Monday, November 18, 2019

From Days Gone By Nov. 26, 1921

November 26, 1921.
    No town can prosper where every businessman in it lives to himself! Merchants and businessmen of a town must co-operate with each other if they would hold the trade in territory that belongs to them. All business institutions and property owners of a town to be permanently prosperous must always be working together to bring the trade of the territory in their direction or else it will go elsewhere where more alluring inducements are offered. Merchants of no town of any importance should be without an organization of their own. All business institutions of a town besides a merchants association should maintain a well organized and well suported chamber of commerce or board of trade.
   The C. E. Smith Cash Store at Harrison was broken into a little after midnight by a set of robbers and goods to the amount of about $300 were taken out as estimated by the manager, Mr. Daniel. The glass in the front door was broken, the door opened and the goods taken out at the back, put in an automobile and carried hastily away. The night marshal saw the light and heard the noise in the store and went for help. Before help got there the robbers had made their haul and left for parts unknown. Mr. Daniels offered a $50 reeard for their capture and return of goods.
    Mr. Goode C. Watkins of meeks and Mr. Charles L. Wilson filed for bankruptcy. Mrs. Eloise Grahl of Adrian won the prize of $1 offered for the Alma Mater song written by a student of Andrew Female College at Cutbert.
    T. D. Holt resigns as night policeman because of health reasons. Mr. Elton Oliver will replace him for the city of Wrightsville. Dr. I. H. Archer who has been in New Orleans will be returning to Wrightsville on furlough.
    Next week is the city elections and politics is warming up. Those in the council races are O. H. Tompkins, R. E. Butterly, Gainer Fulford, M. S. Duggan, James D. Bush, C. S. Blankenship, A. F. Flanders, J. A. Hall, J. W. Brinson, I. R. Tanner and W. F. Outlaw.
    A large black dog came to Alex Mayo's home acting very insanely. After watching it for a while Mayo determined the dog was mad as it ran after his hogs and chickens. Mayo got his shotgun and mounted his mule and when he got in shooting distance killed the mad dog.
    If the boll weevil had never infested the cotton belt, it was only a question of time until our agriculture would have collapsed of its own accord. Our soils were getting poorer all the time, due to the strain of planting cotton year after year. We must improve our soils permanently and the best way to do this is to keep livestock. Now is the best time to build up your worn out gully lands.
    A real cold snap has hit the county and it is a good time for hog killing. Many farmers have taken advantadge of it and put in their smokehouse for next year. This is one thing that is plentiful in Johnson County and a real money-saving proposition with plenty of meat and curing houses. Especially when hogs are selling for 6 cent a pound but a pound of porkchops cost you 25 cents a pound in the store. Lots of difference between the hog in the farmers hands and the consumer. Somebody is getting an unreasonable profit.
    It is refreshing to note that throughout Johnson County there is an increased interest in schools.Educating your children is an investment that bankrupt courts can't touch.

Sunday, November 17, 2019

From Days Gone By Nov. 19, 1921

November 19, 1921.
    The present status of law and order, the continuance of lawlessness and depravity in Johnson County has the people questioning the safety of their homes and firesides. It has grown to a pretty pickle when brazen-faced bootleggers, blind tigers, pistol carriers, blood-thirsty, dirty loafers roam around at will, degrading the moral stamina of the county and besmirching its fair name. "Cyclone Mack" fittingly describes a blind tiger as a cross between a buzzard and a polecat.
    Whether a man and his family may dwell in this county in saftey and have enjoyments of life is a question before us at this time and a question for the courts with their juries to decide with unflinching support of the citizenry in redeeming it from this terrible state of lawlessness. Civilization and lawlessness cannot live in the same land. When a man is slain in a private quarrel the crime is not a private one but a public wrong, done against all the people, impairing their security and threatening the destruction of it.
    The murders and other crimes are more or less directly traceable to the moonshiner who has the crimes on his hands and the blood stains covering his front doors show the bloody trails he is leaving behind him as he dispenses the poison which is demoralizing the county and lowering its standards as a quiet, law-respecting community. Johnson County people who really care do not relish such conditions, do not uphold them and blush at their committals. And Johnson's true-blue people resent its continuance with their vigor and manhood, all at their command, and arise to ask from slumbers, are our homes safe? Is our citizenship protected? True nerve and backbone of the good folks of the county must answer these questions.
    We must help our sheriff put down this wave and re-establish law and order, remove the causes of the lawlessness. It is grossly unfair to the schools and the churches, to the future citizens of our county to give its very existence to the moonshine stills and non-responders of the law of every character. Shame on us if we can't do something and do it now.
    Sheriff Lewis Davis has made a statement to the Headlight in which he says he nor his office can't do anything with this whiskey business and other petty and bad crimes of the county without the backing of the good people of the county. He is ready and willing at any time to go after any sort of law breaking whenever it is put before him.
    He says that the chaingang is as full now as it has ever been, there being 43 inmates there at this time, and according to Warden Stanley it has never been any higher. These prisioners are there for making and selling liquor, stealing hogs, pistol toting, gambling, assualt and battery, murder, etc.
    The sheriff states that this is the result, although there was no court in May and no Superior Court in September or there woul most likely have been more on the gang. Since he went in office the first of this year he has handled 111 prisioners through the county jail for this county, to say nothing of the large number he has handled for other counties. There are 4 now in jail and between 120 and 130 out under bond for both the courts, according to the cases on file in the clerk's office.
    Sheriff Davis believes in law and order and the strict enforcement of all laws on the statutes and regards the crime wave bad. He expresses the hope that it will subside and most respectfully seeks the moral backing and strong support of the good people of the county in surppressing it.

Saturday, November 9, 2019

From Days Gone By Nov. 12, 1921

November 12, 1921.
    Last week in this county the revenue officers in a body went searching for shiners and stills and succeeded in raiding three big ones and destroying a large quantity of whiskey and materials. In the party were Messrs. J. T. Jackson, county policeman of Laurens County, prohibition officer J. M. Crowder of Dublin, one deputy sheriff of Laurens, M. L. Jackson and C. T. Mixon of Wrightsville.
    The direction of their search led towards the western end of the county and the largest haul they made was near the home of T. I. Young, about a couple miles this side of the county line up on the river. A 30 gallon copper still, neatly and adequately equipped with a good brick foundation around it. 105 gallons of beer, and a little amount of the "real article" being captured.
    The next one was near by on another plantation and is said to be the property of one Isadore Hood, colored. This was a 53 gallon gasoline drum outfit. There was also 105 gallons of mobby there which was destroyed.
    A lard can outfit was next given attention by the raiders. Some small amount of shine was on the spot. This is said to have been property of C. D. Ivans.
    Going around to another place the officers poured out a large quantity of materials which ere on the spot just vacated by the stilling outfit, it having been moved and the slowly dying fire under it being found on the arrival of the officers.
    The county agents came home with the bacon. Agents Miss Clemmie Massey and Mr. M. E. Crow took a carload of local products to Savannah last week and brought back over $400 in cash from prizes won in open competition with nine other counties.
    The next Johnson County Singing Convention will meet the 3rd Sunday at Liberty Grove. Mr. Eugene Kelley and Miss Mattie Dawson were married at the home of Mr. Carrol Lord. Miss Mollie Pullen has opened her school at Pine Grove. Prof. & Mrs. N. D. Norris had a baby boy born October 26th. Mr. Henry D. Garnto of Meeks is finishing up his nice new home.
    Misses Corinne Peddy and Laura Peacock are teaching school ar Rehobeth. Kite school opened over a month ago and have the largest enrollment ever.
    Completing a highly successful term in St. Vincent's hospital, Staten Island, New York city, Dr. Wade R. Bedingfield has returned and will enter practice here. He is the son of Dr. & Mrs. P. B. Bedingfield, one of the most prominent families in the county. His father has practiced here for many years.
    Of interest to the ladies is the announcement that in this state the male voters barely outnumber the female voters according to the census. Wrightsville ladies are on the voting list in short numbers but there are quite a fee more who are ready to put their signatures to the voting list and participate in the forthcoming municipal election.
    Warden R. M. Stanley moved the road gang from the Oconee river to across the Ohoopee and now building on the Adrian and Scott roads. Judging by the way his large gang is moving he may cover the major portion of the county in the next 12 months.