The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1886-09-04
THE PRoHIslToRY LAW.
What it Has Accomplished Unde
Republican Enforcement,
Some Tributes from the Hon.
Neal Dow,

| We submit below extracts from letters
written within the last few years by the Hon.
| New Dow. They come down to within ten
months of the present time. The Republi-
can party was in control of the State, and in
control of Portland also, we think, when all
of them was written.
[From Letter of Dec "a, 1881
1t is fortunate for us in Maine that the
liquor interest is very weak, being confined
to few respectable people, who would man
ufacture and sell liquor if they dared, and to
few people not so respectable who sell
liquor in spite of the law secretly and on q
small SCALE
[From a Letter of August g. 1884
1t is not overstating it to say that in Port
land the volume of the liquor traffic is not
one-twentieth of what it was before the law
Now, it is not only reduced to very
small proportions, but is carried on upon the
sly, and is as disreputable as that of the
gambling house and brothel.
LFrom Letter Written in 1884,
''The Maine law in Maine has been great
success from the day of its enactment The
|, wholesale liquor trade, which was very large
in the State, ceased entirely from that time
and has never been revived. There is not
distillery or brewery in the State, and has
not been for many years, the manufacture as
well as the sale of liquors being forbidden
by the law. "In more than three-fourths of
our territory containing more than three
fourths of our population, the liquor traffic
is nearly or quite unknown. The quantity
of liquor now sold in Maine in violation of
law cannot be one-twentieth as much as it
would be but for prohibition. Our share of
the national drink bill would be about $13,-
10000, and we are confident that half a mil
lion will pay for all the liquor smuggled into
the State and sold in violation of law but
we call it a round million. Sc we save by
prohibition $12,000,o00 annually in direct
cost of liquor, and indirectly as much more"
[From Letter OF January, 1851
SIN Maine we put prohibition into our
statute in 1861. We have driven out every
brewery and every distillery, and have re-
duced the volume of the liquor traffic here to
at least one-twentieth of the former amount;
and now we have put prohibition into our
Constitution by vote of three to one. When
you have done the same in your State you
will be in position to advise us as to what
it is wisest to do"
[From a Letter of july 1851
''Why? Because it has not yet entirely
and absolutely extinguished every yestige of
the liquor traffic here but it has extinguished
every brewery and diStillery in the State,
and has reduced the volume of the traffic to
a small fraction of its former amount.
Maine used to spend in strong drink the en-
tire value of all its property of every kind,
in every period of less than twenty years,
with the result that we were the poorest
State in the Union. Now the traffic is not
more than one-twentieth of its former eX-
tent, and Maine has become one of the most
prosperous States in the Union, so that it
cannot be recognized as the same by persons
who left it at the time of the adoption of the
policy of prohibition and who come back to
it now. The Republican party of Maine
has always, lin all its State conventions, pro-
claimed to all the world the vast benefits
coming from prohibition to all the interests
of the people, who have recently, by solemn
vote put prohibition into the constitution
after an experience of its results of more
than 80 years-by majority of three to one,
lacking very small fraction-a majority
twice larger than any party or any PROPOSE
tion ever had before in Maine. This, am
confident, will be held by ali unprejudiced
people to be conclusive that the Maine law
has been and is, not failure but great
success
[From Letter of November 1851
'The Maine law is as well executed as any
other of our statutes, and its effect for good
upon our moral and material interests is so
great that it cannot be measured by any
mode of computation now known to us"