The Portland daily press., 1892-03-16

31neQ Wn6u Iue pIOiIplbOly LOW 10 iOr
lied. If it will be, then it is an organi-
lion in behalf of making the sale of
N as free and unrestricted as the sale
sugar or dry goods. Probably after
ohibition is overthrown the club intends
create some restrictive measure to take
place, and again appealing to it's
bme, the "Ingraham Anti-Prohibition
lub,'' for information, we conclude that
Aat measure is to be a license law.
low how is a license law to promote the
ocial and business interests of the State?
The only way it can promote social in
Jerests is by establishing attractive sa-
oons which men will find more pleasure
Ia lingering in than they do iii the sa-
looms that exist at present. But what
viii be the consequence of lingering in
these saloons? Manifestly that the men
who gather there will be exposed to the
temptation to drink in it's most seduc-
tive form. And what will be the conse-
1uence of that? Manifestly that con-
siderable per cent. of those who there
gather will yield to temptation, and
gradually form drinking habits that they
cannot break off. Thus the social inter-
ests of the state will be promoted at the
expense of making considerable num-
Der of drunkards But the high license
advocate will reply ''Better let men go
to these places and drink glass or two
Of liquor than send to Massachusetts
and get bottle or demijohn full,
with the probable result of getting
dead drunk" The trouble with this
reply is that it entirely ig-
nores the method by which the
drink habit is contracted Possibly
there may be cases where men have sat
down and deliberately made up their
minds to drink liquor, and in furtherance
Of this determination have sent away
and procured supply. But in nine
hundred and ninety-nine cases out OF
thousand the drink habit is contracted at
an attractive saloon, such as license
law is certain to create. Until man has
become confirmed drunkard he seldom
finds any pleasure in drinking alone. 1t
is the conviviality of the thing that
makes it attractive in the first place. 1t
is inevitable therefore that the social in
terests of the state can only be promoted
by the licensed rum shop at the expense
of exposing its frequenters to tempta-
tons which they will be likely to meet
nowhere else in so powerful and attrac-
tive form. But the club also purposes
with a license law to promote the bust
ness interests of the state as well as its
social interests. How does it expect to
do that? The members would probably
say that by establishing shops in Port
land where liquor could be purchased
much money that now goes to Boston
could be kept at home. But did it never
occur to these gentlemen that to estab
fish saloons which will inevitably make
drunkards, for the sake of keeping at
home the money which men who have
already become victims of the drink
habit now send to Boston would in the
long run cost the state a great deal more
than it would come to? At the founda-
ton of the prosperity of this state or any
other state is the moral, mental and ply
steal health of its citizens. Attrac-
tive saloons tend strongly to break it
down, and with this broken down pros
,perity is out of the question. Ask any
sensible man what kind of a city he
would be likely to do the most
profitable business in, a city
filled with people industrious and sober
or city filed with people soaked with
liquor, and see what he will say?