Morning journal and courier., 1891-07-30
PROOF THAT PROHIBITION PROHIBITS.


We know of many hotel landlords who
have lived through the years that have
separated the grog shop from the hotel, and
they do not want it understood that they
believe that either the business interests
of Maine or the real interests of Maine
landlords require the degradation of hotel
life to the old bar-room standard. Those
among us who remember the procession of
old topers who, forty years ago, at IL
o'clock in the morning used to file up to
the hotels to do business and reel home at
divers times and gaits, do not look with
any favor on the development of industry
as proposed by the fifty gentlemen who on
Thursday at Waterville, undertook to de-
fine the liquid necessities of Maine enter
prise. Thousands of families flock to
Maine hotels in the summer season because
they want a hotel and do not want a rum
shop.
History repeats itself. When the era of
prohibition first set in years ago, we were
informed that hotel could not be success
fully run by water power. Since prohibi-
tion was inaugurated, Maine hotels have
been developed from most limited and
primitive condition, into great and fash
ionable places of entertainment, especially
in response to the demand of summer
leisure. The elimination of the bar has
made healthy family life possible at Maine
hotels. Such splendid establishments as
the Poland Springs house have come into
existence in our state, under prohibition,
as q special tribute to pure water as a
substitute for the multiform kidney des-
troyers of the Dad. Indeed, to the bust
ness interests of the state and to
all interests, except to the mistaken inter
ests of the panderers to evil habit, sending
the Maine hotel to the rear and bringing
u, ~, - :.
grave disaster. Leaving all moral consid-
erations out of the question, pandering to
evil appetite is one Of the worst of indus
trial blunders. AS believers in prohibition
and in its practical workings, we grateful
ly thank the gentlemen who want to start
grog shops within the hotels, for the val
ued proof which they supply, that the sale
of ardent spirits is cut off by prohibition
in fact that prohibition prohibits. 1t is
good to have the friends of license put
themselves on record against prohibition,
simply on the ground of the objection that
prohibition gets there.
The contract undertaken by these fifty
gentlemen who met on Thursday in Water
vile and resolved to turn the wheels of
progress fifty years backward in Maine, is
a larger contract than they can execute. 1t
not only undertakes to reshape and de-
grade public sentiment in Maine on the
gigantic evil of our time, but it undertakes
to dissolve part of the constitution of
Maine as we'll as a considerable body of
statutory law. We do not believe that the
landlords of Maine can be consolidated
against the constitution, laws and moral
sense of the state. The hotel that has
come to stay, is the hotel that undertakes
to supply food, not poison, refreshment
rather than decentralization. The gentle
men who want the license to sell grog
must go to other pastures. The men and
women of Maine by great majority have
said it; they will continue to say it. Maine
is unalterably opposed to license.
The idea that business is promoted by
grog shops, is one which it would be well
to put to the test. How much more ef-
ficient has grog made any person of your
acquaintance When did you ever hear of
a mans salary being raised because of his
talent for absorbing iquori How many
failures in business and in life are charge
able directly or indirectly to strong drinki
Until all these and hosts of collateral ques-
tions are answered, in life other than they
are answered by the recent Waterville
License Convention, the argument of that
body will need no refutation but that of
daily observation. There is no business
end to the grog shop that any man who
wants an honest dollar should desire it.
Money, it is true, may be made out of vice,
but it is bad money, and every legitimate
interest suffers when any illegitimate dol
lar is minted.