Jackson County Journal

In 1908 the people of North Carolina, not by their representatives, but in the exercise of the solemn function of sovereign franchise, wrote into the statutes of the State the law forever prohibiting the manufacture and sale of intoxicating liquors in the state of North Carolina. That the law has been effective in a marked degree in establishing soberness among our people is true. That it has in many instances been violated and trampled under foot by a certain element of our people no one need deny. Anyone can see that there is an organization of moonshiners and blind-tigers that is gaining ground in many parts of the state and that laughs in the face of the law and those who would uphold it. When the day arrives that the violator of the law will enter the sacred temple of justice and desecrate it even while the court of North Carolina is in session, as was done in Transylvania when a man and his whole family are murdered in cold blood because he dared report the operation of an illicit distillery on his own property as was done in Graham, it is time for the citizenship of North Carolina to rise in its might and stamp out the fires of hell that the liquor men have set a burning, to protect the sacredness of our courts and the lives of our citizens. That the liquor traffic can continue despite the laws is a reproach to the citizens of the state, for if the people will see to it that the law is enforced it can and will be done. The number and character of homicide cases that come for trial at almost every term of Haywood county court forces one to the conclusion that the good people of Haywood are in a measure responsible, for the main cause is the violation of the prohibition laws, and the good people of Haywood could stop that if they would.