Below is the OCR text representation for this newspapers page.

•J' U lr? IjL JfCr,* wj|U&^l^l STATgyVoFee 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