Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1914-06-27
A Siunificant Truth.

land Friends in Vassalboro, Thursday,
strong endorsement was given of the
r .vement r2r national prohibition and
the efforts of Govefi.e- Eaines of
Maine to enforce the prohibitory liquol
law The committee on the suppress
sion of the liquor traffic endorse Gov
ernor Haines efforts to enforce pro-
hibition in Maine THE prohibitory
law is well enforced" the report de-
cIared. Thousands of young men
and women in Maine have never seen
an open saloon and many have never
seen a drunken person
On Thursday an Augusta man re-
eeived the following telegraph mes
sage from a leading Canadian paper,
the Toronto Evening Telegram:
Ontario provincial elections on
June 29 on question of abolishing
the bar Please wire us from
your city's experience as dry town,
is it easy, hard or impossible for
native or stranger to get liquor in
city or state under present law.
And here is the reply-note the most
significant point in this and its SINH
larity to that of the Friends report:
June 25, 1914.
Evening Telegram, Toronto, Ont.
Booze an outlaw. None in sight in
the State. No bidding for drinkers.
Liquor business not respectable.
Stranger can get stuff by first finding
a bum to point out hidden dive, or
hootleeeer. New generation never
saw a bar. Old thirsts can be slaked,
but the business of educating drink
ers, and creating new demand for
drink, is ended.
Prohibitory law first halts the con-
slant bid of the liquor traffic system
for drinkers. Under prohibitory law
children grow up with repugnance
of mind for an outlawed business; they
reach maturity without the tempta-
lions of attractive drinking places
where harmless beer and other
light" drinks are always on tap for
those not addicted to hard stuff"
Thousands have never seen a
saloon" says the report of the Friends,
and it might have been added that
familiarity with saloon scenes has not
educated this generation into ac-
ceptance Of the traffic as a necessary
evil, as is the indisputable fact in IL
cense communities.
OF course absolute prohibition in
any portion OF this country is i'm
possible at this time; first, because of
interstate laws that permit violation of
the laws of one section by the selfish
interests of another, and, second. be-
cause of the enormous profits in the H.
legal business and the encouragement
of outlawry by out of jurisdiction con-
Germs and their tools like the rum
press Of Maine.
Under local option" one license
town is always headquarters Of the
liquor interests for the prostitution
and Decentralization of surrounding
dry territory. They devote little
attention, comparatively. to the local
field but devote every energy to Wild
ening the wet" field and, through
hired press service and other means,
break down the faith and scruples of
the opposition.
The greatest work of temperance
cultivation in these days is not in res
cue of the fallen but in combating the
devilish methods of the liquor inter
ests in their determination to recruit
the army Of drinkers. 1t is indeed a
case OF an ounce of prevention being
worth a pound of cure.
Up 10 date campaigns of temperance
are engineered with purpose to first
halt the manufacture of appetites. That
lis what prohibition does, for under it
the mighty power Of advertising is cut
off. And that is why such sheets as
the Waterville Sentinel, Portland Ar
gus, and Biddeford Record rave at pro-
1t is not that they believe a
system OF open bars confronting every
BOY and girl is productive Of better