The Portland daily press., 1893-03-23
Brace Up the Agency.
To the Editor OF the Press:

if thought it would be of any particu-
lar benefit to the community to have
liquor sold by all the apothecaries and
rumsellers. We have got to have alco-
| hol, anyway, for mechanical and scien-
tific purposes. Suppose we confine the
whole business to the sale of alcohol!
Wonder if the world wouldn't move on
in the same old way-guess it would, as
you can make any sort of liquor from al
| cohol. But whiskey, let loose, isn't
| wholesome, and it becomes less so the
more it is mixed with alcohol. 1t be-
| comes, then, vitality necessary to regu-
late the sale. For this the Agency was
established. 1t does not now regulate,
| because the law and municipal authori-
ties are widely at variance. Something
wrong about this; something even worse
than the agency, as it is now run. The
law and public officials do not agree.
Here we have an illustration, or demon
| stration, of officers, whose highest duty,
| is to respect and obey the law, and whose
| next duty is to enforce it. actually aiding
| and abetting law Misunderstanding the
example in this direction in fact. Here
| is an Agency established for the sale of
liquors as medicine. The municipal au-5
thorities, mayor and aldermen, appoint
the liquor agent and clerks, and it is.
their duty to look after them, and see
| that the agency is run according to the
letter of the law. But what are the facts
in the case? They are that both agent
and clerks are not only left to run mat
tiers to suit themselves, but they are en-
couraged by the officials to break the
law in selling to anybody and everybody,
| for any and every purpose. How much
respect can a naturally lawless class of
men have for the law, or It's officials,
when they, the officials, deliberately VIC
| late the law for the accommodation of
law breakers and politicians?
The Agency is selling liquors right
along to rumsellers as well as 10 rum
drinkers. Is there anything in the Stat
ute to authorize this? Men, pocket rum
sellers, go in and out of the Agency, get
their bottles filed, and then station
themselves on the corners, or at the
head of alley ways, in plain sight from
the City Building, and wait for custo-
mers.
| What's the matter with the Agency?
That's all right. What's the matter with
the municipal control of the Agency?
That's all wrong. The proof is as plain
as is an apothecary's United States Ii
cense that he wants to sell.
The sales Of the "A gency have run up
| from $685. 600 per annum under. Republi-
4 nar mo
Democratic management. Yesgods! No
wonder the Democratic party catches
the hoodlum vote, when it deliberately
arrays itself on the side of lawlessness
and disorder to such an extent as this.
Temperance men are so blind as not to
see tn t this cry of "down with the
agency comes directly from the enemies
of prohibition and that it means its
| death-blow. They seem to have forgot
teu that the Agency was established as
a safeguard to the law, in providing the
means of supply for an imperative and
necessary demand, and that. as a system,
it is as much a safeguard and bnlWark to
the law, now as then. The agency sys-
tenn is right; to dispense with it is to say
that we don't need tive can get all the
rum we want without it. The trou-
BILE is that while the liquor agency,
itself has always cut considerable fig
ure in politics, the law has been shame
fully prostituted to party advantage, to
party expediency and, not infreqnently,
to corporation interests.
The time seems to have come in the
history of the agency, when, after having
run checkered career as combination
medicine and INN shop tits being stripped
of its last rags of responsibility, and has
become so much of low-doWn saloon,
that respectable people are ashamed to
be seen entering it, to touch elbows with
crowd Of drunken Ioafers and pocket
peddlers.s
rIti is time something was done-some-
thing more Important to the community
than the election of city officers.
We know where the responsibility lies,
and that it is not with the ency-system.
a for erclerk at the agency said the other
day:-''The agency could be run all right
if the authorities would say the word
the agent and clerks would do as they
were instructed to do by the authori-
ties"
Well. its quite an income-this $35, 900
this $50, 900 or 100000 to boom party
and keep men in office but what becomes
of the income if the agency is shut up?
and that is all the opponents of the
agency are aiming at. They are simply
doing all in their power to disgrace it
and make it utterly disreputable, as
means to this end. They want free rum;
that is, license; it will pay larger
revenue, for campaign and general party
purposes, and prohibition, and all that
it implies may go straight to the ID,
they say. What people accept as the
popular will is started by just such a
class, OF clique, as this who have per-
sonal interests at stake, and have figured
out the results of certain lines of action,
which the public fail to see ahead. In
fact the public is too lazy to do much
I thinking-it is easier to get it second
hand. It's power of absorption is some
thing immense, and it swallows errone-
Gus ideas about as freely as correct ones,
especially if it bears the popular brand
| and seal.
| What we want is a clean agency, run
by clean men, for the purpose for Which
it was established. We can have it.
y. U.