The Republican journal., 1897-10-28
Credited to Prohibition.


Outside the State of Maine we are far
more likely to hear of the defects in its
famous prohibitory law and of the mock
cry of it's enforcement in certain sections
than of anything creditable to its working
except from some partisan, as Ignorant OF
the facts Of its operation as are its detract-
ors.
A majority of the people of Maine are
evidently satisfied with the law, though
it may be claimed that part of this COM
placency is due to the fact that such citi-
zens as want liquor can get it for all the
law. However this may be, the statute of
1851 was made into a constitutional
amendment thirty-three years afterward
in 1888, by an overwhelming vote, and
only four years ago an attempt to enter
wedge to kill constitutional prohibition
met with ridiculous failure.
So much for the matter of public con-
tent with the law in the communities af-
fected by it. AS to its success in restrain
ing the liquor traffic, there is equally no
question if the facts are faced. There
were 35 distilleries in Maine in 1851 and
there is none to-day, while the liquor
struggled in is reckoned to be not one
one hundredth of the amount that was
available within the borders forty six
years ago, for all the largely increased
population. The State of Maine, too, it
pointed out, was the poorest common
wealth in the Union in 1851, while to- day
the savings banks of Maine are more nu-
merous in proportion to population than
probably any other State in the country,
and the deposits represent per capita
saving undoubtedly greater than any
other State can show.
Whether it is good thing for State to
be without any brewing industries, and
whether the savings banks figures can be
credited to prohibition are questions open
to argument. But these are the facts and
the folk down in Maine seem to have a
right to thrust the burden of proving that
on somebody else.
To the unprecedented observer, indeed,
it appears as clear that Maine likes its law
and has reason to like it, however the pee-
pie of other States may be disposed to re-
ject similar law as Rhode Island did
after a hasty and sorry experiment.
Providence News.
Coming as this does from an outside
source and one that is plainly not over
friendly to the plan of prohibition, this
article from the Providence News is de-
cidedly refreshing. 1t has come to be the
fashion with many editors to misrepre-
sent the results of prohibition and some
of them go on record in such a way that
it is evident to the most casual observer
that they do not know what they are
talking about. Legislative prohibition
has done a great work for Maine. The
facts as stated by the News prove this.
There are no distilleries, and such liquor
as is sold is struggled into the State and
sold for the most part with the greatest
stealth. During the business hours of
the day teams engaged in the transporta-
ton of the contraband stuff are never
seen upon the streets of the most lax
cities within the State. In Portland,
about which so much talk is made in
many Massachusetts papers, the citizen
who desires to see evidences of the liquor
traffic must search for them. He must
rise betimes if he would see the teams
bearing the liquor to, the retail shops, and
he must know where to go if he would
buy contrary to law. Outside of the
cities of the State the sale of liquor is al
most unknown. The youth of the present
generation of Maine are coming up train
ed to look upon the use of liquor as a
beverage as ignoble and unmanly and the
traffic in it as disgraceful in the extreme.
That this traffic is rot blotted out alto
gether does not initiate against the wis
dom of the law as a State policy any more
than the fact that the laws against muir
der, burglary, incendiarism and kindred
crimes do not prohibit their commission
is an argument that such laws should be
taken from the statute books.
The people of the State do believe in
the law. They made it part of the con-
stitution, and woe would be the portion
of the party which should attempt to re-
place it by any of the less severe systems
OF restriction for which the advocates of
free rum are always arguing. In Maine
they plead for the Massachusetts system;
in Massachusetts they claim that the
local option system is failure and want
even such restrictions as are there impos-
ed removed. The time will never come
when the people of Maine will recede
from their high position on this great
question. They look to see their views
adopted by other States, and they will yet
demand of their servants that the law in
Maine be executed much better than is
being done at the present time. Port
land Evening Express.