Oxford Democrat. [volume] (Paris, Me.) 1833-1933, 1911-08-01
Letter from Nebraska.

Two generations have come on Tn
stage since Maine became . prohibition
state. Hence there must be hundreds o
| her people who have never seen salool
| and can therefore have no adequate ides
of what a source OF evil It 10 In many
ways when established in community
But they have seen that the strictes
prohibitory laws have failed more Of
less to prevent the secret sale-in some
places the open sale-of liquor, and the
arguments In favor of the license system
used by It's advocates may sound very
plausible to many. They may be per
suaded that at any rate the public sale
of liquor under "honest regulation
would be the least of two evils.
But If the license system is re-estab.
lished in Maine, the people will soon
find that license laws are as easily
broken as prohibitory laws; that they
will have as many; probably more,
officials lax in the enforcement OF them
as they have had in their efforts to en-
force the present law; In short that a
business which ignores moral law does
not attract many honest men and will
break over any kind of legal restrictions
it possibly can, quite as naturally as wa
ter runs down hill. A "law-abiding
saloon" with a fair outside show OF
responsibility is likely to prove no less
an evil in its final results than one more
lawless and disreputable. While it may
produce less actual drunkenness and dis
order in the community, 1t will serve to
keep up and to increase the habit OF
moderate drinking which is still such a
curse to society and the greatest obsta-
Gle to the progress of true temperance
reform.
The license law of Nebraska which
has been on the statute books thirty
years is really a stringent law. men,
ton briefly it's provisions relating to
saloon keepers. An applicant for a
saloon license must be a respectable (?)
man, who if he has been in the saloon
business, must never have violated the
law; his petition to the town board for a
license must be signed by thirty resident
freeholders; in villages and cities of less
than ten thousand inhabitants he must
pay for license not less than five hun
dred dollars; he must put up bond of
five thousand dollars that he will run
his business according to law; for selling
to minors, he must pay for each offense
twenty-five dollars; for selling to In
dams, idiots, insane persons and habitual
fifty; for selling or giving
away liquor on Sundays or election days,
a hundred, and lastly for putting up any
screens or blinds at his windows, fine
OF not less than twenty-five dollars, or
not less than ten days, or
both; he must support all paupers and
pay the expense of all civil or criminal
prosecutions growing out of, or justly
attributed to, his sale of Intoxicating
drinks and married woman may bring
suit against him to recover damages sus-
tanned by herself and children when her
husband spends all his earnings at
saloon.
One would think so stringent law
would keep saloon keeper on his best
behavior, but somehow it hasn't worked
in just that way. There are too many
people like the old Maine man who said
she approved of the Maine law but was
ag'in its enforcement" Saloon keepers
soon found "they couldn't make any
thing" as they expressed it, if they run
their business according to law. They
discovered also that people who wanted
saloons were generally not very particular
as to how they were run. Any kind of
saloon would do, If it was only a saloon.
In villages where there was no police
force if license board was elected, all the
other town officials were usually of the
same persuasion; consequently the COM
munity came under saloon rule and the
saloon keeper, sure of the friendliness of
the majority, could venture to violate,
secretly or openly, provisions of the law
that would lessen bis profits, such as
selling to minors and habitual drunk
ards, keeping the back door of bis saloon
open on Sundays, etc. A town marshal,
appointed by the board and subject to
their orders, was not always the most
alert of officials.
1888, Valparaiso was a small incorporat-
cd village in which the temperance senti-
ment had been strong enough to keep
out the saloon. Afterwards, however,
it became a railroad town and then a
demand for the saloon arose. Those in
favor of it and those opposed were near
ly equal in number then, and this has
been the case ever since with occasional
exceptions due to changes in the popu-
lation. Every spring in all these years,
there has been a contest between the
license and no license forces, not always
without considerable heat and i'll feeling
on both sides-the misery of local
option. Sometimes victory has been on
one side, and sometimes on the other.
But up to the spring of 1908, saloons had
been voted into the town quite as often
as they had been voted out,-perhaps
oftener. So we have had plenty of time
and ample opportunities to observe the
inside workings of the license system of
which 80 many Maine people can have
had no experience or even knowledge.
At first the applicant for saloon
license, owing to the small size of the
place, found great difficulty in securing
for his petition the required number of
signers who were actual freeholders.
But insufficient petitions" did not de-
ter license boards from granting licenses.
In one instance, related to me by one
who had personal knowledge of the fact,
one member Of newly elected license
board, after examining the petition filed
by the applicant, said openly there were
only twenty-four good names on 1.-THE
other six signers, he kne,o, owned no
property in town. Yet at the first meet
ing of the new board he and the other
mem bers prom. lily issued license, set
ting aside with scant ceremony a re-
presented by the temper
ance people which protested against
their acceptance of what was not legal
petition. And 80 saloon was fois,ed
on the community that year which had
no legal right to place in it.
Another trouble encountered by the
saloon applicant in those days when
wealthy men were rather scarce in what
was quite new region, was to obtain
signers to the five thousand dollar bond
required OF him by the law. "Straw
bonds" we're filed sometimes before
temperance people woke up to the neces-
sity of inspecting these documents. But
the fraud was quite unexpectedly
brought to light at last. A poor woman
who got tired of supporting her family
while her husband drank up bis earn
ings at the saloon, decided to bring suit
for damages against the saloon keeper.
A firm Of Lincoln lawyers when consult
ed agreed to conduct the case without
charge, and as first step examined bis
bond. "Not worth the paper 1t was
written on" they said. There had been
a slight omission in the wording of the
document which would render damage
suit against him a useless undertaking.
he excused himself for the trick on the
ground that many other saloon keepers