The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1895-11-25
PORTLAND MORNING
A BETTER BIDDEFORD
Is what the Enforcement League Is
Aiming At.
Another Meeting in saco Last Night which
was Addressed by Numerous Men
rominent In the Leag ues Work.
ESPECIAL TO THE PREss.1

| ESPECIAL TO THE PREss.]
oaco' November a. The Enforcement
Ao"se urew another large audience this
nieernoon, at its temperance mass meet
lng' held in City hall. Rev. j. L. Marsh,
PASTOR OF the Saco Unitarian church, pre-
sioeo, and most of the other local clergy
| men were present
| new topic to which all of the
| speakers made some reference is the boy
coub OF league members which the liquor
dealers and their sympathizers are work
Ing. Several local business men whose
names We're recently published in the list
Oh league members have had chance to
size up the influence of the liquor senti-
ment through the discontinu ance of
patronage of some of their former
customers. Among these are Edmund
Garland, Saco grocer, and Joseph New
comb, Biddeforo provision dealer. The
latest victim of the boycott is Howard
henderson, young man who TWO weeks
ago began work as messenger for Tar
6ox.s Portland and Biddeford Express.
ne Is a member of the league, though
i .-o' ''AA esoulfo III ltS CIuoehoo.
1 he was obliged to give up his job, yester-
aay, because the proprietor of the express
had received word that some of his
patronage would be withdrawn if Fender
son was retained in his employ
Rev. II. f. Frohock, pastor of the
B1dddeford Methodist church, made the
most pointed reference to the boycott. He
said heshas made it point to buy his
meat OF Joseph Newoomb since he learned
that some Of the Biddeford restaurant
keepers who have been shut off from
liquor selling had ceased getting their
provisions at Newoomb's store. He ur ged
the league sympathizers to stand up and
be counted on the side of right and to do
Whist they could to offset the liquor sellers
| boycott.
asJohn P. Kelly, the Biddeford machinist
whose name has come into local promi-
nence by reason of his leadership of the
spotter movement, and his swearing out
/ of warrants against score or more of
| alleged violators of the law, talked in
Irefutation of the argument that some
people and newspapers have advanced
against the prohibition sentiment. From
a note book he read statistics copied from
/ the internal revenue records, showing the
comparative number of holders Of the
special government Liquor tax certi]-
Gates According to his figures, there are
1855 shops in Maine whose proprietors
have paid the revenue liquor tax, but SO
towns have only one liquor shop each,
and in 800 towns no liquors are sold
| Mr.. Kelly said the enforcement League
| is here to stay, and he solicited the
| sympathy and finncial aid of its friends
In making it's work successful.
Edwin Stone, ESQ.,, ex-city solicitor of
Biddeford, spoke with earnestness and
interestsof the temperance situation in
York county, especially with reference to
| Biddeferd and Saco. He gave the enforce
I ment League credit for doing O. much
needed and much appreciated work He
4 declared that prior to the leagues crusade
there were open bars in Biddeford and
Saco, new bars being opened, new build
ings erected, and old stores elegantly
/ fitted up for the very purpose of being
run as rum shops. The three hundred
graduates of institutions for the cure of
the liquor habit were outnumbered by
A the new candidates for those cures.
4 \ He accused the deputy sheriffs of dis
playing more zeal in the prosecution OF
violators of the game laws and short
lobster law than in enforcing the liouo,
law and bringing it's disrespectors to
justice. He declared that the officers
attempts at making seizures have been
spasmOdic, and usually the liquor dealers
somehow learned about forty eight hours
in advance that the officers were to pay
them visit. "Some of them,'' he con
tinued, could smell rum shop twenty
miles away, and would go there and
make a seizure, while these Same officers
would stride up and down our streets, day
after day, month after month and yeal
after year, with rum shops in front d
them, 1um shops behind them, rum shops
to the left of them and rum shops to thf
right of them, and vet they would moi
raise hand to bring these violators o1
the law toj justice.
Lawyer Stone gave some information
about secret organization of local LIQUOR
sellers whose members have signed
articles of agreement, have a code of by.
laws, and an executive committee whose
duty it is to confer with the authorities
to protect association members from
prosecution.