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The Golden Age
Fabliahed Every Thnraday by The Golden Age
Febllahing Company (Inc.)
OFFICE: IS MO OBE BUILDING, ATLANTA, GA.
WILLIAM D. UPSHAW Editor
MRS. WM. D. UPSHAW . . . Associate Editor
MRB. G. B. LINDSEY .... Managing Editor
LEN G. BROUGHTON, London, Eng. . Pulpit Editor
Price : $1.50 a Year.
Ta eases of Foreign Address, Fifty Cents shonld be
Added to Cover Additional Postage.
■sterad In the Pestoffice in Atlanta, Ga., as second-class
ATLANTA, GA.:
PUBLISHERS' PRESS, PRINTERS
HO! FOR NATIONAL PROHIBITION!
With this issue of The Golden Age, we renew
hostilities on the LIQUOR TRAFFIC. Not
that we have ever stopped since
Every issue rhe Golden Age had its patri-
Will Ring jtic birth February 22nd,
With Echoes
From the 1906. Our readers can testily
Battle. that our warfare has been un-
relenting since we announced in that first is
sue: Love for the tavern-keeper, but death to
the saloon!
But we mean this—that reinforced by the
facts the force and the righteous fury of the
two epoch-making gatherings which met in Co
lumbus, 0., November 10‘13, and in Washing 4
ton, D. C., December 10-11, we hereby turn on
more steam i 1 spit on our hands,” and take a
new start on the final eharge toward nation
wide prohibition!
Every week The Golden Age will ring and
sing with living echoes from the battle-front.
We had expected to publish this week the
masterful speech of Editor Ernest H. Cherring
ton of the American Issue, deliveerd last week
at the capitol in Washington, but we will re
serve it for Christmas week in order to give
it better space.
Likewise we expect to publish from week to
week the speeches of Senator Morris Sheppard
supporting his senate resolution for national
prohibition, of Congressman Richmond P. Hob
son, supporting the removal of the ‘‘commit
tee of one thousand” presented to congress,
and—mark the words — every week through the
year one of the ringing speeches made either
at Columbus or Washington, or some address
from some whiskey-fighter of national repu
tation who is wrestling with the liquor devil
hand to hand and face to face.
For instance, Clinton Howard of Rochester,
whose “cluster of gems” we publish this week
and whom Dr. Chas. F. Askew calls “the most
amazing speaker I ever heard,” has promised
to send The Golden Age frequent echoes from
his own monumental platform work.
All aboard for “the water wagon!” And a
truceless warfare against the blatant blear
eyed, bloated monster until we die—or liquor
dies, and the FLAG we love is free forever
from the crime of its liquor stain!
Send $1.50 for 1 year’s
subscription to THE GOL
DEN AGE and a “dandy”
pair of shears or brass-lined
pocket knife free.
THE GOLDEN AGE FOR WEEK OF DEC. 18, 1913
Hobson Did Not “Bitterly Attack’’ Underwood
(Letter sent to Birmingham News)
On Train Between Washington, D. C., and At
lanta, Ga., December 13, 1913.
Editor Birmingham News:
Believing that The News does not wish to
contribute any part toward the misrepresenta
tion of any man, and would like, therefore,
to help correct any wrong impression made in
the public press about anybody, and espec
ially a distinguished son of Alabama, I am
asking the privilege of telling your readers
what I saw “with my own eyes” during Con
gressman Hobson’s speech on December 11th
in the House of Representatives in Washing
ton. First, may I say, I have not seen the
story in The News, but I note on the train
this morning that some Southern papers carry
an unfair story concerning the so-called Hob
son-Underwood “battle,” and as The News has
always been so fair to me, personally, when
I have spoken in Alabama prohibition cam
paigns, I believe you will be glad to have me
tell exactly what I saw and heard.
In discussing the moral and political prin
ciple involved in the national guardianship
of the liquor tragic, Mr. Hobson said in sub
stance: “I have always been taught that De
mocracy stands for the greatest governmental
good to all the people. The Democratic party
that I love —nor any other party, was ever
intended to have its interests bound up with
the liquor traffic.” And then in a perfectly
courteous manner he added: “My distinguish
ed colleague (he did not say ‘opponent’) the
great Alabamian, who sits before me, is quot
ed as saying in a recent speech at Dothan—
and if I do not quote him correctly I hope
he will correct me —that if this question of
prohibition continues to be agitated in the
Democratic party, either the >cause of prohibi
tion will be ground to powder or the Demo
cratic party itself will die.’ I refer to it
here because the gentleman referred to, be
ing the floor leader of the majority of this
house, in a sense became the spokesman of
the Demoicratic party.”
Then it was that the great thrilling, moun
tain-peak moment came when Hobson declar
ed with patriotic eloquence and fervor:
“My friends, I do not take second place
to any man in love of his party; certainly
not to any man who thinks that his party’s
life lies in the hands of the liquor interests.
But let me tell you—for we might as well draw
the line —if the Democratic party can only
live by joining the liquor interests, to debauch
the American people, then in God’s name let
it die!”
It was then that the house applauded and
the crowded galleries went gloriously wild,
and I hold that in this statement (which is
borne out by the impartial Congressional Rec
ord) there is absolutely no “bitter attack”
on Mr. Underwood as some of the partisan
papers have declared.
The quotation referred to by Mr. Hobson
was taken from The Montgomery Advertiser
(which is supporting Mr. Underwood) and I
hold, as an American citizen deeply interest
ed in the solution of this great national, civic
and economical problem that Mr. Hobson’s de
duction) was logical, inevitable and tremen-
dously pertinent. Congressman Hobson had
been asked to represent on the floor of the
house the “Committee of One Thousand”
coming from every state in the union and
voicing the petition of ninety seven uplift so
cieties from all parts of America. He had
the parliamentary—the Democratic—the hu*
manitarian right to protest in decorus terms
against such an undemocratic statement from
the Democratic leader of the Democratic
house. Up to this time Mr. Hobson had made
absolutely no reference to the senatorial cam
paign in Alabama—and in this reference to
“my distinguished colleague” (not opponent)
there was no suggestion of a senatorial fight
in his own state.
It was Mr. Underwood who “injected the
personal issue” and deplored the reference
to Alabama.
And then Congressman Hobson, in the most
gentlemanly manner possible, offered to give
the Democratic house leader all the time he
wanted to tell what he did say concerning
prohibition and Democracy. But Mr. Under
wood calmly declined. All the “Alabama per
sonalities” that followed grew out of Mr. Un
derwood’s protest. When Mr. Underwood de
clared he was not the condidate of the liquor
interests, Hobson paid a graceful, eloquent
tribute to Mr. Underwood’s personal charac
ter, saying that he would denounce any man
who reflected upon it, and then he declared
that it was a pity that any man with such
high personal character as Mr. Underwood
should find supporting his candidacy “like a
solid wall, every straight liquor man and every
straight liquor paper in Alabama.” Ladies
and gentlemen, these are the facts as I saw
them. “For the love of Mike be reasonable”
—and fair. These facts are borne out by the
Congressional Record, which lies before me —
and everybody knows that the Congressional
Record plays no favorites —it tells the truth,,
the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
Send for the Record and you will see that
Congressman Hobson’s manner every inch of
the way was that of the courteous gentleman
and able statesman that he is—that his speech,
delivered by request, in behalf of the peti
tion of practically 55 per cent of the popula
tion of the United States, was logical, wonder
ful—unanswerable!
Yes, and if you could look at a photograph
of that historic scene and catch the actual
echoes of the wholesome enthusiasm of the
sanest army of patriotic petitioners that ever
gathered in the Congressional galleries of the
capitol that belongs to them, you would see
that Alabama’s brilliant young statesman,
Richmond P. Hobson, who has never quailed
before the threat of danger or the call of duty
on land or sea, and for whose political down
fall (for some strange (?) reason) the liquor
interests in Alabama and all over America are
hoping and praying (if they ever pray)—you
would see, I say, that Alabama’s famous son
was the inspiring storm center of the great
est, most far-reaching hour in congress which
the conquering forces of righteousness in
America have ever seen.
WILLIAM D. UPSHAW,