The gazette-times. [volume] (Heppner, Or.) 1912-1925, 1914-10-22
PROHIBITION EFFECT:
I'VE IN STATE OF MAINE
October Is, 1914.

10 the E0ltOr:-
l beg to offer you for publication
my personal observation Of the work
ing of the prohibition law in the
State of Maine, which extends over
period of 20 years. / have visited
Maine at least once year during
that time and for seven of those
years I was resident and citizen of
Maine.
During that period l have lived in
three other states and l have visited
| nearly all the large cities in all the
states. Everywhere l have learned
what could concerning various
methods of regulating the liquor
traffic.
Through this varied experience,
the conviction has been forced upon
me that the absolute prohibition of
the manufacture and sale of intoxi-
eating liquors is the only policy
which the liquor interests regard as
seriously damaging to the traffic and
the only policy which greatly aids the
cause of temperance.
After seven years of residence in
Maine under the prohibitory law, and
seven years of residence in states un-
der local option, am convinced that
my children, and other peoples
children, for whom l may be respon-
sible in school and college, are far
better protected from the evils of the
liquor traffic in prohibition Maine
than in any local option state which
l have liven in or visited. AS far as
the dangers of the liquor traffic are
concerned, I would rather have my
children brought up in prohibition
Maine than in any state which forms
partnership with saloons by accept
ing a part of the profits.
What l say applies to Maine as it
used to be-, Even though the pro-
hibition of the sale of liquor did not
prevent the sale of liquor any more
than the prohibition of the Illicit
practice of medicine wholly prevent
ed such practice, or the prohibition
of robbery entirely eliminated rob-
bers.
But Maine today for one potent
reason is able to enforce the prohib-
itory law as never before. That rea-
son is the Webb law, federal regu-
lation which now protects Maine, in
degree never before known, from
the onslaughts of dealers in adjacent
local-option territory.
Every argument l have read pur-
porting to show the failure Of the
prohibitory law in Maine applies to
conditions before this law went into
effect. Then express companies op-
Grated in Maine for the sole purpose
of selling liquor. They brought it
into the state from Portsmouth and
Boston and Chicago, labeled "break-
fast foods, Ivory soap, and even
dry goods. No law could reach
the traffic. NOW such goods can be
seized in transit at any station or
any platform, from any car or de-
livery wagon, and destroyed. Every
state is, therefore, now far better
prepared to enforce prohibition than
by all the anti-prohibition arguments
Maine was in the period referred to
have seen.
l do not maintain that the prohib-
itory law in Maine even now COM
pletely stops the sale of liquor. What
do maintain, after years of exper-
ience in various states, is first, that
Maine formerly controlled the traffic
better than local-option states, and
that now prohibition in Maine, aided
by new federal laws, is more effective
than ever before.
WILLIAM r. FOSTER,
President Reed College, Portland
Oregon.
President Oregon Social Hygiene
Society.