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PAGE TEN
‘Bishop Candlerand Mr. Watson Again—‘Third Salbo
Editor Constitution:—
•
It was my purpose to end, for my
part, the correspondence with Mr.
T. E. Watson with my letter printed
in The Constitution of July 24th, but
a friend has handed me a copy of
the paper of the 25th, containing his
lengthly lucubration covering his
record, and a reply to it furnishes
an opportunity to set forth more
clearly than ever some principles of
great importance to the cause of pro
hibition. Hence I write again.
Mr. Watson tries to make it ap
pear that there is a kink in my rec
ord of which I would be rid. The
kink is in his head (and his record,
too, perhaps). My attitude in the
campaign of 1896 (not my part, for
I took no part in that campaign), is
the position which I hold today, and
it is one of which I might feel proud,
if pride were a proper passion.
In that campaign Mr. Watson and
his party associates undertook to give
the people of Georgia a dose of pop
ulism in a capsule of prohibition.
They misled some good men. But
when it was given out, without my
knowledge or consent, that I would
stump the state for the nominee of
the populist party for governor, I
promptly contradicted the state
ment, and. deprecated the effort to
use the prohibition cause for any
party ends whatsoever. I pointed
out that our cause had nothing to
gain and everything to lose by such
a mesalliance. A majority of the
white prohibitionists in Georgia
agreed with my view of the subject,
and refused the prescription of the
populist doctors, among those who
refused being the champions of the
anti-barroom bill in the legislature,
which was elected at the same time.
Well, Mr. Watson does affirm that
all those noble men who refused to
follow him have a kink in their rec
ord and that the saloons got the bene
fit of their influence. He may so say.
but if he does the statement will be
as false as it will be futile —as gra
tuitous and groundless as the charge
against me which he lugged into the
columns of his paper without provo
cation to justify it, or facts to sus
tain it.
Neither these men, nor I, gave the
benefit of our influence to the sa
loon, and this Mr. Watson knows
full well.
I will tell him who got the benefit
of our influence. We gave it to the
cause of nori-partisan and non-per
sonal prohibition—a cause too sacred
to be prostituted to partisan ends and
too holy to be used for the selfish
purposes of personal ambition. We
refused to lend onr influence to a po
litical scheme, which, however it may
have misled some good men, was, as
to the partisans who conceived it.
nothing short of political simony—
the use of the sacred name for per
sonal and selfish objects.
This sort of simony is often at
tempted, and most frequently it seeks
to make the farmers and the tem
perance people the victims of its
tricks and machinations.
For example, there was the Far
mers’ Alliance —an organization
WATSON’S WEEKLY JEFFERSONIAN.
A Shot from Texarkana at Watson
From Candler.
which achieved much good, and prom
ised much more, until politicians got
hold of it, and sought to run it. And
to what did they run it at last? Did
they not seek at last to defeat the
gallant Gordon for United States
senator? And with whom did the
politicians seek to beat him? Let
recent dispatches from San Francis
co give the name of the man whom
the politicians tried to put in the
senate in preference to Gordon. And
the prohibitionists tried to use the
“alliance legislature ’’ to compass
this end. The farmers saw the trick,
and refused to go forward with the
politicians in such work.
Some of the same politicians tried
to use the cause of prohibition a
few years later. Suppose the prohi
bitionists had followed them; what
would have been the result? Prohi
bition "would have been held respon
sible for all their vagaries, follies
and iniquities, and it would have
been thereby set back a quarter of a
century. Even as it was the cause
was injured, and it is just now re
covering itself.
We may easily imagine some of the
things which would have come to pass
if that movement in 1896 had been
successful when we remember that
•
the man whom the populist conven
tion nominated for governor in 1896
championed in the legislature a few
years later a bill for dispensaries
from which Georgia was saved by the
timely and wise use of the veto by
Governor Candler. And a dispensary
is now running in the county of
Floyd under a bill, the passage pt
which he secured. I was invited to
speak to induce the people to vote
for that dispensary. I declined to
be used in any such way to the in
jury of prohibition.
The assumption of Mr. Watson is
that the populist party had the pow
er in 1896 to create a situation in
which every prohibitionist in Geor
gia would be forced to support that
party or to give the benefit of his
influence to the open saloon. Bur.
neither that party nor any other
party has the power to present any
such alternative to me or to any
other man. I never lot up for one
hour in 1896 in my lifelong opposi
tion to the saloon, nor did I yield
for one moment to the effort to whip
me into line with partisan politics
and politicians. »
The politicians have not created
the prohibition sentiment in Georgia
or elsewhere. nor can they take charge
of it. That has been erected, in the
main, by the non-partisan efforts of
the Chiistian churches. In those
churches are democrats, populists
and republicans. We do not propose
that our churches shall be divided
and destroyed by dragging them bv
the heels into any party. Our mem
bers have the right to choose their
own party without censure or coer
cion, and they have a right to unite
without regard to party lines in fur
therance of prohibition. The man,
or set of men, who sets up to dictate
a dilemma to these godly men, say
ing to them, Yon shall vote as wo
SflYj or you shall bp charged with
giving the benefit of your influence
to the saloons, should be told, as in
effect they were so told in 1896,
“Your threat is as impotent as it is
impudent. Out with you!”
The churches cannot afford to al
low politicians to drive them into
personal contests and party cam
paigns. We can open our churches
and our pulpits to close the saloons;
but we cannot open them to put any
man into office or any party into
power . Politicians would like to use
them for the furtherance of their
schemes, as they always seek to use
the agricultural organizations of the
farmers. They would, for the
achievement of their ends, wreck our
churches as they wrecked the alli
ance.
To what lengths will not a poli
tician go? I have heard of some
who went so far as to go through
the motion of abandoning the honor
able profession of the law, and dis
posing of their law books to make
fair weather with a wave of anti
lawyer sentiment. I think I never
heard of one of them, however, tak
ing this course who ever returned
the fees he had won in the practice
of the profession upon which he
theatrically poured contempt He
might be willing to have convulsions
and froth at the mouth, but he never
so far lost consciousness as to lose
grip upon his purse or relax his hold
upon lands and tenements won in the
practice of law.
Let us beware of the prohibitionist
who jumps to the front on a spec
tacular occasion, or when the issue
is so entangled in personal or party
politics that an opportunity is pre
sented to pay political debts of the
past or create obligations for future
use; but who “lays low and keeps
on saying nothing” when the naked
issue of “wet or dry” is presented.
For example, it was easy for Mr.
Watson to run in response to the call
of the brilliant and beloved Grady,
to make the closing speech in the de
bate when the victory for-the. local
option bill was won, and to make a
“grand-stand play” at Washington.
D. C. But when the naked issue of
“wet or dry” was up in his own
county did he make one speech, or
write one bne for the dry side? He
attempts to divert attention from
this point by seeking to make merry
over his not having heard me when
I spoke in that campaign. The point
is not. did Mr. Watson hear me then;
but did the people hear Mr. Watson
then? Did they hear from you then,
Mr. Watsoh? if not. why not?
I then lived in Augusta, but I came
up repeatedly to McDuffie countv
during that campaign to advocate
the cause of prohibition, and I wrote
articles in the county paper for our
side. Did Mr. Watson make one ad
dress or write one line?
I made no spectacular speech on
the local option bill when it was
pending in the legislature; but I ar
trued for it before the committee ot
the house, and wrote a number of
articles in the Augusta and Atlanta
papers m behalf of the measure.
I was a resident of Nashville,
Tenn., being one of the editors of
the official organ of the Methodist
Episcopal Church, South, published
in that city, when the local option
election was held in Atlanta. I
wrote articles in that paper and oth
ers, for the dry side in that contest,
although I was living outside the
state of Georgia. But Mr.. Watson
was living in McDuffie county when
the election was held in which the
naked issue of “wet or dry” was
before the people of that county.
Did he write a speech then? In the
fight there was no room for stage
playing or political profit-taking;
what part did he take in it? He says
he voted dry then and that subse
quently he voted dry in the contest
between Mr. Stovall and Dr. Hawes.
The latter claim is denied by those
who sav thev know. I know nothing
of how he voted bevond his state
ment and the contradiction of it.
But certainly if he was dry he was
very quiet about it.
But enough of Mr. Watson, ex
cept as he exemplifies the principle
that a partisan who seeks to use the
cause of prohibition for party end,->
is not the best friend of it.
1 have a word for my fellow pro
hibitionists of Georgia in closing this
letter. Comrades, in our churches
we have built up this cause. In our
church papers we have defended it.
in our pulpits we have preached
against the saloon, and in our pray
ers we have made supplication for
the overthrow of the monster liquor
traffic. We are in sight of victory.
By the time these lines are read by
you, the Georgia legislature will have
adopted a state prohibition law. Now
will come a time of peril. Politicians
will claim the victory, and seek offic?
as a reward for services rendered by
them. Give no heed to such pleas.
No true soldier in this war will seek
office as a pension for the fighting
he has done. Only men who have
cultivated a marketable tvpe of pro
hibition zeal will seek to gather
profits from the cause. They wiK
seek entry into your churches and
temperance halls to present their
claims. Give no room to them there.
Especially do not allow them to pro
fane your churches, mar and maim
prohibition, and dishonor our Chris
tianity by using your houses of wor
ship for ward meetings and politi
cal caucuses.
You owe the politicians nothing
Yen would have won your victory
earlier but for some of their doings.
Do not allow them to dim or diminish
your triumph bv injecting personal
ambitions or party schemes into your
assemblies. Such things will divide
your counsels, engender strife and
factions among your forces, and m
the end reverse the triumph you have
won. Good men, who have stood
by our cause in the legislature, love
the cause too well to use it for thei’’
personal advancement, and the pro
hibitionists must see to it that selfish
mon do not so use it. Mark them
who seek to use the prohibition cause
ns a breastwork behind which to fight
their personal battles for self and
power.
The people who have made the
prohibition cause successful will ho
well able to enforce the law which
'they have made possible without