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About The Reason. (Savannah, GA.) 1908-19?? | View Entire Issue (April 30, 1908)
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.’’ 3
