The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1870-12-07
G'es'''ss $500 per anmuns, IN aaronce.
DAILY PRESS.
MD
Wednesday Morning, December 7, 1870.
prohibition.


Prohibition.
Here we are in the streets of a prosperous
city; let us see what are the elements of its
business, and the sources of its wealth. We
look carefully as we walk about, and observe
that every legitimate want of the people may
be supplied By some one or more OF all these
shops. Every trade is represented in them
the products of which are necessary to health,
comfort and enjoyment. The keepers of
these shops, wholesale Or retail, are not pro-
ducers of wealth, except indirectly. They
facilitate the process of exchange of commodi-
ties, excepting to the worlds workers. The
farmer cannot make his own shoes, hats,
harnesses, clothes, and tools; his paper, pens,
books-he must buy them. The shoemaker,
halter, tailor, cannot produce the wheat, po-
tatoes, meat, cloth, thread, sugar, tea, which
he needs; he must buy them; each and all,
by the exchange of wares that he produces
for articles that he requires, which are pro-
duced by others. And these shops facilitate
that important and necessary process of ex-
cdange. That the work that all those shops
are actively engaged in all of them most use
full in every civilized community.
How do all those shops find business aud
how do their owners live and thrive? BY the
industry of the country, by the work of the
working people. Everything, therefore, that
tends to stimulate the industry of the country,
and to multiply manufactures; to increase
production by improving its processes tends
to promote the interest of every business
man, and to increase the wealth of the coun.
try, and to promote the comfort and happi-
ness of the people.
Everything on the contrary that tends to
reduce the products of industry, by undermin-
ing the industrial ability or habits Of the peo-
pie, is hostile to the general welfare, and in
furious to the interests of every business
man. All these shops of which have spok-
en-, and the thousands of others not alluded
to, in which legitimate business is done, are
necessary to the general welfare, aud promote
the prosperity of the business community.
They display their wares to the greatest ad-
vantage, to attract public attention; and the
more business they can do, the more sales
they make, the greater is the result for the
general good. Every one of these shops is
performing its part in promoting the pros
perity of the community.
But the rum shops do not belong TO this
category; they are ulcers-hideous sores on
the body polite, and are veiled to some ex-
tent from the public eye; but their dreadful
results are seen by every observer; ;-broken-
down merchants, traders, mechanics, farmers,
young men ruined in the morning of life. In
dustry paralyzed in ten thousand men, for
merly strong, hardy, industrious. Ten thou
sand homes, formerly echoing with the joyous
song and happy laugh of glad hearts, now des-
olate, or resounding with screams of wretched
wives and children, and the oaths and bias
phemies and brutal blows of husbands and
fathers, converted into demons by these rum
shops. The mission of the rum shop is devil
ish-infernal. 1t goes exactly and always to
that point, to extinguish the fires of the forge,
to hush the music of industry everywhere, to
sap the strength of the strong worker, and to
fill the land with paupers and criminals; with
wretchedness so extensive that its amount
cannot be reckoned, and SO intense that it
cannot be described.
Such and more, is everywhere and always
the mission of the rum shop, whether it be a
bar room radient with polished marble and
gilded mirrors, or whether it be a rough, foul
board resting on two empty barrels with
dirty, blear eyed, drunken Irishman behind it.;
they are all parts of the same system and con-
tribute each of them its full share to the de-
moralization and impoverishment of the peo.
pie and to blot out from society every good
thing, and to substitute for it, everything
that is foul, base, brutal and wicked. Every
man who has engaged directly or indirectly in
the rum shop, whether he knows it and
means it or not, is an enemy to society in all
its interests, and contributes to inflict a mis-
chief upon every individual composing it.
The Ium shop is an infinite mischief to the
country and an infinite misery to the people.
hope shall not be regarded as employing
language too harsh, in speaking of trade,
which has been so long tolerated in society.
If what say Of the rum shop be trne, then
any possible severity of language concerning
it will be abundantly justified. Is it true?
Nd