Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1910-08-26

Colonel Plaisted would drop all ma
tional issues, like so many hot pota-
toes, and get back to the good old
Democratic doctrine of State rights and
State sOvereignty-the same doctrine
for which Jeff Davis and Toombs and
Beaureguard turned traitors to the
flag, the same doctrine for which John
c. Calhoun commended SO forcibly that
his fellow Democrat, Andrew Jackson
threatened to hang him-the doctrine
which believes that he who cannot rule
must strive to ruin, the reasonable
doctrine that would make heroic OLD
Governor Harris NJ. Plaisted turn in
his grave should he hear it limited.
No need of debating national issues
indeed! Maine has no interest in
the manner of electing United States
senators, or in choosing members Of
the national house of Representatives.
The federal government cam conduct
itself, if you will choose Plaisted III,
Governor of Maine, for whenever any
law enacted by Congress interferes
with Plaisted II, Maine Democrats will
nullify federal laws, just the way
Maine Democrats have nullified Maine
local laws, and with the State ma
chnery in control of the State Democ-
racy, nothing else matters. If South
Carolina could rebel and go out of the
Union under Lincoln, Maine can do the
same thing under Taft. By all means
let national issues be dropped, and let
us devote all our energies to villifying
Maine roads, Maine schools, Maine hos
pitfalls, and let every unfortunate per-
son in Maine who is entirely unable to
defend himself go hang. Let Maine
drift back to the good old days when
insane mothers were chained in iron
cages in the cellar, when a barrel of
new rum was horsed up by the side of
every hogshead of molasses in the
country grocery store, when brutal
murder was the result of free rum,
when the average duration of human
life in Maine was ten years shorter
than it is now, and when in city and
town the upkeep and maintenance of
city and town paupers was bid off at
public auction. just the way human
slaves were in good old Virginia
Good old Maine, fOrsooth!
One reads much in Maine Democratic
newspapers of late-and nowhere else
about the hardships the Boston drum
mers are forced to endure. who visit
Maine and put up at Maine hotels
without being able to get "a sup or n
bite" of liquor anywhere in Maine
This sad condition of affairs was re-
vealed in a vision. as it We're. to a re-
porter for Bangor paper. who pro-
claimed as solemn fact that the Maine
retail houses were going short of SAL
able goods. because the Boston drum
roorS conld not roach them on account
of the liquor shortage at all the Maine
hotels. The conclusion came down to
this when put in the form of a syl-
lOgism:
Major premiss: Maine hotels are all
gone dry.
Conclusion: Boston drummers can no
longer sell goods.
It is a most serious misfortune that
the wise reporter failed to learn the
names of the drummers who have
suffered so seriously. or the names of
the houses which they represented. It
is equivalent to cruelty to animals for
any drummer to endure so much. One
would think that these wide-awake
gentlemen with the unquenchable
thirst might have dubbed together and
wired their several houses-privately
of cOurSe-and stated the deplOrabic
condition they were in. and made d |
joint appeal for more liquor and better
liquor, and wound up with the final
mo boOZe--no work"
If these gallant knights of perennial
thirst will prepare and sign a petition
to their employers. and will state the
kind of liquor they want, and the
they must have every day. be-
fore they can do any work at all. all
the Maine newspapers will publish
their full names and the names of
their employers. thus securing a large
amount of free advertising as advO-
Gates of breaking the laws of Maine.
Names are always more convenient
than pseudonyms, and when newspa-
pers devote pages to hints and vague
charges and not a single paragraph to
fact, it is tim eto come down to cases. |
on a four flush may amuse |
children but it becomes tiresome to
grown men.