Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1883-04-24
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Augusta, Tuesday Morning. April "a
Temperance.

1t is often asserted BY men who are op
posed to the laws for the prohibition of
the liquor traffic that liquor is sold as
openly and freely in this State as it was
before the first prohibitory law was passed.
In the same breath almost they will tell
of artful contrivances by which the traffic
is kept up-of sly ways of getting and
keeping supply tor customers-of in
genious machinery, traps and underground
receptacles to elude the search of officers.
and of other expensive and arduous
methods to carry on the traffic, in spite of
the fines and Imprisonment which the law
imposes upon liquor sellers.
Now one of two things is shown to be
manifestly incorrect in these statements,
by the statements themselves. it is i'm
possible that both can be correct. Each
contradicts the other. If liquor selling is
as free and absolute in this State as before
the prohibitory law, then why are all these
expensive contrivances and methods neces-
sary to carry on the business? Such
means are not resorted to in other States
where there is little or no restriction upon
the liquor traffic. They were unknown
in this State thirty years ago. If they ex-
island we know they do because there
is ample testimony of the fact from tenn
perance and anti-temperance meD-
then their existence proves beyond
successful contradiction that the as
sertions made by opposers of prohibition
a, to free, absolute, and general sale of
liquor in this State is wrong. They are
evidence that the law restricts, If it does
not entirely abolish the traffic.
But some temperance men are impatient
because the traffic is not absolutely abol-
ished. They do not expect that the laws
against theft. burglary, arson and other
crimes. will entirely prohibit the commits
sion of those heinous offences, but they
seem to think that the sale of intoxicating
liquors. which has been allowed from the
earliest days of civilization and by all ma
tons on the globe, ought to be at once and
finally stopped after but little more than
quarter of century trial and struggle at
reformation here in the State of Maine.
To undertake to reform the appetites, SEN
tments, laws and practices of thousands
of years in regard to intoxicating drinks
is gigantic task. Intemperance is n
chronic disease which will not yield in a
brief period of time even with the most
skillful treatment. Reform is work of
education. 1t is the Graduating of old
ideas and habits deeply fixed in the human
race and planting instead new ideas as
basis for temperance habits and temper
ance laws. The lodge, the reform club,
all associations for temperance purposes
are schools in which the people are taught
to put the intoxicating cup behind them
and embrace the blessings of temperance.
Organizations for instructing children in
the ways of temperance are the most hope
full OF all methods for reforming the world.
Bring up the children right, and the men
and women of the next generation will be
ahead of the present generation in tenn
perance matters, and this process COLI
tnued will reform the world
Temperance laws in this country must
stand or fall according to public senti-
ment. Public sentiment makes our
laws and only can enforce them. We have
no monarch to make laws and standing
army to enforce them. That may be done
in dcspotie government but not here.
Laws are strong when the people sustain
them, they are weak without such support.
The people of Maine have enacted and
sustained the prohibitory laws because
they believe they are wholesome and good.
That sentiment has become rooted in our
State. The laws cannot fail so long as
the people support them. Liquor sellers
may brand prohibition as a failure, and
impatient reformers may become exasper-
ated because drinking houses are not abol-
ished at once and entirely. but the cause
of prohibition cannot fail while the ma
jority of the people are united in its sup
port.