Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1914-04-03

including ambassador extraordinary
from the executive departments at
Augusta to the Brewers congress In
Chicago, while serving Maine as
premier. This gifted gentleman is
lending voice and pen to the service
of discrediting prohibitory law. In
the April National Monthly pub
lished at Buffalo, N. Y, we find
two-page article by Mr.. Davis entitled
prohibition at Its Best in MaineTe
Note the interrogation?
We presume that Mr., Davis told the
National Monthly" ne was dealing
with the facts of his experience, or
they might not have cared to publish
It. vet he mispresents the facts netori-
ously On the other hand. the Ma
tional Monthly" may be paid by the
liquor interests to spread this sort OF
misleading literature, as 1t is paid for
publishing advertising of intoxicants--
and no magazine of character and
responsibility now advertises booze.
| Look over those on your library
table.
| Mr.. Davis tells the readers of Ma
tional Monthly" that drunkenness is
| increasing enormeusly-300 per cent.
since 1901; that child depravity is adj
vancing by leaps and bounds; that
half the people of Maine do not be-
lieve in prohibition; that he has
talked with 666 and two-thrid min
listers of Maine and that rs of the 1000
in the State and 10 per cent of the
church people are opposed to prohibit
ton: that "he knows OF HIS OWN
KNOWLEDGE, that large consisn-
nents of liquors find their way into
the club rooms, billed one day to ono
member and another day to another
member, thus keeping the club beyond
the reach of the Webb-kenyon Iaw;"
that "this great issue" divides the
people; that the prohibition party has
disappeared from the political map OF
Maine: that in the enforcement OF
the prohibitory law Democratic
sheriffs have more to their credit than
their political opponents; that ma
jority of the churches, a portion OF
the press, the booze seller, and the
politician who can use the combina-
ton, are for prohibition and refuse to
bow to any law OF "expediency;" that
$4,000 opponents of Statewide pro-
hibition regard the law as a failure:
that these last regard the issue as
partly a moral issue and partly as
question of domestic policy: that
they arraign not only its moral but
its physical havoc as WE'LL" that they
point to the substitution of extracts
and home made brews. drugs and
Liquors of the vilest grade (all of
high per cent. alcohoD" for the
lighter and HARMLESS drinks like
beer and ale.'
There are columns more of it and.
prepared by the skilled hand of this
past master of opposition to peoples
law, must sound reasonable to people
beyond the borders of Maine, who do
not know of conditions here as COM
pared with conditions where there is
no law to oppose. 1t is the expansion
struggle against national prohibition.
Mr.. Davis is telling in out-of- State
publications enlisted against pro-
hibitory law, the same things that are
being published over and over in the
Water Sentinel, the Portland Argus
and the Biddeford Record, the rum
serving trio of Maine, with some
slight alterations for outside con-
sumption that would arouse, perhaps
too much indignation where all the
facts are familiar. For instance, his
reference to the report of Names in
spectors of prisons and jails. and his
garbled figures on arrests for drunk
enness.
We agree with Mr.. Davis in his per-
sonal claim (Which he palms off as the
gospel of $4,000 Maine citizens) that
the issue is partly moral and partly
one of expediency-the business Of
creating the traffic is a moral issue,
and that of dealing with drunkenness
one of expediency. We propose to
fight to the last ditch, in State and
nation, for laws that will suppress the
business of making drunkards. The
drink habit, and social customs that
encourage and promote the habit.
should be gradually overcome by edu-
cation and ostracism.
But you cannot educate or restrain
the INSCRIPTIONS fiend who Is in the
business for money and cares not
what woe he costs, so long as he pro-
vides new victims for the trade. He
with his henchmen, his toadies and
his hired tools are the ones for which
the law was intended