hat . The dispensary is intended to minimize the abuse of liquor, while prohibit.ion .is supposed to prohibit its use absolutely because it is sinful. I always like to back up my asser tions with facts. Some people dra on their imagination for their facts. I may have done so at times, but did not do so intentionally. I have de clared and do now so declare that prohibition does not prohibit any w'here. A few days ago I received the last printed report of the comn mrissioner of internal revenue at Wash.ington. and I find these figures: jState of Kansas with a population of [-470.495 had in it retail beer or mat liquor licenses secured from the United States governnv:nt 3.T97. or 460 peop!e to every retailer of those beverages. That's in Kansas. remem ber. One liquor and beer dealer for every 460 people in the prohibition state of Kansas. (Laughter.) Maine has 694,000 population according to the last census and had 988 licenses issued by the United States govern ment to sell liquor and beer, or one to every 703 population. State of South Carolina hiad 1,340,000 popula tion and the total number of Ur.ited States licenses to retail liquor and beer including the 1oo and o4d dis pensaries 567, or one retail seller fo, every 2.364 .population. Now, those figures ought to speak for themselves without further argu ment; but ,I have some further facts. Take the city of Charleston, S. C. Ic. had in 1900 55,000 population in round numbers. and the total num'ber of ar rests in that city for that year was 4,002; arrests for drunkenness 524. Mind you they say Charlest'.>n is the home of blind tigers, and I 1 now it co be true. Kansas City, Kan., popula tion 5i,ooo, total number of arrests 3.457; arrests for drunkenness 960. Take Portland, the head centre of prohibition, where it has be en the law for 5o years; population 51,000, total number of arrests I,goo; arrests for drunkenness, 1,165; more than twice as many as were in Charleston. \To peka, Kan., population 33,000, total arrests 2,671; arrests for drunkenness 644, a little over half of the popula-j tion of Charleston, and 100 more ar rested for drunkenness. What are you going to do with these facts? SOme say you are going to v'ote the abominable dispensary out and sub stitute blessed prohibition. I don't care if you do, and sometimes I rath er wish you would so you. can get a dose of the physic for' z2 months. Now, we come to high license; this conbination which we are fac ing today, the high license people, the probibition people- and blind tig ers, tls same we have been fighting since 1893. These people who are ad vocating 'righ' license, the State of Columbia, the News and Cburier and some other papers, and some of our fellow citizens, they are not in favor of prohibition; 'they tell you so, they say lets kill the dispensary, then we will have prohibition, and then what high license. The preachers are go ing one road, the prohibitionists are going another road, and the blind tigers are traveling the third road, they are all alert to kill the dispen sary, and when they kill it and it is gone, poor thing, then wihat? There will be a fight among the people to say whether it shall be high licen-se, or prohibition, and what will t>he dis pensaryites do then. If we are so far and few beltween that there will be no hope to restore the dispen1. ary, I am going to line up with my friend Tal'bert and shout for prohibition. 1 never will consent by my vote and in fluence to aid the re-establishment of saloons in any county in South Carolina. Talbert Waxed Wroth. Mr. Talbert-(From his seat on the stage). Thanik God, one old sinner has come in. Tillman-(Turning toward Talbert, weA' great emphasis and vehemence and ,shaking his finger at him said) Why didn't you say that three years ago when you were declaring you would enforce this damnable law. (Cheers.). Talbert-I said I would support the law. I never did advocate it. You are mistaken, sir. (Mr. Talbert ex hibiting great excitment) I went to you when you were introuble, sir. I stood by the law and said to Latimer tihat I woud go to Columbia and de fend you. I have never advocated the law. I have supported it. I hee been a prohibitionist for 20 years. Tillman-I am not impugning your motive. Talbert. I have not come here for trouble. but if you want a per sonal difficulty I am here. I support edl the law because it is the law. If its a prohibition law I will support it. (By this time Col. Talbert was very much wrought up and had ad vanced toward Tillman. Mr. A. E. Padgett, the chairman of the meet ing, succeeded in somewhat quieting Talbert, and the crowd hurrahed for Tilman with counter hurrahing for Talbert.) Mr. Talbert continuing said: "If you desire a personal con troversy I am here and you can get it. Tillman-You broke into my speech, sir. Talbert-You alluded to me and ,(hook your rotten old finger at me which I can't take from anybody. If you want a personal difficulty say so. Senator Tillman laughed and turn ed to the audience and said: I have traveled along that road many times boys. (Cheers.) (Mr. Talbert resumed his seat.) Tillman-I failed to give you Law rence, Mass., experience, where they have a high license of $2,500 for the privilege of the monopoly of some bar-keeper to sell whiskey in Law rence, Mass. Its population in 1900 was 62,ooo; total number of arrests, 2,397; arrests for drunkenness, 1,321. The senitimentt against the dispen sary is running so high I outlined it in a letter which I wrote some time ago, and with one exception the news papers in my own county have not published it, they have not given you an opportunity to read it, but their news columns and editorials teem with. "down with the damnable dis pensary." I have that faith in the intelligence, and manhood of the citizens of Edge field to feel and know that you are your .own masters and will study this question for yourselves, make up your own ninds and vote as freemen. I. -have always tried to lead you, I have never undertaken to drive you, and you know it. Lets come down to common sense, some good, every day bacon and greens. They tell you to vote out the dispensary, and lets have prohibition. I have no objection to others having their opinions, let me have mine. People need not rock me and not expect me to throw brick bats back. I have got a car load of them. Let's see what will be the effect at home. Aside from any, moral, relig ious or temperance idea. I have shown you that you will have drunk enness. Now, we have less drunken ness in South Carolina than any where else. The Profit Feature. In Edgenleld in the days of bar rooms what did you country bump kins, who have been appealed to so eloquently today, what did you get from the liquor traffic? Nothing ex cept the misery and poverty which came to you as individua-ls for in dulgin.g in the stuff. Under the dis pensary sy'stem the county sc;hools in cluding the town of Edgefield and Johnston get $5,8oo from the dispen sary and th-e free schoo-ls are now running and have been running five to seven months a year. Take this $5,80o aivay and unless you put your hands in your pockets and supple ment it by taxes your schools will drop to four miont.hs or less. If that ain't blood money out of the inno cent childreo who are to be brought up in idleness and ignorance, and God have mercy on the preacher who sees and says otherwise. .(Cheers,) 'Talk about blood money. They of fer as a sacrinice the ignorance of the poor little country boys and girls that now have some chances to get an education. because tihey have found a new religion which declares thlat the use of liquor is a sin. I have some written notes I am going to read. When I want to be peculiarly mean, or as my enemies say, when I want to be "venomous," I write it out, because I can distill hell Sre into it with my pen. (Laugh ter and cheers.) Investigate the Distillery. I want this committee which the legitre ha appointed to inves