The weekly democratic statesman. [volume] (Austin, Tex.) 1871-1883, 1877-03-08
MAINE AND TEXAS.

through the streets OF towns aud vii
lagos dcfying decency, firing pistols
and threatening alike public and per
sonal security. There are no drunken
madmen swearing about the streets of
villages away down East in Maine, and
there is no child of NJ .ine that does not
read and write. Harsh as the climate may
be, the people of Maine have learned
to dispense with alcohol, and that its
use, even in Maine, is ruinous to men
and women and to society. Maine has
tested The virtues Of just such laws as
this proposed to be made operative
here in Austin. So benefcent have |
been its results that Maine is induced |
to make them more and more incisive.
Penalties for the crime of dispensing |
whisky become more and more terri
BILE, and the condition of society |
is steadily progressive. They who were |
born, reared and educated and have |
spent all their lives in the Gulf States,
having seen towns and villages of
Maine, must confess that the ciyilizl-
ton and codes which begat the social
system and modes of life and intelli-
gence and morals and pretty homes and
bright villages and churches and school
houses and industry and sobriety OF
Maine are infinitely to be preferred to
conditions of social life which we wit
urday that a drunken savage, a white
man, went reeling out OF town on horse
back brandishing pistol and shouting
and bowling like Comanche. Women
in carriages shuddered and drGw back
when he passed and men gave the mad
devil with cleaning, bloodshot eyes a
wide berth. We suffer speculation in
public morals to make men fiends, and
the pay we receive is calculated in dol
lars and cents. It's $40, 600 per annum
that Austin and Travis county receive
for such licensed" shows as this.
There may be people who know of moth
ing better, and are therefore willing
that these incidents should be
of perpetual recurrence, but those who
read and think or travel and know
what has been achieved of reform and
prosperity and progress in Maine, and
see the hourly miseries and progressive
poverty and wretchedness and shame
wrought in Austin by whisky, will
hardly fail to adopt measures which
Maine makes more and more violently
repressive. With the money-wasting,
whisky-guzzling habits of this city prev
alent in an Austin in Maine, where
dreary winter closes every avenue to in
dusUry six months each year, Austin
would starve, while Bangor or Augusta,
relieved wholly of burdens imposed by
dramshops, ere beautiful in art, in
taste, in wealth and churches and
schools and factories and railways.
The wisCst soldiers of ancient and
modern times have confessed that they
were taught most valuable lessons by
their direst and most dangerous foes.
When an ignoramus tells US that the
expulsion of whisky and arsenic from
Texas is suggestion made by Maine
and Massachusetts and therefore to be
despised, We have only to say that
these arc the wisest of American States.
They grew rich while we were devoted
to the delectable business of cutting
throats and deoolatinS States. They
built churches and school houses on
every hillside and railways along every
valley. They devote the proceeds of
toll to the adornment of homes and
erection of mills and endowment of col
leges while we drink the whole wealth
of the State once in eaeh eight or ten
years. And yet there are those who
assert our folly when we point to the
codes OF Maine, Massachusetts,, Ken
lucky and New Jersey, and to plain
results of enforced universal sobriety.
Men talk, too, of moral suasion who
have TO moral sense. They might as
well rely upon moral suasion to pre-
vent murder or theft or insanity. But
the State ''licenses" dram-shops and
taxes them enormously. The policy of
prohibition is thus confessed, not only
in Texas, but in every State, and we only
propose to go step further, and make
this partial prohibition final and abso-
lutte. And if there be those who doubt
the wisdom of this purpose, as it may
affect this county and capital, they
need only contrast the physical and
intellectual fortunes of sober Maine
with those of drunken States and
communities, or the luck of besotted
farmer or mill-owner with hat of his
plodding, toiling, sober neighbor.