The Republican journal. [volume] (Belfast, Me.) 1829-current, 1911-09-07
DEMOCRATIC INCONSISTENCY.

The anti-prohibition newspapers and
orators are doing their best to befog the
issue now before the people Of Maine by
assuring us that the repeal of the pro-
hibitory amendment to the constitution
does not repeal the prohibitory law; that
it simply restores the rule of the peo-
ple"; that Maine had prohibitory laws
for nearly forty years before the pro-
hibitory amendment was adopted; that
all laws passed by the legislature to pre-
vent the sale of liquor will be in force
after the repeal of the amendment
This line of argument is gratuitous in
suit to the intelligence of the average
voter. Everybody who has mental abil-
ity sufficient to comprehend the fact that
two and two make four knows that for
years the Democratic party of Maine, on
the issue of control of the liquor traffic,
has stood for some form of license. No
form of license can be legally adopted so
long as the prohibitory amendment re-
mains part Of the constitution, and be-
cause of this fact the question of result
mission was the main issue in the last
State campaign; the Democrats won,
and Democratic legislature put it up
to the people to repeal or retain the pro-
hibitory amendment. The voters knew
what the Democrats were trying to do,
and they are now facing the conse-
quences of a Democratic victory.
Some few of the Democratic leaders
have come out in the open and frankly
admitted that resubmission was merely
the first step in campaign for the adop-
ton of local option license law, but the
majority of them have masked their
guns behind the plea that prohibition did
not prohibit and that, therefore, in the
interest of honesty and truth some
change was necessary. Passing from
generaities to particulars, it has been
charged that prohibition did not prohibit,
not because there was not law enough,
but because the party SO long in power
had manipulated the law, as factor in
the game of State politics, for its own
selfish ends, and we were assured that
whenever the Democrats came into
power they would show the people what
real enforcement was like. The Demo-
Gratis nave been in full control since the
first of last January, and if there was
ever another period of eight months in
the last half century when the laws af-
fecting the traffic in liquor were held IN
so nearly complete official contempt his
tory and the memory of careful observ-
ers fail to record the fact At no time
since the passage of Names first liquor
law has the traffic in liquor been sub
jected to so little official restriction as
since the Democratic party came into
power as the result of last September's
overthrow. And the voters of Maine are
seriously asked to take this record of the
party as an earnest of what it will do in
the way Of honest, impartial enforce
ment of the law when the prohibitory
amendment has been repealed.
The Journal knows of no good reason
why that amendment should be repealed
there are many reasons why it should be
retained. The lack of restraint upon the
liquor traffic, of which honest people
complain, and which the Democratic
leaders are hypocritically emphasizing
as their reason for trying to bring about
a change, is not the fault of the law, but
of those who are charged with the laws
enforcement. The Democratic appeal to
the people to assert their rights and vote
to let. every city and town decide for
itself how the liquor traffic shall be reg
ulated would be more effective if, by
any stretch of the Imagination, control
of the traffic could be made a purely
local issue. There are in Maine many
honest people who are thoroughly dis
gusted with the way Names liquor laws
have been held in official contempt in
recent years, but that disgust should not
be mistaken for a reason for jumping
out of the frying-pan into the fire, for
prohibitory law even poorly enforced is
better than the best license law that has
ever been put in operation. -Biddeford
Journal.