Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1907-03-08
The Evidence.

! How do you know the people are OPP
posed to removal and satisfied TO lei
| the capital stay where it is? All the
| evidence you have on which to base
such a statement is limited number
of letters and remanstrances.-Port
| land Press.
Our Portland contemporary asks the
Journal for information and we will
attempt. in our feeble way, to respond
to the request. Our feeling that the
people of Maine are opposed to capital
removal and that they are satisfied to
let the capital stay where it is. is
based. in part at least, upon the hum
dreds of letters of protest and signed
remonstrances against removal which
have poured in upon the Legislature
from every section of the State; and
also on the fact that very few petitions
in favor of removal have been received,
practically all of these latter being
from the city Of Portland itself.
Up to the present time, no fewer
than $50 remonstrances signed by 49,
543 citizens of Maine, have been pre-
scented to the Legislature against
capital removal. During the session
on the very day that the editor of the
Press was writing the lines quoted
above. no fewer than % such remon-
strances. bearing 1920 signatures, We're
presented to the Legislature and these
same from 10 different counties of the
State.
Do not these 10000 remonstrants, re-
presenting every county of the State,
hundreds of them in fact living in
Cumberland county itself, show how
general and emphatic is the sentiment
against capital removal? Then add to
these remonstrances the 900 emphatic
letters of protest received by the
Journal from the selectmen and prom-
nent citizens of almost every town in
the State, outside of Cumberland and
Kennebec counties, voicing not only
the sentiments of the writer's but also
the sentiments of the communities for
which these men were particularly well
qualified to speak.
What do we find on the other side?
A relatively few petitions signed by a
few thousand people, almost all of
the most, there are not over 5000 petit
TONERS for capital removal. of whom
practically all come from Cumberland
county to be set against the 10000
signcrs of these circumstances and the
900 town officials and prominent men
who have written letters of protest
published in the Journal. these letters
and remonstrances, be it remembered,
coming from every county and almost
every town in the State.
If the number of these letters and
remonStranceS is Limited" as the
Press states, what is to be said of the
petitions in favor of removal? The
evidence that the people are opposed to
capital removal may not be salts
factory to the Press, but it certainly is
to US and we are confident that it Will
be to the Maine Legislature. If more
evidence is needed than is supplied by
these 10000 remOnstrances and 900
letters or protest, perhaps the Press
will find il in the editorial utteranceS
of 80 or more of the leading daily and
weekly newspapers in every section of
the State and in the absence Of any
newspaper expressions outside of Port
land favoring removal.
The Press and the other Portland
papers cannot blind the people, in fact
they cannot blind themselves, to the
fact that this capital removal move
ment is a case of Portland on one side
and the whole State of Maine on the
| other. 1t is Il business proposition for
Portland to get the capital if it can;
| it is business proposition for Maine
| to keep the capital where it is.