Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1911-06-23
Texans and Prohibition.


local color for use in the statewide
prohibition campaign which is now
being waged in the Lone Star state
The visiting gentleman is a news
paper man of long experience. and
acknowledges frankly that he is OPP
posed to state wide prohibition. al
though he votes for a dry county
farther up the state where he owns
property He says that conditions are
very much different in Texas than in
Maine, and declares as one of the
strongest excuses for anti prohibition
in Texas that the water supply is bad.
1t is brought in TO cities largely by
rail. and much of il is polluted and
unwholesome before shipment. He
argues that it is much safer to drink
beer than water under such conditions
He seems to think that delirium
tremens is preferable to typhoid fever.
as the beer habit. however much argu-
ment may be made in favor of its
non-intoxicant properties, usually
leads 10 something stronger
But without going into the Texas
campaign, the visiting Texan has
taken note and calls attention to
some things which we hardly notice
here in Maine. He remarked to the
editor OF the Kennebec Journal,
Wednesday. that in talking with bust
ness men, professional men and the
better element generally, of the State
of Maine. he had discovered that
there's is an inbred disposition to re-
gard any connection with the rum
business as disreputable, a sentiment
which. he could not well understand
He remarked that in his part of the
country business men and people gem
orally who have no use for liquors of
any sort in their private affairs, con-
slider the dealing in liquors as legiti-
mate as any other business. When
asked II he could conceive of any
other business in which the article of
commerce could be put to no use
beneficial to man, he admitted that
he did not think of any which he
could place upon the same plane as
Intoxicating liquors, and that While
he could readily understand how the
people of Maine. with its abundant
supply of pure water and it's splendid
climatic conditions. could get along
without grade of so-called soft
drinks, he believed it would work a
hardship on great number of people
in Texas to be deprived of ale and
beer
Examining a cartoon in the Kenne-
bee Journal the visiting gentleman
from Texas readily recognized the
point made that the licensed saloon is
prolific OF pocket peddlng He was
also struck by the comparison of I'M
denia5le figures which Maine has to
show against figures of license states.
and he requested a copy of the jour
nal comparison to take away with
him We doubt, however, if in the
prosecution of the campaign against
statewide prohibition he will use
these figures in his own newspaper,
for they prove exactly to the contrary
of that which his newspaper would
wish TO give. prominence.
This Texas gentleman will undoubt-
eddy find the color for which he is
looking, in certain sections of some
cities Of Maine at the present time,
notable Portland Bangor and Lewis
ton; and he can go back to Texas and
tell them how prohibition does not
prohibit, and how the people are going
TO vote against prohibition on Septem-
Der H. But we believe he will be
pretty sure To have in mind the fact
that the better element in the State
of Maine deem 1t a disgrace TO be
found in any way connected with the
liqudr 9ftsihess. 1t was a point which
had' stIhttk him most forcibly, and it
is one a9r'w'hich the people of Maine
should beaiAfirohd. ; and should endeavor
to cdf4i-aA IN its campaign of edu-
catihnotlsat nothing good comes out
of the f1im business"
This Texas gentleman remarked II
his characteristic quiet way, that hi,
years OF experience in newspaper worl
had caused him to become very skep.
teal as to anything but money play
ing an extensive part in the moral,
of the people, Taken at his word, h.
would discount the Democratic doc
trine in Maine that prohibition teache
hypocrisy, by a foregone conelusio
that we are all hypocrites at tn
start. If this gentleman should trav
el widely among the representative
class of Maine citizens, both In cit
and country, ne would gain some mex
ideas regarding the moral principle
OF the people, and perhaps new un
dorYfanding q asriaa tf 'hfistians cir
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