The Portland daily press., 1892-02-29
License or Prohibition-which?

/
An entire generation has grown up IN
| this State knowing nothing of the liquor
| traffic as it had been before that time.
| We had many distilleries, some OF them
making rum of molasses on a large scale;
some of them making potato whlskey'
and others making apple brandy, OF APP
pie jack, as it was called. These apple
and potato distilleries were in country
places; the rum distilleries were in the
towns up and down our coast. Seven OF
| them were in Portland. At the same
| time great quantities of West India rum
| were imported. Tt came to us by the
cargo, many eargoes every year. The
people now living not yet so or 90 years
DID, remember nothing of this, it was all
before their time. Such persons cannot
possibly form any correct opinion OF the
| difference between that time and the
present, as to the comparative magnitude
| of the liquor traffic of that day and OF
| our day. and as to the effect of it upon
| the people then and now.
| In those days Stephen Waite, one OF
| the most respected citizens of the town,
was a custom house weigher and gauger.
| Many and many a time l have seen him
| upon our wharves gauging cargees OF lm--
| ported rum, and with an instrument
made for the purpose testing it's strength,
upon which the duty depended, being
larger or smaller in proportion to the
| strength of the liquor. The famous ship
Margaret came in with a full cargo of
| Santa Croix rum. She was one OF the
largest ships of New England OF that
time. Her cargo made a great display up
on Union wharf where it was discharged.
I saw the gauger at work upon it dill
gently. All this rum from our diStille-
lies and from importations was for house
use. There has not been for many years
distillery or plncheon Of imported rum
in Maine, nor brewery, two of the
latter being in Portland. One. of our
great wholesale dealers stopped me IN
the street one day (after the enactment
of the Name Law and said, ne
| was astonished to see, on looking
over the old books of his firm, how
enormous was the quantity of liquor sold
| by them. They went out into the country
in every direction, and their path was as
marked as the course of a fire through
| forest Now no liquors go there and the
| entire face of the country is changed Tor
| the better.
| In those days, transportation from
| Portland into the interior was generally
| by oX-teams; men made business OF
| this work Mr. Charles Farley had a
| wire factory in Harrison in those days.
| He told me that he had it from one of
those men that in the year proceeding
| the Maine Law-he took into the country
| from Portland, three hundred barrels of
rum, the year after the law, not one.
| One of these carriers from Bridgton told
me that he made a round trip to Portland
every week, and never without taking on
his return hogshead or two OF three
and three, four or five barrels of rum,
but after the Maine Law he never had
even one barrel He said there were
twelve of these carriers engaged in the,
business of transportation for country
traders, and he had no reason to suppose
that his share of liquor transported was
larger than that of the others.
This business of liquor transportation
into the interior was carried ON also from
York, Saco, Freeport, Bath, Gardiner,
Hallowell, Augusta, Bangor and from all
| the towns upon the coast Ito Eastport,
| where the rum business wassqn q large
scale, much of its imported rum not
passing the Custom House. Anybody
could have a license in those days for
S6llluS, Zig lSG DSlHS OHly OIO eOi-
lar which the town clerks put in their
pocket as payment for making out the
papers, at least, that was the usage in
Portland. Contrast the condition of
Maine in those old times, SO far as the
rum trade was concerned, with its CON
dition now; and can any one truthfully
say that the present is no improvement
over the past? The benefits in many
ways and the helping to the people of
this state as the result of prohibition are
so great that they cannot be measured by
any mode of computation now known to
us.
The national drink bill now is not less
than twelve hundred million dollars; the
indirect cost and loss and waste as
direct resultof the liquor tariff, is not
less than ten hundred million dollars.
making in all, direct cost, loss and waste
twenty two hundred million dollars. in
1882 the New York Tribune estimated
this at fifteen hundred million dollars;
the Christian Union of the same week, at
sixteen hundred million dollars. Since
that time the expansion of the liquor
tariff has been very large.
The annual report of the internal rev.
enue department shows that the manu-
facture of liquors has grown in the past
year to magnitude never reached be-
fore. The liquors warehoused during
the last year were 116,000,00O gallons,
and the amount at the end of the year
was 100000 gallons, the largest
quantity ever known in the warehouses.
Outside the warehouses there were 1885,
100000 gallons in the country, 266,000,
0O6 gallons consumed mostly by our own
| people. This liquor business is now by
far the largest in the country and is in
creasing much faster than the popula-
ton. Twenty two hundred million dol
lars of the wages of labor and of the
profits of legitimate industries, lost and
wasted annually through the rum shops!
Our people, even the best of them, seem
to have no consciousness of this; the
great majority of them seeming to be
willing that this enormous drain upon
| the resources of the Nation and upon its
| physical power should continue with no
attempt to check it. The best people in
the country stignatize as cranks and
fanatics, those men and women who are
striving to call the attention of the lead
ers of public opinion to this enormous
evil.
Now what is Names share of this vast
sum? Our people used to consume as
Of Not