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fool the people for a time but what Abe Lincoln
said about his being unable to fool all of the people
all of the time is as true to day as when he said it.
No one denies that certain laws should and must
always be state-wide and others national in scope.
But it is recognized by all persons who are even
moderately well informed, and who are disposed
to be fair, that the American wheel-within-a-wheel
form of national state, municipal and county gov
ernment. while intricate and may be at times incon
venient and cumbersome, is a fixed institution and
was devised for the very purpose to which the
Georgia prohibition law does extreme violence,
namely, to afford, as far as possible, local self-gov
erment in the more intimate affairs of life and to
prevent any one section from tyrannizing over
another section of country because of dissimilar in
terests and a lack o fsympathy between the two.
While it cannot be stated that this worthy in
tention on the part of the framers of our organic
law has always enjoyed fair sailing, yet it is quite
safe to say that it has but seldom met with violence
of the magnitude visited upon it by the last legis
lature in Atlanta.
If it is determined that one set of laws and
ordinances is adequate to meet the requirements of
all the cities and counties of the State, why not
abolish all pretense to local self-government and let
all the minor details, as well as the more important
affairs connected with town and county rule, be
managed at the State Capital? If a city shall be
forced to abandon a tenet of home-rule government,
which has been in force in one form or another
during the whole of its corporate life, and which is
believed in by. perhaps, four-fifths of its citizens
(and surely the other fifth does not contain all the
virtue and wisdom allotted to the State), why may
it not. with equal celebrity and a like disregard
for its wishes and needs, be stripped of some other
time-hallowed and constitutional right by reason of
its failure to meet the approbation of the remote
intolerant? The surest way —the only effective way,
in sact —to check encroachment upon the rights of
citizenship is to meet and grapple with it when it
first appears.
The average prohibitionist is nothing if not in
consistent. lie desires a national prohibition law.
lie would have the federal authorities enforce such
a law in each of the various states. Yet, in the next
breath he will declaim against the iniquitous usur
pation of state's rights on the part of the ITiited
States government when it assumes the power to
sell federal revenue licenses to citizens of the several
states. Federal refusal to invade the state in one
instance, is a sin of omission; federal invasion in
another instance is a sin of commission, amounting
in immensity to an outrage. And, yet, in both in
stances, the same question is involved.
Ed. Bristow of Shinburnally.
For many weeks after the murder of Shird, Ed.
Bristow had been undecided whether to continue |
his studies at the military school or take up the
study of law and enter the legal profession. The
latter appealed to him strongly as he saw in it an
opportunity for rendering a service to society in
prosecuting just such offenders of the law as he
THE REASON
met at the burning of the negro. A long and useful
career, such as would honor the profession, wind
ing up with himself as chief justice of the highest
court in the land loomed up prominently before
him.
It was soon noticed that he was failing in the
examinations; that he had no longer the interest and
enthusiasm in his studies that had since the first
day that he entered school kept him at the head
of his class. This greatly pleased many of the fine
mannered, gentlemanly cultured young men who had
been unable to compete with him. and who circulated
false reports to the effects that his aptness at learn
ing was inherited from an illegitimate father; but
the professors were much affected the other way,
fearing that some neglect on their part, was re
sponsible for this change of conduct.
Is it not remarkable that men competent to
measure the size of the stars and evolve a solar
system are not able to account for the state of mind
of an earnest man in an environment such as can
burn alive a human being and not produce a revo
lution? This displays a gross ignorance in them
that justifies the doubts expressed as to the correct
ness of their fim* theories and makes necessary a
question mark after each new principle they pro
mulgate.
It was plain, even to dull students of tin* human
emotions that the spirit of the country, tolerating
brutish cruelty, tortue and death, was pressing hard
against Ed. Bristow's heart. A little mon 1 and it
would break. He slept very little and ate food only
occasionally. The society of others appeared to lose
all its charms for him. He was continually mutter
ing that his countrymen didn’t themselves love, but
wanted to be loved, that sin was getting the best of
them and that they had neither mercy, justice, chari
ty, nor love.
Fearing that the threats to kill him would be
executed, his friends, who saw less hope of consol
ing him than they did of protecting his lite, proposed
a sea voyage for him. He gave a reluctant consent
to this, as the day for the trial of members of the
mob was fast approaching and he wanted to be
present in court to testify against them. His
mother, to whose wishes he had all his lite given
ready obedience came up to Lynchum and a long
trip of ten days at sea was arranged. Sin 1 brought
a letter from Delia Summers to whom he was be
trothed and who had learned of his great unhap
piness, entreating him to dismiss from his mind the
fanciful imaginings that was the cause of his worry
and give himself up to the advice and protection of
his friends. This he promised her to do in a letter
in reply, but all who know the impossibility of
changing the pure-in-lieart so as they may be happy
in this world of sin and woe know very well that
this promise was never kept.
Number EIGHT, the stateroom to which he was
assigned on the ship, was occupied when he reached
it by an elderly gentleman of grave and serious coun
tenance, who, too, appeared to be tired of this life and
quite ready and willing to leave it. Bristow soon
had him engaged in earnest conversation and was
agreeably surprised that their minds should run to
gather in such perfect harmony. ‘‘How happens it."
he was continually asking himself “that 1 should,
without previous arrangement have been thrown
with such agreeable company as I find myself in?
And for the entire voyage, too.’’
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