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HOW LIQUOR WAS “LICKED”
Just about the funniest debate that ever took
place since Columbus discovered America occurred
in the stirring 1 little town of Whigham, in the prom
ising new county of Grady on the last night of the
year of grace, 1906. The story runneth thus:
Last summer I went in response to an urgent invi
tation from Pastor N. G. Christopher and Mr. J. W.
Strange, cashief of the bank, to help in a meeting
in Whigham. It had been many months since I
had been able to hold a meeting, on account of
voice, and the six days spent in this charming com
munity have been remembered as among the most
gracious and heavenly of my whole life. Some men
were happily converted and these, with many boys
and girls, have been living brave, beautiful Chris
tian lives ever since. It was, therefore, easy for
me to accept a pressing invitation recently sent me
by Mr. Strange, president of the “ Anti-Saloon
League, to come and ehip them run the dispensary
out of town.
“Ag’in Likuor.”
On Sunday morning—the last Sunday of the old
year—the people were 1 surprised a little when I did
not make a prohibition speech. But I felt like talk
ing on u old-time religion,” and helping hearts to
examine thehnselves for the beginning of the New
Year. Many came forward at the conclusion of
the service, saying that they were determined to
“make bettef pictures of Christ” during the year
about to dawn. Sunday night’s crowd was immense
and I talked the best I knew how about the moral
principle involved and the great danger to any com
munity in.wedding the liquor traffic for the sake of
building up education and benevolence. I sought,
also, to show that leaving out the moral side al
together, it was infinitely better even from a com
mercial standpoint not to have liquor sold in the
community—that inasmuch as the wage-earning
capacity in every community is just so much, it is
better for commercial considerations that a
part of this money should not be spent for whiskey,
and consequent debauchery, but that all be left free
to go into safe and productive channels, adding to
the comforts of home and of life.
“Roddenbery vs. Upshaw.”
And then the cyclone came I Monday noon the
horse and buggy were at the gate, and I was hur
rying through dinner, ready to take the train for
Atlanta, when my generous hosts, Mr. and Mrs.
Peebles, supplemented by their charming daughter,
and chivalrous son-in-law, Dick Truelock, began to
pour into my ears and heart a volley of appeals to
stay ovet Monday night and hear Judge Anderson
Roddenbery, of Thomasville, and help him in the
last battle against the sale of liquor. I wanted
to hear Roddenberry, for I had heard that he was
a cyclone in a temperance speech. But I was en
gaged to be in Atlanta Tuesday morning. Sudden
ly Dick Truelock said, with a flash in his eyes, “I
tell you; let me go up town and announce that you
and Roddenberry are going to have a joint debate—
for and against liquor. Invite white and colored. It
will set the town on fire. The house won’t hold
the people.”
I saw the situation, and said, “I will wire off my
engagement and stay.” Truelock hurried up town
and put out his placard announcing a joint debate:
“UPSHAW vs. RODDENBERRY—FOR AND
AGAINST LIQUOR—EVERYBODY INVITED—
THE FUR WILL FLY.”
•
It struck the town like a fire alarm. That night,
at the town hall, standing room was at a premium.
The people were wondering which one would argue
in favor of the sale of liquor, for both were known
to be “rantankerous ” prohibitionists. A wave of
laughter rippled over the crowd when J. W. Strange
announced that “everybody interested in the wel
fare of Whigam would now have the privilege of
hearing discussed both sides of the question agitat
ing the public mind. Mr. Upshaw will make the
argument in favor of the sale of liquor; Judge Rod
denberry will follow, and Mr, Upshaw will have
ten minutes in rejoinder,”
The Golden Age for January 10, 1907.
BY THE EDITOR
And then there was another curious and expectant
looking crowd when the man who had spoken against
liquor the night before went forward to champion
the cause he had sought to destroy. I told them
that I was perfectly honest the night before when
they had heard me, but that during the day I had
talked with a number of honest citizens of the com
munity who seemed deeply interested in its welfare,
and that I had heard them advance such arguments
as would naturally appeal to the minds of many
men, and that as the friends of the liquor traffic
had never had anybody to make a speech in their
favor, I had determined to speak for their side,
putting into systematic argument the reasons that
I had heard set forth that day in my rounds among
the friends of the dispensary. I led off by saying
that one reason we were opposed to driving out the
dispensary was because of some men who were in
favor of closing it up—that there were some men
fighting the dispensary that we didn’t like, and,
therefore, we wanted to keep liquor in town. (Bah!)
I then brought forth the old, timeworn argument
about “personal liberty and sumptuary laws,” “re
duction of taxation,” “prohibition don’t prohibit,”
“business will be ruined,” and other “fool” ar
guments that have been advanced by liquor men
ever since John Barleycorn began his imperial
reign.
One argument that seemed to impress the house
as “tremendously profound,” was this: “I have
Uh 1
.w ■b*! w
Mr M
JUDGE ANDERSON RODDENBERRY, Thomasville, Ga.
The Man who “Skinned" the Editor.
been stopping in the home of my good friend, J. L.
Peebles. The Lord owed him lots and paid him
off in children. He has most of these children to
educate yet and while he is plenty able to do it, it
would be a great saving to his pocket and an in
crease of his means if the dispensary should stay
here, because the income from the dispensary will
wipe out his ad valorem town tax and give him free
tuition. In other words, the ‘pore white trash and
niggers’ who patronize and debauch themselves at
the dispensary will educate the children and put
money in the pockets of my host and all his prosper
ous white neighbors.” Sic transit gloria mundi!
Sic semper tyrannis—which means, as the school
girl said, “Take your foot off my neck!”
And the Lightning Flashed.
The speech of Anderson Roddenberry, which fol
lowed, can never be described. Never since he
rented that opera house during the prohibition cam
paign in Thomasville, and made a speech for the
liquor men, inviting them to reply, and then, at
their refusal, tore up his own speech before their
eyes—indeed, never, I believe, since the immortal
Grady stirred and swept Atlanta by his wonderful
arraignment of the liquor traffic, has there been a
greater speech delivered for prohibition on Ameri-
can soil. He took up my speech as, of course, I had
planned for him to do, and step by step, demolished
every plank in my platform until every fellow who
had agreed with my spurious argument felt himself
sinking toward the bottom of the sea. It was a
startling thing to say about a man who had argued
against liquor the night before, but Roddenberry
brought down the house in the beginning of his
speech by saying: “My brother must have had a
drink. No man can make a speech like that in
favor of liquor who hasn’t had some contact with
it. But inasmuch as he is the first man who has
ever had the nerve to speak in favor of the sale
of liquor in a public address since Whigham was
a town, his speech deserves consideration, and I
shall proceed to give his argument its just desserts.”
During the course of my argument that “prohi
bition doesn’t prohibit,” I had said: “If you vote
it out of Whigham, they will get it in Bainbridge,
and if you drive it from Bainbridge, you can get it
in Albany, and if you drive it from Albany, you
can get it in Macon, and if they drive' it out of
Macon, you can get it in Atlanta—if you order
pretty soon. And if they drive it from Atlanta
and all America, the men who want liquor are going
to have it if they have to put a tube through the
Atlantic Ocean and suck it from Germany across
the sea.”
When Roddenberry reached this argument, he
declared, with merciless excoriation: “Atlanta is
up to her old tricks. That Atlanta ring must have
paid Upshaw to come down here and make that
speech. He wants to establish a dispensary trade
between Whigham and Atlanta. Atlanta, as usual,
is trying to gobble up the earth. Down with the
Atlanta suggestion!” And the people yelled. Rod
denberry left no point untouched and no stone un
turned.
When he reached the point which I had laid
down as coming from an old and honored citizen
who favored the dispensary, “I found liquor when
I come here and I ’spect to leave it when I go
’way,” his ready wit and repartee, to use common
parlance, would have “tickled a dog.” The crowd
just rolled and roared. But before he had done
he grew deeply serious, electrifying the crowd with
the appeal of pathos and eloquence. For more than
two hours that packed audience sat spellbound, or
stood entranced.
His wit was so keen and his argument so glorious
that the man who had spoken “in favor of liquor”
found himself sitting on the stage cheering with the
rest of the crowd. “That’s right!” Roddenberry
shouted: “My brother is about to be converted.”
And then the crowd went wild. When Thomasville’s
temperance cyclone had finished his speech, people
wondered what the denouement would be, where
upon I walked out, limping on my crutches and
said: “I feel like I am skinned from head to
foot. Judge Roddenberry’s powerful argument has
convinced me, and I am still ‘ag’in liquor.’ I told
the crowd that my only objection to taking the
wrong side of the debate was the consciousness that
Roddenberry would mutilate me and annihilate me
before that audience of my friends, but for the sake
of bringing out the crowd and the argument, I had
been willing to “suffer for the good of my coun
try.” I closed with an appeal that the county
bearing the name of Henry Grady, the great patriot
and prohibitionist, would redeem that name on the
morrow and lead the few remaining wet counties
of Georgia from the blighting thralldom of bar
rooms and dispensaries where men are debauched
for time and eternity for the sake of devilish “lib
erty” and blood-bought gain.
When I reached my office in Atlanta, I found
this telegram awaiting me:
“Victory is ours. God be praised.
“J. W. Strange.”
I wired back:
“Congratulate the whole town. Thank the Lord
and Roddenberry.
‘< Will D. Upshaw.”
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