Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1911-06-29

We asked him if he thought a rum
lselIer would be less honest under one
Isystem than another and he admitted
that he presumed it would be the
same men, as rule, who would
handle the stuff under a license sys-
tenn as now violate the law and carry
on an Illegal business.
We asked him what difference to
him. personally, it would make If none
but the purest poison were dispensed
| in his State. and he replied not Il
| hit"
But" he argued. the stuff they sell
now. l am told, is rank poison it
would soon kill mani"
We told him that it is all rank poi
son, and the sooner it kills the habit
ual drunkard the sooner his commun-
ity is relieved of his delauching and
menacing presence.
our friend went away saving that
he looked at the question from a diff
ferent viewpoint.
on this subject the Lewiston Jour
nal of Tuesday has the following:
Again the fiction is revived by the
| friends of the licensed saloon that pro
hlbitlon encourages the mail-order bust
ness IN low-grade and crime stimulating
liquors
Even the Interstate Commerce Com
mission moraliZes on the increase of the
f1al-ofder business to states where the
gros-Shop is outlaWed. But there is
nothing, IN fact, to prove that the quail
~ of liquor sold them through the mail
order house is lower than that sold in
the gin-mil
Now, it has never been shown that one
kind of whiskey produces moro crime
than another 1t does not appear that
the man who goes home crazed with
one-dollar WhSkeY is worse off than he
who goes home frenZied with five dollar
or ten dollar whskey. There is no other
business in which the selling price is 50
inadequate proof of first cost as in Ii
quorS There is no proof that the lower
the grade of liquor the more violent its
effects. But even if there were, what
shall be said of conditions in license cit
les where the gin-mil and the dive alike
flourish and where liquors are sold at
nickel glass that could not pay the
revenue tax and sell at that price? What
ing instances of death from spurious
whiskeys full of wood-aleohol and sold
over the licensed bar?
And besides, where does the burden
fall? Does it not fall on the federal gov
eminent and not on the state? Is a state
that honesty desires sobriety and de-
cency to be refused these conditions be
cause the outrageous peryersions of law.
through the Almighty Dollar. prevents
the pure food laws from being enforced
to the letter even to the spirit and the
spirits? Do these people who cry aloud
in mock-alarm because there is a mail
order business o. certain volume from
certain centers to certain states know
what the business would be were there
no restriction. not outlaWry of the sa
loon? DO they know what kinds of liz
uors are sent when there is no embargo?
No Rather is it true that prohibition
shuts up the gin-mill, drives the open
saloon off the streets and lessons the
amount of drink consumed. The cheap
whiskeY sold to the black man in the
South by the mal-order house is unques-
tonably no worse, possibly some better.
than that specially manufactured Tor
them by the saloou-bad, always bad. al
ways crime-stmulating and its shipment
under embargo. is no excuse for opening
the nood-gates to drive the people OF
those communities back into the state OF
terror and menace and growing evil from
which they have emerged.