The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1900-06-04
PROHIBITION IN MAINE.
No Effort to Restrict Sale of Liquor
In the Cities.
From the New York Tribune.

From the New York Tribune.
George @. Deering of Bangor Me-, in
speaking of prohibition in that state, said
yesterday. at the Murray Hill Hotel: "Sev-
eral people have spoken to me recently
of an order issued by the Mayor of one
of our cities regulating the sale of beer.
They wanted to know how on earth, in
a state in which prohibition was supposed
to prohibit, mayor of a city had any
thing to do with beer or how beer could
be sold except sub rosa. Prohibition,
mainly through the efforts of Neal Dow,
was originally made a. law with us. but
many of the inhabitants then, as now,
were not in favor of it, particularly in the
cities. AS a matter of fact, the liquor
traffic was never suppressed in towns of
over 5000 habitants, and in our larger
cities there was little or no pretense that
IL was, and the sale has always been car
ried on with comparative openness. In
towns of less than 5000. where the busi-
ness of every man was known to every
one else, it was suppressed and probably
prohibition worked some good there. 1t
has always seemed to me a question of
local option. In the first year after the
law was passed, strong efforts were made
all over the state to suppress the sale of
intoxicating liquors. Police raids were
frequent, and the liquor discovered by
those raids was invariably destroyed. But
the thirst of the people would not be de-
MED, and the watchfulness of the guard
ians of the law gradually relaxed"
First the drug stores took to selling
it to men whom they could trust, and
awful stuff 1t was that they peddled out
Then bars in the larger cities were run
with scarcely any attempt at conceal
ment, and finally compromise was eff
fected little by little between the vendors
of liquid refreshments and the authorities
whereby the former agreeing to sell moth
ing stronger than beer and ale, the latter
agreed not to prosecute them and to take
no notice of their. trade. This has been
found to work fairly successfully, and
every one seems contented. But there is
another side to the Question and an i'm
portant one. AS ii is, the prohibition law
annually costs the state a large sum of
money You cannot suppress the use of
liquor any more than You can suppress
lot of other things which you are taught
are evil. But while you cannot suppress
you can regulate, and by the license sys-
tenn you can keep the thing within bounds
In many places in Maine 1t being impossi-
BILE legally to license or tax the saloons
the keepers thereof are hauled up once in
SO often, plead guilty and are fined so
much, which money goes into the treas
ury of the city. But the state cannot do
this, and consequently gets nothing. If
a man wants to take a drink, you can't
prevent him, and 1t is foolish to try but
by the license system he can be made to
pay for pandering to this fso-called baser
appetite, and The money so gathered could
be used to lessen the burden on the PEG
pie: or it could be used to improve the
school system. to insure better roads, or
in thousand and one different ways, to
the gain of the community at large. Per-
sonally, 1 am opposed to prohibition, and
would like to see it given up in favor of
the license system ii