Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1913-03-26
Wednesday, March 26, 1918.
Ths Man Who Made Money Out of 1t.

white mule" in Kansas city the 9TH
er sunday afternoon. lie had been
"a good worker and a nice Young
fellow. n man under whom he had
worked said. But with the white
mule in him he stole a revolver, went
out on a business street, and began to
shoot one mullet grazed the head
of a man and another injured a four
teen year-old boy 50 that he lay near
death for a week. The Kansas city
star" which, though it has long been
closed to liquor advertisements, hith
erto he's not strongly opposed liquor,
was moved to print an editorial. head
ed Drunk, Of Course" The editorial
concluded. i'll italics;
If people weren't accustomed to it,
do you suppose they would stand for
Z minute the sale of drug about town
which every day or two turns some
mice young fellow" into homieidal
maniac?
This casual expression Of a newspaper
rehec,s a change in the popular atti-
tude toward liquor selling such as will
in the course of a few years. undonbt-
edly recognize alcohol as a poisonous
+
the present system of dealing with il.
The change would come very soon II
every newspaper looked into the re-
lation between alcohol and crime with
as much intelligence as the Kansas
City star Golfers Weekly.
In spite of The fact that the amount
of intoxicants sold in license states is
nine times that sold In Maine we have
our rum traffic horrors. che poor,
unnourished brain in the service Of the
evil. shouts in poster type that the
Belfast and Togus tragedies are I'm
der Prohibition" He does not tell us
that there would be any less Of these
crimes were many times more intoxi.
cants sold under rum trust approved
license law, but yells for more rum
horrors and hopes to deceive those
who make prohibition possible.
In the very hour of hideous ac-
compiishment by the evil which they
promote, these constituencies agencies
cry for more of them, under the cow
ardly pretense that the law is to
blame.
For many years this vast blot upon
civilization has built up its massive
system for swapping souls into money
by denunciation of laws that would
restrict their traffic. The people have
been confused by the blatant cries of
the paid tools Of the traffic. Some of
these have grown into acceptance, as
truth, of the countless faleshoods and
living sophistries put forth by the
liquor interests. Like the s6ue~-Fe-
atty to political creed or natural in
competence to grasp great moral
questions, makes of them easily en-
listed emissaries of the liquor evil.
As Golfers says, a great change in
popular opinion is taking place The
press begins to understand that the
people now are awakening to the part
il has played in fostering the evil by
advertising, misleading reports and
absolutely false statements.
The press of this, country, by frank
opposition 20 an evil which every an
telligence recognizes; by refusing to
publish liquor advertising. and, most
of all refusing ito stuItify their edl-
torial columns by cowardly deceit in
the service Of the rum trust, could
/, eliminate interstate liquor traffic
We welcome the Kansas City Star.
a powerful source of information and
human good, if rightly applied, to y
position opposed to the booze and
drug traffic. We repeat after the
Star and go one step farther:
How long are we to permit the
cheapest and lowest thugs Of cviliza
ton 10 sell in our communities, poi
son to transform weak mor,als into
maniaes and murderers?
Who sold the stuff that beat out
tne brains OF MRS. 5idrlCne davenport
of Belfast, before the eyes Of her hor-
rifed and helpless hoy?
Was not the outlaw who sold the
stuff TO her husband worse than It
murderer? Who is he? And is he
no making murderer today of
some other weak fool?
Who sold the stuff that slashed the
throat of a highly respectable wife at
Frankfort, Me-?
Was the man who made y maniac
OF Mrs loves assailant any better
than a murderer? Is HE same thug
making more murderers today?
WHAT put il into the heart of man
to murder Edward E. Hardy and wife,
at Tosus, but the unhoiy traffic enei
neered by miIlionares daily growing
richer, and their hired tools in this
and other states?