Bob Shuler's Free Lance, Volume 1, Number 1, December 1916 Page: 4 of 32
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BOB SHULER'S FREE LANCE
myself-should chip together to raise a fund to assist
Austin antis to defeat the election by having as many
of our friends as possible take out their poll tax
receipts in time.''
This letter continues to suggest an assessment per
barrel and per bottle, with which to put over this
gigantic and, according to Mr. Adoue's own testi-
mony, lawless scheme. Just how law-abiding men in
this county can stand for such a practice is among
the practical riddles of the day. I cannot under-
stand how men who love Austin can afford for A. B.
Langermann, dealer for William J. Lemp Brewing
Company, to organize a crusade, such as he reports
in this letter to Otto Koehler, which crusade is
organized and prosecuted for the one purpose of
providing illegal and unlawful votes, by the raising
of money for the procuring of illegal and unlawful
poll tax receipts, with which votes to keep the open
saloon in Travis county.
The whole scheme is so openly lawless that even
Adoue cannot afford to take the risk and turns
Langermann down, so far as contributions are con-
cerned, on the ground that the whole plan "was
against the law." Will the men of Travis/county
stand for that?
Those who remember the campaign of 1907 in
Travis county remember well how these illegal poll
tax receipts were dished out to illiterate negroes and
Mexicans. It is the everlasting reproach that will
not soon be lifted off the fair name of Austin that
somebody did not go to the penitentiary after that
election. Mr. Anti, do you stand for such methods?
Are you willing for your State and county to be thus
prostituted? You cannot vote for the open saloon
without approving this and a thousand other like
crimes.
The prohibitionist in Texas who wants to assist the
editor of the "Free Lance" in staying in the fight
to make Texas white can do so by going after a list
of subscribers for this paper. That editor has begun
this enterprise wholly on faith. It will take between
three and four thousand dollars to finance it the first
year, but he believes in the men on the firing line
and he believes that they will stand by him in this
venture.
There are 100 men who will read this paper in
Texas who ought to sit down at once, make out a
list of ten subscribers with their addresses, enclose
with that list your check for $5 and thus help me
make this paper possible. If you will help me get
a circulation, I will help you fight the open saloon
until the last one has been forced from Qua borders,
-R. P.S.SHALL THE LIQUOR CONSPIRACY LONGER
DOMINATE TEXAS?
There are thousands of honest and honorable anti-
prohibitionists in Texas who may not agree with the
pros in the solution they offer for the liquor evil, but
who join the pros in the protest they offer against
the brewers' control of Texas politics and the mak-
ing of Texas laws. Recently a learned judge of
Houston, Texas, made this public statement:
"I have always been an anti, and still like my glass
of beer, but when I see my home, my city and my
State in jeopardy because of an organized conspiracy
on the part of the brewers of Texas, who have at-
tempted in the past and are -attempting even now
to place this State in their vest pocket and own it,
I shall be forced to join the prohibitionists, though
it may cost me my glass of beer, and strike with them
at this bigoted foe that knows no interest save its
own and would crucify every principle dear to patri-
otic Texans for the advancement of its own interests
and the enlargement of its own financial gain."
Such is the sentiment of many noble Texans every-
where. It is to this class of men that we appeal.
We have no hope of interesting the maliciously igno-
rant disciples of booze. We realize the utter useless-
ness of attempting to convince men whose money-
lust has seared their patriotism and love of country
and who would sell the souls of their wives and the
bodies of their children for gold. But we do believe
that thinking men, whether anti or pro, will pause
and consider, think and ponder, before they longer
support an institution that has laid a deliberate and
diabolical trap and snare in the path of the progress
of this State and are willing to sacrifice everything
of real value within it to their own ends.
Read the following contract entered into by the
brewers on the 14th day of May, 1903, which contract
is signed and the purposes thereof set forth:
"Houston, Texas, May 4, 1903.-The undersigned
hereby agree to pay an assessment of 20 cents per
barrel on their sales of keg beer in Texas and 1 cent.
per dozen of bottle beer, from the 1st day of June,
1903, to the 1st day of June, 1904. The money to be
spent by a committee to be appointed by and under
the direction of the subscribers, for the purpose of
promoting anti-prohibition matters in Texas."
This contract is signed by:
Galveston Brewing Company, B. Adoue, President.
Texas Brewing Company, Zane Cetti, President.
San Antonio Brewing Association, 0. Koehler,
President.
Dallas Brewery, S. T. Morgan, President.
Houston Ice and Brewing Company, H. Hamilton,
President.
American Brewing Association, H. Prince, Secre-
tary and Treasurer.
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Shuler, Robert P. (Robert Pierce), 1880-. Bob Shuler's Free Lance, Volume 1, Number 1, December 1916, periodical, December 1916; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth1146846/m1/4/: accessed June 25, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Lena Armstrong Public Library.