Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1894-03-08
Average Monthly Expenses
1928 1884
Republican Democratic
S8,937.71. S9,ss1.43.
4 Disgrace 10 the City.

The city run shop is disgrace TO
augusta. Its e, il influence branches out
into every ward in the city.
The JOURNAL has net. during this cam
p1ign, INDUCED in personalities. 1t doe'
not believe that all personal integrity and
me,i. is confined to any one political party
It has not intimated that the city govern
ment which came into power last spring
was resolved upon looting the city, but it
has and will, as it is its du'y to do, hold up to
public view the official acts of that city gov
trnment, whether they were done through
incompetency, desire for continued PARTISAN
control or from any weakness for popular
.iy which must inc, itably accompany a
strong desire to please ever, body. A eyes,
yes policy while it renders the man
pleasant acquaintance. generally sp'aking'
may and is likely to become grave fault
in tn 1t man as public officer when the
path of duty is beset with diff :ulties from
friend and foe.
The city rum shop is disgrace to the
ti'y. 1t is disgrace to which the people
of Augusta 90 not take kindly. 1t is dis
grace that has been Haunted in the faces OF
the people of this city every day for the
past two weeks. 1t i, common talk that
there has not in years, if ever, been such
carnival of drunkel ness, prior to politi al
election. Men who had taken liquor
cure through the efforts of charity and the
sell sacrificing devotions of friends and rel
atives and who have been respectable citi-
zens for months have been swept il to this
maelstrom of drunkenness incident to the
giving out Of free rum for poll ical pnr-
poses. Furthermore it is comm on talk that
this free rum campaign was inauyurated
by the Democrats at least tTo weeks
ago ard that the city rum shop as the
base of suI plies has been prolific source
and has served to make easy this vil'ainous
debauching of the manhood as we'll IS the
suffrage Of many people. 1t isa well known
fat that the very men who suffer from this
will any will not expose it and that it is next
to impossible to get proofs of what every
one firmly believes because the ciEcum'tan-
tial evidence is SO spparent. Men, young
men who have just attained their voting age
20 along the streets, congregate On the cor
rers, huddle in the alley ways all more or
less under the influence of liquor, freely
pas sing from one to another half pint and
pint bottles of liquor " hich common report
says came in majority of cases from the
city rum shop.
Mayor Leighton must know these things.
He was very much interested in the estab-
fishing CT the city rum shop. In the light
of events it is quite generally believed that
a purpose of those who advocated and car
ried through the project was to have an in-
strument for corrupting the suffrage at the
next municipal election. Certainly IL
,ras not established to promote tenn
perance. But granting that their skirts
are clean of such smirch and it is
no desire of the Journal to smirs b,
let US assume that the agency was estab-
li.hed for the partisan purpose of furnish
ing revenue with which the city govern
ment might keep within hailing distance
of the financial task it had set for it
self. Assuming even that, we cannot
regard these officials as guiltless of the
ork, the results of this city rum shop.
What is needed is backbone to brace up
the moral fibre of those who are re-
sponsible. Is not Mayor Leighton
! in position to at least check this glarirg
wrong? Has his chill grown so strong that
he has no influence with il? Genial man
that he is, as may or of the city of Augusts
has he no duty in this respect? Will he
say that he hasn't and expect the people OF
this city t, believe with the New Age that
, st, lose him as an official would be pub
lie MISFORTUNE