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HAMILTON SmIRw^ JOURNAL r ■
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r THE OFFICIAL 6 F . c »XnT v,r rlARRIS COUNTY. :#
VOL XIII.
ITS, PROPER PLACE.
Views* of Rev. Sam Jones on
Whiskey.
At the grand teen perance rally in
Atlanta, Rev. Sam Jones made a
chaia:te istic speech, the following
report of which we find in the Con¬
stitution :
He said: “I believe liquor is a
good thing in its place, and I believe
its place is in hell. If I was in hell
I might drink it, but so help ne God
I never will on this earth drink it
again.” Speaking of the good that
might be accomplished by prohibi
tion and the difficulties that stood in
the way of obtaining it, he said:
“The main trouble is with these
little politicians. They say it won’t
do to bring this question into politics.
They say it will hurt your party, jf
your paity has got to ride into power
on a whisiejr barrel, then I say it
ought to get hurt. I am a democrat,
I was born a uemocrat, but if you
make democracy nean opposition to
sumptuary laws and friendship to
liquor, then I am anything but a
democrat After all, this thing
pcdit.es is just a question of “ins”
and “outs.” If the radicals get in
four years from now they will adopt
the good old democratic cry, “Turn
the rascals out.” Some fellows s*y
don’t mix politics and religio i. When
you hear a fellow talk that way you
may know he hasn’t got any religion
to mix. I would mix religion with
politics, but not politics with religion.
A little religion will help politics. It
will make it clean and decent. We
want truth, justice and temperance
mixed with politics in this state. I
spoke to ihe legislature of Tennes
on this subject the other day.
They are talking about a constitu
tional amendment on the liquor
question up there. We want this
question cleared up beyond the reach
HAMILTON, GA., JUNE 23,1885.
o' these little cross-roads judges who
hop up every now and then and say
something is. unconstitutional. We
want to do away .with such judges
and put decent men o’ brains and
character in their places. You can’t
reform a State with a swill tub
governor, and a lot of wash tubs sit¬
ting on the bench. You can’t reform
a State until you send good men to
the Legisl tfure. Some men come to
1° every Legislature that meets in
Georgia, that ain’t fit to go the chain
gang. An old skunk of a thing stag
genng around on both sides of the
street at once is a beautiful repre
sentative. There is not a purer, no
bier man in Georgia than your gov
ernor. There is no better men in
Georgia than your supreme court
judges. 1 told them in Tennessee,
the other day, that you had for a
chief justice in Georgia, a man who
would sit U P a11 ni S ht talkin 8 to *
penitent at ihe altar. Georgia is all
at to P and at the bottom,
want to get hei all right in the
■ middle, and if you refuse to help sup
P ress the infamous wrong that is be
in 8 done b >" whiskey, you are
y° urself - Some of J” 011 here don
know me ‘ 1 ^ P 1 "" 1 *- 1
words you can understand. Now
you take the Latin word ‘decayed’
and ii won’t phase a fellow. If you
take a good old Anglo-Saxon word
‘rotten’ you can cut his head off.
You see, I chose my words. Of
course, there are always some little
spelling book critics sitting around,
who will go back on a fellow's gram*
mar. I wouldn’t mind being swab
lowed by a whale, but I would hate
to be nibbled to death by minnows,
You have a hundred counties in
Georgia where the liquor traffic is
crippled. In eighty counties there
is prohibition. I say look out for
your drug stores. Look out for your
little similin-headed doctors. Some
NO. 25.
of them fill, Jheir saddle-bags with
liquor and become traveling bar¬
rooms. God pity *the doctor who
will present liquor fora mm I I
might prescribe it for a poor, dying
woman, but I wouldn't give it to a
man until he was dead. Whiskey is
not goot foi one thing in this world
for which there is not something that
is better. If the time e/er comes
when they say to me: ‘You’ll die
if you don’t drink whiskey.* *T will
say: ‘Get my shroud ready.* I
mean to die sober. If a fellow gets
so lov that nojthing but liquor will
save him, I am ready to preach his
funeral. And I have a text that I’ll
make him hop on. I didn't mean to
talk here more than half an hour. If
any of you fellows get tired you know
the way home. We wouldn't have
missed you if you hadn’t come at all
I rejoice to-night that in more than
two thirds of the counties of this
state whiskey can’t be sold at all. I
am glad the legislature is going to
give us a general local option law.
If we don t turn whiskey out of cv
ery county in this state at the first
election we will try it again. I had
a great trial not long ago. I hive
been a poor man all my life, and
when friends in Nashville offered me
a house, and offered to stand by me
and back me up, it was a great
temptation; but I looked down here
and saw ray old mother, Georgia. I
never loved her so in all ray Ufe be
fore. I said: ‘Bretheren, no; I can’t
take it. Not tint I love you less,
but I love Georgia more.’ When I
die I want to die in Georgia, and bc
fore I die I want to see every inch of
her soil rid of whiskey. I am not
mad with the men who sell whiskey.
I am not mad with the men who
make it I am mad with whiskey. I
am mad with demijohns. I am glad
they haven’t got legs. Those that have
wicker work around them haven’t got