The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1892-07-19
our hats to him as special mark of our re

So far Victor Hugo.
Here is the grog shop man; What is
his work? He makes drunkards; he
blasts the homes of the people as with
pestilence; he destroys them with fire.
His shop is a factory; it takes in the raw
material like cotton mill or wooden
mill, sober men, steady, industrious
workers, good citizens, and it's finished
work is the idler, the tramp, vagabond,
drunkard. He makes paupers, thieves,
beggars, house breakers, incendiaries,
men of violence, men of blood. The
schoolmaster's work is to takein the
young to his establishment and make of
them good citizens, good members OF
society; the grog shop man antagonizes
all that. He trains boys to be drunken
husbands of somebody's daughters; trains
workers to squander their wages in his
shop, leaving wives and children at home
suffering from cold and hunger, from
want of commonest necessaries OF life.
The rumseller, is he a good member OF
the community? Who will salute him?
Who bow down to him? Will anybody
do that except the nice men who value
the grog shop above all other things?
Who are stirring up the people to ignore
all other questions of public policy and
perpetuity of the grog shop? What is
the direct and inevitable effect of the
grog shop? This and only this; that it
antagonizes every interest of Nation,
State and people. The mischief and
misery coming from it are SO great that
they cannot be stated by any standard of
values now known to us. All this misery
wretchedness and ruin! at the same time
that no good comes from to the value
of penny. The greatest blessing to the
nation is a sober, intelligent, virtuous,
industrious, thrifty population. That's
the chief power of a nation, morally and
physically All that, is necessary to
peaceful, prosperous, happy homes.
And such homes it is the chief function
of good government to provide for, to
establish and protect to the utmost OF It's
power.
You nicepeople who favor grog shops
is not that true, every word of it? Very
well, then, the grog shops antagon-
ize all that, far more than all other
malign influences combined, which
curse society. You nice people, isn't
that true? Can you deny that it's true?
Then will you kindly explain to us why
you are striving with all your power to
bring back again upon the people OF
Maine the domination of the liquor traf-
fic as in the rum time, when the town
bell rang at eleven and four o'clock .
call the grog tub.
Along back in the Forties there was
great uprising among the people against
the drink habit; it passed through the
country, originating in Baltimore; it was
called the Washingtonian Movement, and
enlisted in it all classes of society. 1t
was especially active in Portland. Great
meetings were held here in it's interest
three times a week for many years. The
largest halls or churches could not con-
tain all the people that crowded to them
on the Sunday evenings.
On one of those Sunday evenings was
to address workingmen at Exchange Hall,
the largest hall in town; it stood where
the post Office now is. The hall was
crowded to its utmost capacity mostly
with workingmen. My purpose was to
show that the drink habit was bad every
way; good no way; that it injured every
one who took it, body and mind, more or
less, according to the extent Of the in
diligence; that it.put men down and
kept them down; that with the drink
habit it was impossible for the victim of
it to rise in the social scale; that it was a
bar to that habit of industry. economy
and thrift by which alone workingman
can better his condition.
You all know Abel Grover" I said
then living, perhaps present.; he is an
industrious, thrifty man. a good citizen,
respected by those who know him. He
is tender to masons, bricklayers, and
plasterers; he has family to support
and his wages are dollar and twelve
and half cents a day, never more.
With his economies he has built two nice
houses in Winter street, each of them
having two tenements, one of which his
family occupies, and the three others
bring him in handsome monthly rent,
amounting to more than his monthly
wages. Never penny of his went into
the rumseller's till-but all added to-
gether have gone into his houses. know
of no case which better illustrates the
fact that man can always rise in the
social scale, with industry, economy and
temperance"
When sat down well known brick
layer, an excellent workman who had
been good worker, arose and said: II
know Abel Grover well; many and many
a day he has tended the crew | was work
ing with; his wages were six and nine
pence day and mine were three dollars
day. He has the two nice houses the
speaker has told of, and do not know
where nor how I am to get my breakfast
tomorrow. [ have spent regularly dol
lar and quarter a day for brandy at P.
and M g shop, and now have not cent
in the world. My drink habit disin-
clined me to work, then untitled me for
it; and here am, such as that habit has
made me. Tonight I'll sign the pledge,
after, sober, Industrious man. You
nice people who long to have rum rum
ming among us again, freely, where does
the GOOD of the ernp shnn come in here2 |