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The Golden Age
(SUCCESSOR TO RELIGIOUS JORUM
Published Ebery Thursday by ike Golden Slge Publishing
Company (Inc.)
OJJICES: LOWNDES BUILDING. ATLANTA. GA.
WILLIAM ©. UPSHfXW, Editor
A. E. It AMS A UR. - - Managing Editor
LEK G. BROUGHTON - - - Pulpit Editor
Price: $2.00 a Year
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in eases of forettn address fifty cents should be added le coder
additional postage.
Entered al the Test Office tn Ga.,
as second-class matter.
TRADES COUNCIL
Please Read This.
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Yielding To Texas.
We are giving much of our space this week to
Texas and the great Prohibition victory won out in
But Its
Bigness
Deserves It.
readers will not object.
Reb. R. F. Riley.
The trite but ahvays expressive expression, “He’s
a scholar and a gentleman,” comes naturally to the
A Scholar
and
A Gentleman.
English at the University of Georgia, as pastor of
the First Baptist Church in Houston, Texas, as
author of church history and a writer of classical
finish and literary charm, he has won a high place
in the world of action as a preacher, a teacher, “a
scholar and a gentleman.”
When he took hold of the Anti-Saloon League in
Texas the work was at a rather low ebb, but he soon
focused interest upon it and directed the prohibi
tion thought of the statewide movement for submis
sion which has just won at the polls and in the State
Democratic - Convention. He and Sterling P. Strong,
the popular chairman of the Democratic Prohibition
Committee, - have wrought hand in hand and heart to
heart as leaders against a common foe.
Dr. Riley has been offered a great new work un
der the Law and Order department of the Anti-
Saloon League of America —the hitherto neglected
work of organizing the negroes of the South for the
purpose of making them friends and keepers of
the law.
Such a work is basic, vital, far-reaching
and deathless, and if Dr. Riley takes hold of it with
his consecrated genius and organizing ability he will
win the attention, the support and the gratitude of
white and black North and South.
the Democratic convention of that
great state. But as Texas is the
biggest thing in America and the
prohibition battle the biggest fight
of this generation, we are sure our
mind when one knows Dr. B. F.
Riley, Superintendent of the Anti-
Saloon League of Texas. As Pres
ident of Howard College in Ala
bama, as master of the chair of
The Golden Age for August 20, 1908.
Prohibition Is TLxalted In Texas—San Antonio,
The Proud, Is Humbled
(Editorial Correspondence)
The Alamo is again historic. Santa Anna has
been captured and now lies in chains —the chains
of impending, everlasting doom and gloom. San
Antonio —the dreamy, the beautiful and the devil
ish —San Antonio, with her mongrel population,
openly refusing to have her saloons obey the state
Sunday closing law, and hugging these dirty darl
ings to her bosom with such tenacity that she
seems to defy the laws of God and man —San An
tonio rests today under a mellower sky, San An
tonio wears a subdued expression; San Antonio
looks like she wishes she could “forget it.” The
truth is, San Antonio, the most “liquorized” city
in all the empire of Texas, has been HUMILIAT
ED!!!
John Carney has been avenged. And the man
who was put in jail last November because he
drove through the streets of the Alamo City carry
ing the banner: “Up with the Home; Down with
the Saloon!” and the thousands who went to jail
in spirit with him, have that joy that comes to these
humanly human hearts of ours when we see the
“other fellow” forced to see his mistake on the
very spot of his flagrant offense.
“The mills of the gods grind slowly, but they
grind.”. Tire anti-submissionists, it is said, deter
mined to hang the convention held in San Antonio
so that the local liquorized atmosphere would affect
the delegates in their favor. But lo! they reckoned
without their hosts, and it has come to pass that
San Antonio had to sit by with her fingers in her
mouth and see prohibition submission win a glorious
victory in the Texas Democratic convention.
The liquor men fussed and “cussed” and fought
and fumed, but they were simply outnumbered by
the vote of the people and the presence of the dele
gates, and after all the firing and cross-firing,
spanking and flanking, scheming and dodging, the
liquor forces had to “grin and bear it,” while San
Antonio tucked the patients away to bed, officiating
at the “grinning” with the dryest, or perhaps, the
“wettest” grin of all.
Yonder stands Dr. George C. Rankin, the old
“war horse” of the prohibition fighters in Texas.
I go over and put my arms on his shoulders and
look into his smiling, rugged old face and say:
“'Well, old war horse, it is glory enough to win,
but to win right here at San Antonio is enough to
make you pray the prayer of Simeon.”
“Ah!” sa : d the old veteran, “this is just the
taking of the first outpost of the enemy. The bat
tle will be glorious, and victory is in sight!”
The Lemon Came Too Soon.
Colonel Bass, who delivered the address of wel
come for “the Democracy of Bexar (San Antonio)
County,” started a storm in about two minutes
after he started. He seemed to forget that he was
delivering an address of welcome, espcially to a
majority against the host of the convention, and he
launched into a red-hot anti-submission speech
about “local self-government” and “personal lib
erty” growing to full flower in San Antonio. There
were more hisses than cheers, the majority feeling
that they were being belabored instead of being wel
comed. He declared then: “I welcome you to a
city of absolute freedom. You can do what you
please, eat what you please, and drink what you
please. Our saloons will keep their front doors
open for the antis, and their back doors open for
the prohibitionists.”
This brought a laugh which got things in a
better humor.
Colonel Houston, a man of gray hairs, followed
in behalf of the mayor, who was absent. But he
made another anti speech of welcome. The “lem
on” was handed out too soon.
“Democracy Will Follow the Flag.”
J. H. Kirkpatrick, for the business men of San
Antonio, made a captivating speech. He had the
glow of the real orator in voice and manner. He
had the good taste not to try to inject partisan
and disputed ideas into an address of welcome.
Among other things in the midst of his pleasan
tries, he declared that in addition to all her water
supply, the city had just sunk the deepest artesian
well of all, that runs millions of gallons a day,
especially for the comfort of the prohibition ele
ment in the convention.
“Better than booze,” shouted a voice in the
crowd. Closing his brief, but stirring, speech, he
declared: “Whatever be your differences, whatever
be your conclusions, the San Antonio Democracy
will follow the flag.” This sentiment of loyalty
brought enthusiastic applause.
A Deacon in the Chair.
The supremacy of the prohibitionists was mani
fest in the election of the temporary chairman,
Judge C. F. Greensboro, a deacon in the Hillsboro
Baptist church. Above his strong, eloquent speech
calling for a platform of honesty and honest fidelity
to the platform, the thought kept coming: “How
good it is to see a Christian man high up in the
councils of the state. If good men do not lead, bad
men will.”
An Awful Statement.
When the majority report of the platform com
mittee submitted the “submission” plank the antis
demurred in 1a minority report, with Jonathan
Lane of Houston to champion their cause. In the
course of his speech he said an awful thing.
Emphasizing the danger of “striking at the very
foundations of government” by interfering with a
man’s “personal liberty,” he declared: “I do
not believe in drinking myself, although some of
my own blood have suffered from drink: but I am
pleading for the rights of man, and I would rather
my brother would die drunk than to die a slave.”
This awful statement shocked the heart and
conscience of many, I believe, on his own side and
we were all ready to believe that this brilliant but
misguided man was carried away by the heat of
passion into an unguarded statement that meant
drunkenness, death and slavery—all in one.
Senator R. E. Cofer of Gainesville, a saloon town
that went for Submission by a good majority, fol
lowed Mr. Lane in a powerful speech for the Pro
hibition Democrats. A rising young lawyer who has
already risen by the wealth of character and ability,
his speech touched the high note of a statesman,
preaching civic righteousness and religion.
Just Seventy-two Years Ago.
Toward the conclusion he referred to the coinci
dence that brought this great moral battle to the
very spot where Texas’ freedom was born just sev
enty-two years ago. Hear his eloquent words:
“At this moment allow me to pause and pay the
grateful homage of a Texas heart to this ancient
and devoted city. Oh, San Antonio! Mecca of Tex
as pilgrims! The stirring of unseen wings in thy
mighty past hath caught my careless ear, and daz
zling ideals of thy future have revealed themselves
to my wondering sight. Behold, as I walked through
your city I beheld not an altar to the unknown God
of the Athenians, but I beheld an immolated pile,
built and cherished by the blood and brawn of the
priests of religion, and later reconsecrated and re
baptized in the blood of Travis and Texas freemen.
‘Let the stones of the Alamo speak that their im
molation be not forgotten.’
“Here was struck the first blow for Texas free
dom from Mexican tyranny. That was seventy-two
years ago. Today by the strange irony of fate in
this same consecrated city will be fought and gained
the first battle in a second war of independence to
free Texas from a bondage more galling than was
ever Mexican tyranny.”
And now if the Legislature obeys the demand of
the platform, Austin will offer another scene of joy
next January when the Submission bill is passed
and all Texas and America will ring with joy and
thanksgiving when the Lone Star Empire goes dry
by 100,000 majority in 1909.
