The Republican journal. [volume] (Belfast, Me.) 1829-current, 1911-08-17
OLD TINES IN BELFAST.
How Rum was Sold Here so or More
Years AGO.

How Rum was Sold Here SO or More
Years Ago.
To THE EDITOR OF THE JOURNAL: l
have just been reading what Zenas
Thompson says in favor of prohibition,
and wish to endorse every word he said
in The Journal of July Goth. /, too,
have seen the people of the State of
Maine living under cloud of poverty
and wretchedness, brought upon them
by the use of intoxicating liquors, be-
come prosperous, with pleasant homes
and families, under prohibition. Some
men say to me that there is more liquor
drank in Belfast today than there was
before they had prohibition; but re-
member that over fifty gears ago, when
was sixteen or eighteen years old,
was clerk in grocery store in Belfast
where we had all kinds of liquors, as did
many other stores, and there were very
few bills Of groceries sold without more
or less liquors with them. After | had
been there a short time they opened a
bar in one end of the store, and such a
time as had with DRINKS. In my mind
can now see an unfinished room in the
back of the store, where, when they
were drunk enough to lie down we would
put them to sleep it off, and there was
one or more in that room good part of
the time.
| Talk about more liquor being sold now
than before prohibition! Why, l can
safely say that there was more sold in
that one store than there is now in the
whole city of Belfast. | soon saw
enough of it and left my job. l have
since lived under all kinds of liquor laws,
and | wish to say to the voters of the
! State of Maine, that you will make nc
mistake if you vote for prohibition and
help save your boys and young mer
from the curse of legalized rum shops.
F. r. DAGGETT.
Los Angeles, Calf, August 3, 1911.
| w. H. Clark writes from Salinas City,
/ California, to the lndependentReporter,
Skowhegan, as follows: Il am way off
here in California, three thousand miles
f., from Maine, and might perhaps be ex-
cused from having any interest in the
laws of Maine; but | am sure there is
| not temperance man in all our land
! hn &c, inf tnH in ~
stick to her prohibition of the liquor
| traffic. 1t would be fearful discourage
ment to all temperance workers if Maine
should let down the bars in favor of high
! license, or any other regulation short of
absolute prohibition. This is small
! town of about four thousand people, and
we have a licensed drinking place for
about each one hundred Of our popula-
ton. 1t is not surprising that with such
a host of liquor dealers, they control our
politics, our town and our county. We
have three daily papers, but not one Of
them dare make any criticism of the law
defying saloons. We have made des-
perate struggles to overcome the whis-
kew power, but have had little success.
We are earnestly seeking for good peo-
pie to come into our neighborhood anc
settle. but such people avoid this place
as though we had the plague; they say
YOU clean up and then we will settle with
YOU; but we can't clean up without help,
and the fact that State like Maine has
found her prohibitcry law good and still
stands by it is a great help to all such
struggling places as ours.'
| William w. Clark of Spokane, Wash.