Daily Kennebec journal., 1914-02-25
No, but How About Once in Awhile? !?

Apropos the Biddeford Journals
| statement that it stands unequivocal-
ly fer the law and the laws enforce
ment, the Kennebee Journal says:
Papers which stand uneduivocally for
the law Set which mention the fact so
infrequently and so lack-lustrely as to
leave the reading public convinced that
the opposition has immeasurably the best
of the argument. are a detriment instead
of an aid to the cause.
! Nevertheless, the Biddeford Journal
holds that prohibition, Incorporated as
it is in the Constitution of the State,
| is not now an issue in Maine. The en-
| forcement of the law is an issue, how
! ever, and the Biddeford Journal would
| be sincerely sorry If any intelligent
person should get the impression that
| the opposition had the better of the
argument just because its editor
didn't get on his Job to the extent of
column or two of redhot pro-prohibi-
ton editorial every day.-Biddeford
Journal.
No? But your illustrious anti-pro-
rum traffic can get ON his job to the
extent of a column or two," every day
of anti-prohibition repetition of what
is sent him from Cincinnati and Louis
Vile and Chicago and Boston about
the personal rights" of rum trust
patrons to violate the peoples laws,
and defile communities by bribing Of
ficials.
OF course such intelligent readers as
those who subscribe to the Biddeford
Journal and kennebec Journal no
longer believe those worn-out rum
trust fallacies. but you might give
them some points and figures for ar
gument when they meet the readers
of the Biddeford Record, and the fol-
lowers of rum trust personal liberty"
encouragement.
About three daily papers in Maine
are devoting columns a day to dis
crediting the law and all who en-
force it. They brazenly lie about the
effect of the law and continue their
parrot Like repeatings of the prohih-
itory law is a failure; somebody got
drunk in Portland last week. Isn't
that almost equal TO this from the
Lewiston Journal:
At the recent get-to-gether of the Pro-
gressive party in Portland, one of the
speakers from outside the State expressed
-. H. may
outside the criminal classes who would
deliberately play the game of nulllflca-
ton or betray our constitution and law
for politics. That there should be any
duty to enforce the order of the conf
monwealth as embodied In its statutes,
seemed to this gentleman to be inexpilca-
BILE. Nobody questions the duty or ON
GERS of the law to catch a thief and pun
ish him. to hunt burglars and to bring
them to justice.
Now we wonder if Mr. Perkins has
ever heard that there is a mighty and
devilish organization continuously
nulifying the laws of New York which
the people made to protect them from
thieves and burglars and white slavers
and from even those who pay no Ii
cense and violate the rum trust Ii
cense law? We presume that hypocrit-
ieal persons and organizations profit
ing from this notification are saying
that the law cannot be enforced, so
must be let alone But is the law
failure because it is being nullitied
by grating gangs of thugs and gun
men. part of them serving" the peo-
pie as officers appointed by publicly
elected executives, who in turn
are named by the political machines
nourished in the saloons and dives
and lazar- houses of the East Side?
We hope to see the day when Maine
papers standing for law and en-
forcement of law" may not be asham-
ed to say so as frequently as the per-
sonally perverted instruments, polit-
ical and social as well as commercial,
shall give cause for being shown up
for what they are.
Some of our friends, Brother Worm
wood, have made loud pretensions at
times and again have been so fair
with evil, and so free with their sneers
for those who are sincere, that their
aggregate influence is on the wrong
side. We have never classed you with
such ones, but we hope you'll keep
your flag up, even if there's only one
line under it-"Decency for Maine"