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VOLUME SEVEN
NUMBER TWENTY-ONE
FIGHT BACK THE LIQUOR BARONS
Brazen Efforts of the National Wholesale Liquor Dealers 9 Association to Besmirch the Pages of Our Weekly Papers
Villa Rica Journal Makes a Plucky Reply A New Call to the Georgia Legislature,
V
low, and in an evil and awful moment, ac
companied by their serfs and their retain
ers, they would swoop down upon them to
pillage— if need be, to kill. And then feast
ing on their spoils, secure in their fortresses
of blood and shame, they defied pursuit and
damned all pursuers. What better than
those robber barons are the beer and liquor
barons of our country today?
Fattening on the downfall of their vic
tims —the financial, physical and moral
downfall of those who stagger to their ruin,
while their destroyers ride in state, arro
gant in the fancied security of their Castles
of Wealth that have been cemented “from
turret to foundation stone” by the blood of
the slain and the shame of the nation, they
“watch the blue Rhine sweep along,” bear
ing on its bosom its cargo of human hope
and happiness, and they study— these liquor
barons do —how best to train their guns on
the appetites of the unreached, the further
debauchery of those already in chains, and
yes —and yes! on the law-making bodies,
legislative and judicial, that buttress the
rascals in their work of wreckage and
crime.
Through their political retainers and their
serfs of corruption, they will buy any indi
vidual, control any legislature, pack any
court, stuff any ballot-box and subsidize any
newspaper within reach of their boodle and
their booze.
Letters were recently made public from
The Model Liecense League, of Louisville,
Ky., offering ambitious young lawyers in
Georgia big money to campaign against
State prohibition.
And the National Wholesale Liquor Deal
ers’ Association, with headquarters at Cin
cinnati, has been offering the plate-matter
for ready-made free news stories and
ready-made editorials, bless you! proving
and commenting on the fallacy and failure
of prohibition —that prohibition which these
ERILY the robber barons of
the Rhine” have their de
scendants —perhaps some of
their lineal descendants, in
America today. Those Teu
tonic barons, they tell us, like
eagle-eyed vultures, used to
watch from their castle tur
rets the bands of travelers be-
JUDGES WITHOUT BACKBONES—Page Four
ATLANTA, GA., JULY 20, 1911
same liquorized barons and serfs have tried
so hard to nullify.
One of Three Hundred.
The plucky Villa Rica Journal is only
one of about three hundred weekly papers
in Georgia scorning these insults to man
hood and decency and refusing the blood
stained gold offered by these foreign liquor
corruptionists for advertising their devilish
goods in “dry” territory.
A friend has sent us a copy of The Villa
Rica Journal of July 6th, containing one of
these enterprising, cheeky letters. Just to
get the matter clearly before legislators in
Georgia and voters and law-makers every
where, we reproduce that illuminating piece
of whiskeyized generosity here.
WHAT WE STAND FOR.
We are in receipt of the following letter
from the Publicity Bureau of the Protective
Bureau of the National Wholesale Liquor
Dealers’ Association, with offices at Cincin
nati, Ohio., which explains itself:
Cincinnati, Ohio, June 26, 1911.
Editor Journal, Villa Rica, Ga.
Dear Sir: It is our understanding that
an attempt will be made by the Georgia
manufacturers and business men, at the
present session of the General Assembly, to
repeal the statewide prohibition statute, and
enact a license bill.
In view of this condition, we would appre
ciate highly the support of your paper, and,
if agreeable, we will send you for use in
your columns, interesting material consist
ing of news stories, editorials and features,
which are gathered by a corps of responsible
newspaper correspondents throughout the
United States.
This matter will be sent to you free of
cost, either in plates or so that you can set
it up to suit yourself.
If the use of this material meets your
approval and is consistent with the policy of
your paper, please advise us on enclosed
postal card.
Very truly yours,
PUBLICITY BUREAU.
* * * *
The Villa Rica Journal comments as fol
lows :
“We publish this letter as a piece of news
for the advocates of Anti-Liquor in our
State, and more especially to inform the
public on which side of this question we
stand. It shows a part of the means the
liquor dealers are using to make their fight
during the present session of our General
Assembly, for the repeal of the present pro
hibition law.
“We say, enforce the present law as it
stands on our statutes, and repeal the “Near
Beer” sections. A
*
We are proud of the solid front presented
by our country weeklies against every form
of the liquor business. Hand in hand with
the Home, the Church, and the School
Room, these clean, fearless builders of civ
ilzation, are the harbingers of all progress,
and the “keepers of the people’s liberty,”
and woe to that short-sighted, timorous pol
itician who imagines that because he wants
liquor and office he must “go slow on this
prohibition business. ’ ’
They’ll Eat Him Alive.
The aroused Weekly Press of Georgia will
eat him alive, if he goes to “blowing hot and
cold” on this vital unsettled question.
Verily, as Maples, of Texas, says:
“The man who opposes prohibition does it
from one of three causes —for the money
that’s in it; the politics that’s in it—or the
LIQUOR that’s in it.”
Which cause moves you, Air. Citizen?
Os course, the whiskey men have given
up all hope of passing a “local option”—
liquor option bill during this sessiofi, of the
Georgia Legislature—they haven’t even in
troduced such a measure; but they throw
their clinging arms around about their dir
ty darlings, the beer saloons and locker
clubs, and cry: Don’t be extreme. Leave
us these joints or we die!”
Nay, nay! fellow citizens, you will just
begin to live!
The prohibitionized Democracy of Geor
gia just asks for a square deal —a square
deal, gentlemen; such as she has never had.
The Georgia Weekly Press Association,
at Cartersville, asked you for the cleaning
up of these nuisances by an enthusiastic,
unanimous vote.
For the sake of Georgia at home, and her
reputation abroad, let us fight back
these liquor barons and lift above her queen
ly head a flag without a stain!
ONE DOLLAR AND FIFTY CENTS
A YEAR :: FIVE CENTS A COPY