The Republican journal. [volume] (Belfast, Me.) 1829-current, 1897-05-06
Barley Raising in Aroostook.

One OF the things that the ArOOStOok |
farmer is possessed of, much to his credit
and the enhancement of his good standing
and responsibility, is a strong sentiment
on the side of temperance. The farming
neighborhoods OF Aroostook have been
developed into prosperous communities
by the industrious tillage of fertile soil
and because Of the further fact that the
industry has paid very small tribute to
the demoralizing and thrift destroying
habit of intemperance. Some few local
tiles, to be sure, can be pointed out that
are exceptions to this rule, neighborhoods
where the habits of the population are
and have been inclined to intemperance,
but such neighborhoods bear the plain
impress of the evil they have nourished
in their prevailing poverty, unthrift and
ignorance.
In he midstof the great body of clean,
soberly Industrious and prosperous peo-
pie representing Aroostook's farming
population such localities as we speak of
| are isolated and shut up within them
selves. They gain nothing from within
as the products of any worthy aims and
we'll directed efforts of their own toward
improvement, and they gain nothing
| from without by new corners who bring
good habits or material possessions of
thrift, because all good citizens naturally
avoid such localities, and seek homes n
more congenial and favorable neighbor-
hoods. Such localities are few in num-
ber of small extent, and their people are
but a trit1ing percentage of the whole
population of our county. They only serve
to bring out more sharply by contrast the
great fact of the general sobriety and
| thrift of farmnU nnnnlatiop and 10
illustrate the value, Importance and de-
STABILITY of having an underlying bedrock
of good moral sentiment under any com
munity in order to make it prosperous,
attractive and progressive.
| 1t is we'll enough to preface with 4 state
ment of the foregoing facts the discussion
of the question which has rec utly arisen
in our county growing out of PROPOSE
ton to introduce barley raising i'll Aroos-
| took County as a source OF supply for the
extensive beer brewing industry Of Hon
Frank Jones, OF New Hampshire. To the
mind of the layman, 50 to speak, in the
line of commercial morals, this proposition
might seem to be exclusively one of mere
| practical business, to be weighed in the
scale of the probable chances of profit it
offers our farmers in comparison with
other branches. The proposition has,
tNCl. tiilllCtt q SlIOIE AtIil Ht1 any
protest, emanating not from the churches.
or the w. G. I. u, but from a rep
resentative body of the farmers OF ARGOS
took themselves, namely, one Of the
subordinate Oranges of the County, which
! has passed resolutions denouncng the
project as an encouragement Of traffic
detrimental to public morals, and pro
sclibed by the laws of the State.
The protest is a natural enough express
| sion of the sentiment entertained by the
majority of Aroostcok farmers in regard
to temperance, and is entitled to respect
If they see tit to act in accordance there
with and refuse to engage in what prom
Uses them profit at what they conceive
to be sacrifice of principle, while it
may seem to others to be straining point
of morals needlessly far, no one has a
right to censure whatmay seem to be I'M
due tenderness of conscience.
1t cond not be said but that Aroostook
was acting consistently with the moral
claims of the State, with the spirit and
intent of it's laws, and was setting no exam
pie damaging to law and good morals in
the pursuit of branch of industry which
is outlawed by the laws of our own com
monwealth. The difficulty about it is
that the proposition of Mr.. Jones has a
| blunt directness and an openness of pur-
pose about it that gives it harmful posi-
bilities.
If barley raifing was carried on in
Aroostook without special contract, as
an initial step to industry, to supply New
Hampshire brewery with the means of
more or less mischief, and the crop simply
went into the market and was absorbed by
Mr.. Jones in the way of trade and sub
sequently in liquid form by his customers,
it would be all right There would be no
violence done in such case to Maine tenn
perance sentiment no concession to the
assumed lower moral standard of another
State, no infraction of the spirit of our
laws, nothing that tended to impair in
the eyes of our own or other people the
value and Importance of a principle which
Maine has written in its constitution and
encr fitted in a whole volume of different
statutes. But as it is, it is hard to argue
out of sight the logic and consistency of
the protest made by the Changers. Pres
que Isle Star Herald.