The Gazette
September 21, 1904
Editor Gazette:
In prison I find myself today and justly so for “whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap.” Locked behind the prison doors away from dear wife and children I now repent, but too late.
I want to remind all “blind tigers” that some day you will bitterly regret that you ever sold the vile stuff. Someday you will have to part from wife and child, mother and father, sister and brother and go behind the prison doors and there you will remember their warnings that you heeded not.
Ah! I can see my wife, mother and sister pleading with me to quit selling that vile stuff.
It seems that there should be no mercy for me, for much warning and pleading that turned a deaf ear to would justify them to let me work out my own salvation.
But I want to ask them to forgive me and let me start life anew. I would aske the good people of Farmerville to not frown down on me for verily I am determined to live for a noble purpose. I want to warn all “blind tigers” that some day you will have to part from a loving wife and go behind the bars o steel. Yes you will break her heart and cause her to come to poverty and rags and dependent upon the neighbors for support. And let me warn you further, every time you sell a man a bottle of “blind tiger” whiskey you give him a knife to cut your throat. Yes, when some vile person that have sold whiskey to wants to work you for a few dollars he only had to remind you that he once bought whiskey from you and you must shell it down or be “stopped.”
“The way of the transgressor is hard”, yes, when you have broken God’s laws as well as mans you may expect to live an uneasy life, when you lay your head upon a pillow at night you may be woke up by an officer before day.
As for myself, I have enough and the only hopes I have is in the good people who have taken that noble step to put a stop to this miserable business.
Some men never realize the true situation of things until he is ruined for life. I would give all I possess for my liberty and to blot out that stigma of “blind tigerism”.
“Yes!” Whatsoever a man sowoth that will be also reap and I am now reaping a full harvest of what I have sown and were I not to feel guilty I would only add more sin to that overloaded burden of mine. So “blind tigers” take warning from one who has reached the end.
Shiloh to Canaan 