The Newport miner. [volume] (Newport, Wash.) 1899-current, 1909-08-26


Now let us turn for a moment to our
old friend, the state Of Maine. That
prohibition has been failure and a
farce in that state is a matter Of COM
mon knowledge. No one who is not a
blind partisan will deny this. Four
years ago, Governor Cobb, sincere
prohibitionist and an honest, outspoken
man, declared, in his inaugural ad-
dress, that the state ought to be
ashamed of itself to have prohibitory
law on it's books and to make that law
a laughing stock of the nation. And
he insisted that, as a matter of COM
mon honesty, the law ought to be
either enforced or repealed. Recorder
Whelden, of Portland, recently made
this statement: "There are at least
400 men and women who are brought
before this court time and again for
intoxication.' Think Of it, four hun
bred habituals in city from which
the liquor traffic is supposed to have
been banished sixty years ago! Dur
ing four years, UP to January 1, 1907,
in Portland, liquors were seized ON IS
streets and alleys and at AS different
places; and 832 different persons were
brought into court for violation of the
liquor law.
The report of the Committee. of
Fifty, based on a most thorough and
extensive investigation Of conditions
in Maine, tells the whole story Of the
miserable failure of prohibition through
out the whole state. Every one that
has travelled through Maine knows that
there is not town in the state where
even a stranger, if he take the trouble
to make inquiry, cannot get all the
liquor he wishes, such as it is. And
in many places the stranger is waited
on by some considerate person who
asks him whether he would not like
"something.' The statistics relating
to arrests for drunkenness and deaths
from alcoholism in Maine all tell the
same tale They spell the word failure.
In response to the loud clamorings
of the Anti-Saloon league, the legisla-
ture Of Georgia enacted prohibitory
law a couple of years ago. The act
went into effect January /, 1908. For
short time, the new law seemed to
have a good effect. Judging from sur
face indications, it looked as if pro-
hibition might at last break it's long
record of failure and actually stop the
sale Of liquor. But, again, it was all
dream, and very short dream, too.
The drinkers adjusted themselves to
the "dry' system, and were soon
hobnobbing as openly and boldly as
ever with the old Demon Conditions
kept going from bad to worse, and be-
fore the law had been on the statute
books year, it was clearly evident
to everybody that had even half an
eye that prohibition in Georgia had
broken down.
Here is the testimony of two of the
prohibition leaders themselves. Rev.
DR.. Holderby, of Atlanta, an ardent
prohibitionist, said last winter: 1.-THE
legislature is afraid to stand by the
very law which it enacted twelve
months ago. Atlanta has become a
laughing stock and a stencil in the
nostrils Of the Almighty This con-
fession must have been very humiliat-
ing to the good parson, as he had been
telling his people right along that he
knew it to be a fact that the Almighty
was on the side of prohibition. AS
sistant Richards, Of the Anti-Saloon
league, utters this wall: "'Beer is sold
here right and left, and [ know it.
You can get whisky, too; for. what
does it mean when twenty-seven car
loads of beer and whisky are shipped
here?" Well, Brother Richards, it
means, in the first place, that there
are a good many thirsty people in At
lanta, and in the second place, that
your prohibitory law is humbug.
Other leading prohibitionists speak in
the same strain as the two just quoted.
Conditions in Atlanta are a sample of
those that obtain all over the state.
Just word about prohibition under
the Local Option system. The writer
is very familiar with the working of
prohibition in number of the towns
on the east end of Long Island, and
from his own observation during the
last seven years he can testify to the
fact that in every one of these 'dry"
towns, prohibition has been a disgust
ing farce every time it has been tried.
In the writer own town the record
Of prohibition may be summed up in
the admission of the local Anti-Saloon
leader, that "anybody can get all the
liquor he wants in this town under
either license or no-icense.' That
no-license has failed to accomplish any
good on Long Island, may be inferred
from the fact that at tho a1actionu