Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1889-04-03
PROHIBITION IN MAINE.
What Neal Dow Whites a Philadel
phian on the Subject.

The Philadelphia Press, In its Echoes
Of the street. printed a few days ago an
extract from a letter 0f Neal Bows on
the failure to enforce. absolutely. Prohi-
biiiOn ia Maine. Joseph II. Young. E-q--
sent the paragraph to Neal Dow asking
for more detailed statement. Mr.. Young
.ends TIE Press the following letter. just
received from Neal Dow, in reply:
"bEaR SIR: Your note II the Plat j.
received. enclosing slip from the Phila-
deiphia Press Of that date. which insert
here a. part Of my reply;
Neal Dow makes an amazing cOnfes
sion a. 10 the failure Of Prohibition in Maine
in a recent letter. For more than twenty
years be says. i have been ia every
Legislature in Maine. often with hundreds of
petitions asking for such amendments TO the
law a. would make it thoroughly effective
These efforts have always failed. and the
zrog.hop- keep on pretty much as they did
tFenty yearsa2o.
The Maine Law sss enacted in 1881
The immediate effect Of il was TO close up
all the distilleries and other manGfaetore-
Of strong drink 80 that to th. day We have
not a di.tiliery or brewery in the State, Of
which there were many-seyen of the
former and two Of the latter being in this
city Another effect of the law vas 10 shut
up Immediately all the wholesale lquor
shops and TO drive cut of the liquor trade
every man who had or wished to have any
recognition a. a 20 d citizen. so that the
traffic where ii continued at all was on a
very small scale.
The volume Of the liquor traffic to-day Is
not more than one-tventieth of its former
magnitude. and has not been larger fol
many years. This fraction Of the uaiii'
fingers more or less on the sly in our citie'
and large towns. while all our rural district'
and small towns and villages, containing
more than three fourths or our population
/. practically free from it.
The low grog shops fes in number and
small in their operations. exist because OF
certain defects in our law, which for many
years have earnestly endeavored TO have
have been to every Legislature, often viii
hundred. Of petitions, asking for sucl
amendments To the Law rs would make
thoroughly effective These efforts have al
way- failed and the grog shops this lin2eI
itg fraction of the liquor traffic keep o
pretty much as they did twenty years ago
Their, is not a word of this which implies
failure of Prohibition.
"A. lhe result of Prohibition our peopi
save directly and indirectly more than e2i
900 900 annually, which under any form {
license would be spent, lost. wasted in drlni
- Dne result of this saving s that Maine is no
one Of the most prosper0'
States in the Union. while in the o.
rum time it was undoubtedly the poorest o,
people spending in drink the value OF a
their property in every period of TWEEN
u years. as the people of the nation are no
doing ia every period of thirty five years
In 1884, after more than thirty yea.
experience of the benefits Of Prohibition, o.
people put It into the Constitution by m
Iority of ~ .015, the affirmative vote III
three times larger than he negative III
- word failure is never heard here 10 20
! nection with Prohibition. 1t comes to
from afar as echo Of tbs desparing cry
the liquor leagues and their allies, who :
= IN Prohibition the sure and only policy
WHICH the country can be saved from the
dreadful Grade. Respectfully,
NEAL Dow"
poaTIA>p. MI March %, 1889