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GOVERNOR PATTERSON’S CONVERSION—Page 4. THE DEATH OF MISS NATIONAL MODESTY—Page 13.
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Vol. VIII—No. 35
Whoopee! Liquor Licked In Tennessee
THE INTREPID GOVERNOR OF THE “VOLUNTEER STATE” LEADS REFORM FORCES TO A GLORIOUS VICTORY OVER THE
LIQUOR CROWD—HE CALLED THREE SPECIAL SESSIONS OF THE LEGISLATURE BEFORE THE HEROIC
DEED WAS DONE—HUNDREDS OF SALOONS CLOSED AMID GENERAL REJOICING.
C J OME on and let’s “sing the doxology.”
. And then remembering well that mar
tial air of “Bnelah Land 1 ’ let us ap‘
ply it to the ringing words of Dr. A. J.
Holt, and make the second song in our jubilee
of rejoicing as follows:
‘ 4 0 Tennessee ! 0 Tennessee !
The land of all the earth to me!
I stand upon thy mountains high
And hold communion with the sky
And view the shining landscape o’er—
-0 Tennessee forevermore! ”
The defiant liquorized politicians have been
gloriously routed and the stain of legislative
defiance of law and sobriety has been wiped
away.
The Nashville Tennessean and The Nash
ville Banner—the two great dailies of Tennes
see’s capital city which do not prostitute the
white virtue of their columns to liquor adver
tisements and which have stood grandly side
by side is supporting Governor Ben Hooper
in his heroic fight for law enforcement, de
serve the universal thanks of humanity.
Withering “Hot Shot’’ From Gov. Cooper
Gov. Ben Hooper, the plucky little little Na
poleon who practiced “final perseverance” un
til the Legislature saw their duty and d : d it,
analyzed the battle and victory as follows:
“A great victory”, said Governor Hooper. If any
gang was ever beaten to a. pulp, it was the organi
zation in the present legislature alleged to be reg
ular democrats. They have put in nine and one-half
months fighting the law enforcement measures,
which I recommended to the legislature, and, with
every advantage in their favor, have finally been
scattered, crushed and overwhelmed.
“Tonight the hired liquor lobbyist and city gun
men have vanished from Capitol Hill, and the hill
billies are the monarchs of all they survey.
“The people of Tennessee have been granted the
right to go 'into the courts with civil lawsuits and
exterminate the lawless saloon. They will no longer
be compelled to sit with folded hands and suppress
ed indignation while faithless public officials refuse
to enforce the criminal laws.
“The shipment of liquor from one county to an
other has been forbidden, and the federal Webb law
has been made effective by prohibiting the shipment
\ of liquor into the state
N “Os course, we realize that the enforcement of
these laws will be hindered as much as possible,
and that the courts will have to pass on them, but,
ATLANTA, GA., OCTOBER 23, 1913
ultimately, law and order will prevail.
“In Kansas there are thousands of men more than
thirty years old who never saw an open saloon.
The boys that are being born in Tennessee now
will never see one.
“I regret that the removal bill did not pass. It
was designed to authorize the courts to remove city
and county officials who prove unfaithful to the peo
ple in the discharge of their duties. The servant
shall not be greater than his master. It is just as
necessary to punish the law-breaking citizen by put
ting him out of the business declared to be a public
nuisance.
GOV. BEN W. HOOPER of Tennessee
The Wind-Up Comedy
“The prolonged struggle over these law enforce
ment measures serious as it was for nearly ten
months, wound up in a farce comedy. The most
subservient tool of the liquor interests in the entire
legislature, when they had vainly exhausted every
resourse to defeat the bills, made a grand rush for
the band wagon and voted for the measures. Hav
ing worn out their lungs shouting ‘hyprocrite’ at the
supporters of these bills, they showed themselves
to be rhe most shameless hyprocrites and political
fakirs by voting for them.
“When the regulars gave up the fight and began
to look with eager eyes upon the band-wagon they
decided to take up the hated bills, adopt them as
their own and swear they had always been for them.
They made advances to the independents, and here
came the best joke of the session. The independ
ents and republicans held a conference and unani-
mously instructed the independents to assist the
regulars into the ‘band-wagon’, let them introduce
the bills and toot, the horns.
“This reminds me of the story I once heard of
an Irish saloon keeper who lived upstairs over his
saloon. One morning early, before the proprietor
went down, his bar tender yelled up the stairs:
‘Shall I trust Mike Flannagan for a glass of beer?’
The Irishman responded with the question, ‘Has
Moike already drunk the beer?’ The answer came,
‘Yes/ and the proprietor yelled down, ‘Well, then
trust him.’
“Having decided that the bills were going to pass
anyhow, the regulars decided just to let them pass.”
Blake’s Splendid Review.
When asked by the Editor of The Golden
Age for a brief “sizing up” of the Tennessee
battle, W. Morgan Blake, the brilliant young
political writer of The Tennessean, said:
“One predominating feature stands out among the
many incidents of the three sessions of our legisla
ture, and that is—when right and wrong were final
ly matched —and when subterfuge availed not, and
.the clear distinct issues of what ought to be and
what ought not to be were present —a great and
overwhelming majority of the representatives of
the people voted for the right. Soraeof the so called
“regular democrats” voted for the law enforce
ment bills, because, from a standpoint of logic and
reason and the conditions existing in Tennessee,
their consciences would not let them do otherwise.
It was clearly the only human thing to do —this re
buke to an insolent and boastful liquor interest.
On the other hand a large number of the “regulars”
voted for the bills, not because of any conscious be
lief, but because they were whipped into line by
the lash of their enraged constituncy. The voice
of the people was too strong, and so the “band
wagon” was loaded.
To the true friends of law enforcement in the
legislature, to the men who began the fight against
appalling odds and carried it to a glorious consu
mation —to those men will the people of Tennessee
hand the laurels for the great temperance victory.
And above all the storm and stress of battle
stands one predominating figure—the knightly
knight, the great leader, the unconquered and un
conquerable Governor of Tennessee.
When the sun rose on the morning of the day
the law enforcement bills were passed, it was like
the sun of Austerlitz for Governor Hooper. By dusk
the Austrians and the Russians were routed and a
glorious epoch in Tennessee history was chronicled.
All honor to the victors’
W. MORGAN BLAKE.
Political Writer Tennessean and American.
(Continued on page 5)
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