The Republican journal. [volume] (Belfast, Me.) 1829-current, 1914-09-10
Names Sixty Years War For
Prohibition.
BY WILDER W. PERRY.


BY WILDER w. PERRY.
In 1851 Maine was the first place on
earth to start prohibition OF the liquor
traffic. 49,,
Al that time there were thirteen distil-
leries and breweries in Maine. NOW
there none.
At that time Neal Dow, a young
Mrs. Murphy, with large family OF
small children and drunkard for hus-
band, also lived in Portland. She called
al the Mayors Office, as he was the man
of power. and the following conversation
resulted.
"Mister Dow, will We stop the saloon
man from selling liquor to my, man.,
said Mrs. Murphy, my children are
hungry for bread''.
.i'll try" said Mayor Dow.
Then he calls on saloon keeper 0 'Flan-
'sSay. O Flanagan, will you stop selling
liquor to Paddy Murphy. His children
are in rags and hungry for bread":
mo, Mayor Dow, nor ye can't stop
me, have license and will sell Murphy
drink SO long as he drops the COIN.
''You will. will you? I'll see what l
can do to stop you.
Then Mayor Dow, with band of noble
women and men (note women first this
time, for this is true story, except that
the names may not just fit the Irish
woman and the Irish man who sold her
husband drink, but it is enough to say
that Ireland gave them birth). covered
the map of Maine with petitions, cap
tured the Legislature, and wrote Prohibi-
ton. into the statute law of the State OF
Maine.
The next year the saloon men packed
the Legislature and repealed the law,
but the next year Prohibition came back
with a heavy thud, and has been there
ever since.
In the eighties it was incorporated into
the State constitu. lion, and has been there
ever since.
Then began notification. 1t was in
the larger cities. Three-fourths OF
Names population is in places under
five thousand inhabitants.
In close politics both of the old parties
wanted the rum vote. Then what
A third Prohibition party was born. In
1890 it cast over five thousand votes for
Timothy B. Hussey of North Berwick,
for Governor, the righteous and wealthy
|
Neal Dow, Quaker also.
The writer of these notes, at that time,
was editor of the Portland Herald, pro-
hibition party paper, and chairman of
the Prohibition State committee.
In 1892 it elected Rev. Samuel F.
Pearson of Portland, Sheriff of Cumber-
land county, over both the Republican
and Democratic candidates. Pearson at
the time was running the Gospel Tenn
perance Mission, but he was an old war
veteran and afraid of nothing.
What then
The Republicans who had pretended
to stand by the law, read the hand-wrlt-
ing on the wall and wisely began the
march back to enforced prohibition, but
it nearly killed the party. 1t did drop
Fernald on his second year..
Then came Plaisted, the Democrat, the
first for some SO years, who championed
rum and resubmission, and lost it.
In 1912 the Republicans and Progress
siyes, with the aid of some Democrats,
impeached three Sheriffs, for nullifica-
ton, in Cumberland, Sagadahoc and
Penobscot counties.
The Sheriff of Androscoggin country
said, like the coon to David Crockett,
"dopt shoot, I'll come down." and so he
resigned. The sheriff of Knox County
escaped through smallpox scare.
Outside of Knox county, where you
will have to hold your hand over your
nose for the bad smell, as you pass by,
there is the best effort for enforced pro-
hibition the State has ever seen. The
commitments for intoxication having
| fallen off over one half. In Sagadahoc
county this spring the Jail was entirely
empty, for the first time in its history.
What has Maine gained in sixty odd
years while fighting against the whole
world for prohibition
1t has the largest amount OF money
per capita, deposited in its savings lnstl-
buttons, of any in this union. (See census
reports). 1t has, too, the largest number
of school children, who pass through the
9th grade, of any State in the union.
Now, who wants to go back to building
school houses on beer kegs, with license
money? No one, but the rumny.
But the rummy will say, why does not
Maine grow more in population?
Stop man, listen
Maine has raised, under prohibition,
such stalWart sons as no other State
could raise, and furnished more States
with Governors, Senators, Congressman
than any State in this union. Those
prairie schooners that rolled on wheels
out of New England in the fifties to
make Kansas a free State, contained
many noble sons of Maine, who have
helped to make Kansas the great prohibl-
ton State that is is. We are thrilled
with Winters poem on the Kansas
emigrant:
| ave cross the prairies as Of old
Our fathers crossed The sea;
| To make the West, as they the East,
| The homestead of the free.
Who can tell of the debt that prohibit
ton Kansas owes to prohibition Maine?
Scratch the man hard enough who
wants notification or license in Maine,
and you will find under the surface a
Goddess saloon keeper, CRATER of the
worst kind, watching his chance to put
one over some hapless drunk asleep in
his back room or chamber over his saloon,
by robbing him of his winters work in
the lumber camp, or his summers work
on the farm, or fishing smack. And back
of the saloon keeper is the CRATER of an
officer or police judge, who violates his
oath of Office with the presumption that
there is more money in having the saloon
keeper divide with him his i'll gotten
gains.
Run down the lie prohibition does
not prohibit" far enough, and you will
strike the human vampire of a saloon