Ellsworth American. [volume] (Ellsworth, Me.) 1855-current, 1906-04-04
Gorrfsponornef.
Resubmission.
BOSTON, Feb. II, 1905.

notice, through the columns OF your
esteemed paper, that the political at
mosphere OF Hancock county is again
clouded by the ever-recurring question OF
resubmission. / do not wish to pass
Judgment upon the wisdom of such
move, nor to say whether, to my mind,
unenfor.ed prohibitory laws are better
than open license. That is question that
should be pondered carefully. But
simply wish to point out few obvious
distinctions between the two systems in
practice, as seen from the standpoint of
one who has lived under both conditions,
without having had occasion to look be-
low the surface of either.
Were it not for the absolute knowledge
that one possesses OF the existence OF the
liquor traffic behind every blind entrance
TO an inner room to be seen through
tenantless window along street, he
might pass day after day through the prin-
cipal avenues of a city or village in Maine,
and never once be reminded of the traffic
that blots out the manhood OF its par
Elephants, unless it were by the occasional
spectacle of a bleared-eyed wretch reel
ing along the sidewalk to carry nameless
misery into the helpless lives at home.
One sees that deplorable spectacle even
in prohibitory Maine, but it is only
mere suggestion of what confronts you on
every hand in land Of license. To one
who has not grown callous to such scenes,
the depths of human degradation ana the
multitudes of faces upon whose brow the
mark of damning passion is branded, that
may be encountered at any period of we'll
nigh night or day in the slums OF Bos-
ton, leave an ineffsceable impress upon his
mind. The heart sickens at the idea of
brotherhood with such revolving Great
ures, and one finds himself inwardly ex-
claiming, "My God, can these creatures be
human!"
But look around you for the cause, and
you wont have far to look. Everywhere,
on every side. rumshops; blazing with
light, generously bedecked with signs and
awnings, potted plants in the windows
and long lines Of men inside, standing
elbow-to-elbow before a polished bar,
waiting to be served. Multitudes are
passing in and out, and opposite the bar q
stree lunch" is spread, salt ham and
pickles and crackers and cheese, each man
for himself, filling up on fuel to intensity
his thirst. This is typical rumshop in
the land of high licensed And they are
of thousand grades of attractiveness,
ranging from the marble-furnished hotel
bar to the gaudily decorated rumshop of
the slums.
But there is another feature that cannot
go unnoted, for the same thing holds true
with every bar-room from the least to the
greatest. In every instance when the
rum shop has done what it can, for this
time, to besott it's votaries, the inevitable
appendages of the rum-shop the human
vampires that hover around the entrance,
with the watchfulness of birds Of prey
stand ready for their share of the hellish
work. Females, whom to call women
were blasphemy, lead off, whenever posi-
BILE, the passion-crazed victim to some
infamous resort.
This is the liquor traffic, as piled in
Puritanical Boston! This is the inspir-
ing vision that prompts those who know
what they are doing to fight for re-sub-
mission-for those who really know are
the rum-sellers themselves!
Have 1 overdrawn the picture of
the open rum shop? Come to
Boston, where high license sits enthroned,
We who doubt, and observe for yourself,
late of an evening in the slums, and you
will see as any observing man must see,
that have not painted it with one thous-
andth part of its blackness, nor is it posi-
BILE for any pen to depict the actual con-
ditions. Look the facts squarely in the
face for yourself; study them thought
fully, and then go back to Maine and
thank your lucky stars that you live in
State of Prohibition, even though that
prohibition does not prohibit.
To my mind the chief value of prohib-
ition is the setting of the ban of the law
upon the rum-seller and his wares. At
present, in the proud old State of Maine,
he has to ply his devilish trade behind
closed doors and hidden from the eyes Of
the innocent. The children on the street
are not exposed to the blighting and de-
basing influences of the constant presence
of the open rum-shop and its appendages.
Those same children, when they reach
young manhood, are not subjected to the
temptations and the alluring glamor of
the bar-room, where one sees the thirsty
majority of his fellow citizens passing in
and out and is himself invited and scoffed
at Thousand times by his companions if
he does not do likewise. Oh no; in Maine
the young man has to take long step
down to his first glass, and sneak into a
back door or somebody's wood-shed to
get it.
Just another word. The old drinkers
will drink any way, prohition or no pro-
hibition. But they will die of, bye and
bye, and sooner than they expect. Then,
if the rising generation can be kept from
drink, temperance will lift the latch and
come in of itself, without being sought
after by Sturgis commission.
But, as said at the beginning, l will