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The Golden Age
(SUCCESSOR TO RELIGIOUS JORUM}
Published Ebery Thursday by the Golden Hge Publishing
Company (Inc.)
OJJICES: LOWNDES "BUILDING, ATLANTA. GA.
Price: $2.00 a Year
Ministers $1.50 per Tear.
In cases of foreign address fifty cents should be added to cobet
additional postage.
Hake all remittances payable to The Golden Age Publishing Company.
WILLIHM D. UPSHfXW, - - Editor
A. E. RAMSAUR, . . . Managing Editor
LEM G. 'BROUGHTON - - - Pulpit Editor
Entered at the Post Office tn Atlanta, Ga.,
as second-class matter.
To the Public: The advertising columns of The
Golden Age will have an editorial conscience. No
advertisement will be accepted which we believe
would be hurtful to either the person or the purse of
our readers.
No apology is offered for the large amount otf
space dedicated in this number to the battle against
the liquor traffic. It is the stigma and bane of our
American civilization and The Golden Age pledges
a sane but truceless warfare against this defiant
evil.
“My Inspiration.”
Charles C. Elliott, the, brilliant young Metho
dist pastor at Rheinhardt Normal College, Wales
ka, Ga., says: “The Golden Age was largely the
inspiration of my commencement speech at Emory
College. Here is my subscription. God bless the
paper and the great principles for which it
stands.”
Plucky Lawrenceville.
It was a genuine privilege for the writer to spend
last 'Sunday in plucky Lawrenceville—that brave
municipality that has so successfully outwitted the
liquor men and the Express Company that not a
single jug of “liquor devilment” was received there
during Christmas week.
For several months Lawrenceville has been free
from the blight of the “jug trade,” and Oscar L.
Kelley, and Ernest Jennings, the popular new pas
tors respectively of the Methodist and Baptist
churches, are singing the doxology in their hearts
because their lot has been cast in such a town.
Speaking to a big New Year union service on
■Sunday night at the M. E. Church there came a
thrill at the thought of looking into the faces of
men and women who had made themselves FREE.
If other towns would know how it was done,
write to L. M. Brand, Lawrenceville, Ga.
You Owe It to Yourself.
It is a solemn duty you owe to your mental self,
to your spiritual self—indeed, to the entirety of
your make-up—to go back and read, if you have
not already done so, the introduction to G. Camp
bell Morgan’s masterful articles.
To say nothing of the paramount consideration,
it would be an intellectual travesty for The Golden
Age to cross the water, and at great expense bring
to you the best that two continents can afford—and
then you not appropriate it as your own.
Remember, we do not tell you that it will be as
engaging to the careless mind as a sumer romance;
but begin at the beginning, study it as you would
your grammar or your bookkeeping, masticate it as
you would your breakfast, assimilate it as you do
your food, and by and by it will enter so surely and
deeply into your mental and spiritual fibre that
your very being will demand it and you will wait
for its coming every week as you hunger for your
daily meal.
The real study begins this week, but you must
first read the introduction last week. It will whet
your appetite and throw a splendor of expectancy
over the coming year.
The Golden Age for January 10, 1907.
A Challenge to
The liquor problem is much the same in every
community where it is shielded by law and apolo
gized for by ultra-conservatism.
Atlanta, the “Chicago of the South,” is head
quarters for much that is good—and, like every
great city, alas—much that is not.
All over the land the aggressive friends of PRO
HIBITION are watching the Atlanta battle from
afar; and because of the widespread interest in
this “fight to the finish,” we have decided to in
corporate here one of the latest echoes from the
Atlanta conflict. The Atlanta Journal is a great
newspaper and the Editor of The Golden Age has
grateful reason for cherishing personal kindness,
but its position on the liquor question is so far
from the consistent city-saving standpoint that the
following letter dictated last Saturday night
seemed a necessity to satisfy conscience and “save
the republic.”
“Editor Atlanta Journal: As Sam Jones would
say in his quaint and treasured way, I am ‘jest
erbleeged’ to submit a few remarks about the tre
mendous fallacy in your editorial of yesterday en
titled, ‘Don’t Force a Prohibiton Fight.’ With the
■wisdom or the unwisdom of your contention against
a prohibition election now, I shall not deal in this
brief protest, but rather with what seems to me
your utterly untenable position on the liquor traf
fic. In urging the futility of prohibition, even if it
should carry in Atlanta, you speak as follows:’
“ ‘But even if ordinances providing for it were
to be adopted, through a combination of the prohi
bitionists and other elements, it would be found
impossible to enforce a prohibition law in a town
of this size. It has been tried; it was tried in
this same town at one time; and the town was
smaller then. The results are remembered yet.
“ ‘ln a city the size of Atlanta there are thou-’
sands of people who drink. It may not be right
for them to do so. We won’t discuss that. But
they don’t consider it any sin. And they intend
to keep it up. The most common-sense proposi
tion is to recognize this fact. To recognize it, and
make proper provisions for the liquor business,
hedge it about with effective restrictions.’
“Mr. Editor, I do not intend to take my place
with the antediluvians, nor do I covet the appella
tion of ‘Puritan’ and ‘extremist,’ as these terms
are generally applied, but I am compelled to ask:
‘What next? What are we coming to, when a great
daily paper takes such a position concerning an
acknowledged iniquity ? ’
“Some of us have not forgotten your ringing
editorials immediately following the turbulence and
dangers of riot week when you pointed out the men
ace of the saloon to public order, and warned the
liquor men that any resistance on their part in the
‘present temper of the people’ would result in
wiping out saloons altogether. I remember that I
asked you the question then, ‘And when will thje
“present temper” of our people cool? Just as
soon as the sophistry of “personal liberty” and the
blight of commercialism can have time to take pre
cedence over the paramount consideration of law
and order and the sanctity of our homes.*
“And now you come with the deliberate edito
rial position that inasmuch as there are thousands
of people in Atlanta who drink we might as well
recognize the dominant deviltry of the drink habit
and prepare for men to indulge in it, provided they
will pay a license high enough. The position of
your editorial, without gainsaying, is simply this:
‘Yes, the drink habit is bad and saloons are a men
ace to the city’s good order, but inasmuch as there
are thousands who will drink, the city ought to
meet their needs, but make them pay high license
for the privilege.’ All right—how would this sen
tence sound? ‘lt is wrong for men to steal, but '
there are thousands in Atlanta who will do it,
therefore, the city ought to recognize this evil pro
pensity, and arrange for thieves to ply their busi
ness, provided they are hedged about with certain
restrictions and pay a high license.’ My! My!
Take that positon in an editorial, and all but the
thieves themselves will stop the paper before thlg
week ends, pq|; liow would this sentepep sound f
“Conservatism. ”
“ ‘Yes, houses of ill-fame are wrong-j-a blight
to society, and a menace to good morals, but there
are thousands of men in Atlanta who will thus
show their depravity, therefore the city ought to
recognize this natural propensity, and provide for
the accommodation of these men under certain re
strictions, and with the distinct understanding that
they pay high license into the public treasury.’
“Let The Journal, or The Constitution, or The
News, or The Georgian, take that position, and a
mob would gather in righteous indignation before
every office and put every p'aper in Atlanta out of
business. You know it is so. The logic is inevita
ble. If the city council has a right to license one
iniquity, that body has a right to license every in
iquity. And you know, and every sane man in At
lanta knows, that if the saloons of Atlanta paid
only one hundred dollars a year into the city treas
ury, they would be closed by Mayor and Council
as a public nuisance. Then nothing on earth causes
them to be allowed and petted and pampered and
fostered by the city government, but the depravity
of men and the love and power of money. I will
debate that question with any man in Atlanta or
any set of men, any editor or set of editors on the
stage of the Grand opera house. I issue the chal
lenge to all comers, council old or council new, and
no man will ever answer.
“They are All Prohibitionists—Sometimes.
“You know, and I know, and every other man
knows, that when mayor and council wanted good
order a ce’rtain sad week in September, they be
came prohibitionists at once, and they enforced
the law even in a city as great as Atlanta. And
you know that when the mayor wanted good order
for about forty hours including Christmas eve
night, and Christmas day, he became a prohibition
ist again, and conservative newspapers and con
servative churchmen who are now opposing agita
tion rose up to pay tribute to the wholesome ef
fect of closing every saloon in Atlanta, for a week
or a day.
“You say that it would be impossible to en
force a prohibition law in a city of this size. But
you know that even an anti-prohibition mayor, and
for the most part, an anti-prohibition council, did
enforce prohibition in a city of this size for more
than a week, and that when they did so, they al
most put the recorder’s court out of business. And
you know furthermore, and we all know, that what
brave men and faithful officers could do for one
week, brave men and faithful officers could do every
week in the year and every week in all the years
if they will only try.
“Os course the Anti-Saloon League in Atlanta,
as it has done everywhere in its great work for
good government, favors the best possible restric
tions where it is impossible to get anything better,
and it may be that, pending the vigorous legislation
which is promised for the whole state, an imme
diate election is not the wisest course; but we ut
terly refuse to accept the dictum of that ultra
conservatism—which has never reformed anything
in this world—that high license ought to satisfy
the enemies of the saloon and the friends of human
ity. It is not lawful to put it into the treasury,
for it is the price of blood.
“I think it can hardly be denied that the daily
papers in Atlanta have won out in their fight for
high license. They have held the lash of°public
opinion over wavering councilmen—and the papers
have made this public opinion themselves. And I
believe that you, Mr. Editor, will not deny that the
newspapers of Atlanta could run saloons out of the
town every hide and hoof of them—if they were
to only unite their forces and say the word. Then
if the saloons, the hotbeds of crime, the companion
, of the brothel, and the enemy of good government,
remain in Atlanta, entrenched behind the ‘respec
table’ citadel of high license, the fault must be laid
at the door of the daily press. God help the news
papers to see the opportunity and feel the weight
of their responsibility for time and for eternity?
“Yours consistently and persistently,
“WILLIAM D. UPSHAW,
'‘Vice-President Georgia Anti-Saloon League.”