Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1914-03-25
Wednesday, March Is, 1914.
"a Mental Problem"

One of the great mistakes made by the
advocates of prohibition is in treating the
drink habit as if it were entirely legs
lative problem, the idea being that we
can make men and women sober by legis-
lation.
The drink habit is to a great extent
treat it successfully from the viewpoint
OF prohibition legislation is bound to pc
failure. Sixty years of prohibition in
Maine has shown that conclusiVely: 10
day we have in every town and city
considerable number of drunkards, every
one of whom We're made drunkards under
the prohibitory law. To argue that con-
tinuance of this prohibitory law will stop
making drunkards is puerile IN view OF
existing conditions
The number of drunkards in this state
is not likely to be measuredty lessened
until drunkenness is treated as a disease
Of the mind. instead of something which
can be overcome by legislating the sa-
looms out of Observation-Disclosures Record
We agree with the Record that the
DRINK evil is to a great extent a
mental problem" No one of whom
we know is trying to treat the
DRINK evil' as a legislative prob
lem.
No one is attempting to win So
briefly by law, but the hosts of every
moral force are fighting to halt, by
law, the relentless commercial power
that is spreading the DISEASE by
every device and cunning known to
the devil himself.
When such as the Biddeford Record
awakens to its position and works for
the law to restrain those who are in
oculating the disease into every home
possible, instead of using its every
influence in behalf of the selling evil,
then we shall find it that much easier
to cure the disease and to handle the
mental problem"
We believe, and so does every in
teliigent person who has given the
matter any thought, that education
against the dangers of the drink habit
is of first Importance, and that cure
of victims is next; but, in the control
of other diseases it has been found
necessary in this country and every
where in the realms of civilization, to
first stop the source of contagion or
infection.
We demand laws to curtail the
processes by which selfish interests
are spreading the disease-the correc-
ton of the mental trouble will be
comparatively easy.
For so years our laws have been
overridden, largely, by the interests
which are reaping untold millions
from spreading the disease. To in
feet new districts and start the reve-
nue. to flowing from new victims, they
are spending millions Of dollars an
nually. And, at the same time, they
are shouting to the people through
such sources as the Biddeford Record:
"cure 'em! It's disease! Take the
money which we pay you for the
privilege of spreading the disease, and
cure i'll"
Read of the awakening of Massa-
chusetts to the handwriting on the
wall. They have been reaping "reVe-
nue." from participation in. the traf-
fic. They have been curing one
case and injecting a thousand. Their
rate of progress Sodomward has be-
come alarming. even to those shallow
hypocrites who frankly admit the
doom now roaring ahead like a
Niagara of booze, but dare not ac-
cept the life line of prohibition. be-
Cause the booze trust tells them that
that is restraining personal liberty"
o, the stupendous crime of this
commercial power, and the colossal
idiocy of such as the Biddeford Rec
ord