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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