The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1880-07-24
THE TEMPERANCE MASS MEETING.
Address to the People of Maine by the
Maine State Temperance Society.

The following is the address adopted at the
temperance mass meeting held at Augusta on
Thursday:
The principle of prohibiting instead of IL
censlng dram shops is the settled policy of
Maine. There is, to be sure, still Strenuous
opposition to it, but manifested Indirectly rath-
er than directly. After trial of nearly thirty
years, interrupted by two years of license in
1856 and 1857, the judgment of decided ma
Jority OF the people of Maine is that prohibi-
ton is more effective in mitigating the evils of
the dram shop than any other legal policy ever
devised.
While the simple fact that the State outlaws
the dram shop, exerts powerful influence in
forming public sentiment against both the sale
and use of Intoxicating liquors as beverage
yet the prohibitory law, like other laws, is pro.
motive of good according to the measure of it's
enforcement. Enforced, it is an unquestioned
success. Unenforced, it exerts no better direct
influence that license, although its presence on
the statute book is a silent testimony dgdinst
as license is testimony in .fdyor of tipping
1t IS not claimed that prohibition faithfully
enforced can entirely extirpate surreptitious
Gram selling, any more than laws prohibiting
theft and murder can absolutely prevent these
crimes All that is claimed is that it can close
open, known dram shops, and restrict the
traffic to such street corners and limited pro-
portions as to remove temptations that are not
sought for in concealed by-ways and thereby
powerfully aid moral agencies.
In more than three-fourths of this State. in
GUIDING most of the rural districts and MANY
cities, prohibition is faithfully enforced by the
ordinary officers of the law, with the most
gratifying results. There is not single distil-
lery or brewery within our limits In the rural
districts and large portion of the villages
open dram shops are unknown and secret sales
rare In majority of the cities the open dram
shop is unknown. In the cities of Lewiston
and Auburn, with $4,000 population for ex-
ample, the with which tha 1iounr
trahc has been restrained for many years,
affords the best evidence of the practicabilitv
and wisdom Of our prohibitory laws.
Ihere are several cities and villages in the
State however, in which our prohibtory laws
are not faithfully enforced, and at least one in
Whlch II Is allowed to remain dead letter, or
rather is enforced as license law with all the
evil results that come from license This con-
ditlon OF things in certain portions of the State
affects not only the well-being of the commu-
mites suffering from the blighting influence
OF dram-shops but also the good name of the
State. Maine occupies a position of great
responsibility. The friends of temperance in
other States, nay IN every civilized community
are looking with the deepest interest on what
they term our prohibition experiment" The
enemies of temperance are also looking on.
and Selling with avdity every circumstances
calculated to discredit prohibition When any
county OF city In Maine fails to enforce the
prohibitory law, the fact is at once published
IN every State, and even sent abroad, as
evidence that prohibition is failure Thus it
becomes OF vital Importance that the law
should be well enforced, not only in more than
three-fourths of the State, as it is, but also in
these exceptional places where it is executed
loosely or not at all.
We recognize the fact that laws against
panderers to vice are executed with greater
difficulty than ordinary criminal laws. When
one mas his house broken into and his property
stolen. he at once interests himself to detect
and punish the robber. But when one has his
character and property taken from him by the
rumseller or gambler, the victim ordinarily en-
beavers to protect his greatest enemy. In the
one class OF offences the laws to great extent
enforce themselves; in the other they are
dead letter, except as they are enforced by
officers OF the law, or by private citizens, who
take upon themselves the office of detective
from benevolent motives.
To remedy this difficulty as far as possible
a difficulty nearly as great under license as
under prohibition,-the State has enacted spec
1al laws to secure the enforcement of laws
against dram shops, gambling places and hous
es OF ill.tame. First, the Mayor, Aldermen
and police OF cities, and the municipal officers