Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1914-09-03
Open LETTER TO OAKLEY CURTIS
FROM A FAMO us PR0HIbITI0NIST
James H. Ames Bowdonha Former Candidate for Gov
Questions of Vital Interest in Every Home in the
State-A Candid, Kindly Message Inspiring Thought
Bowdoinham, Maine, Sept. l, 1914.

Portland Maine.
My dear Sir:
In the early part of your campaign for the Gov
ernorship note the press reported you as making
public statement to the effect that Portland would
have anyway, and if the city must have rum, you
stood for licensing the traffic, and thereby securing
to use in the support of the public schools
could not at the time give credence to this report and
have been looking for denial from you but as yet,
none has come to my notice.
When the Boys Conference holden in your
beautiful city, had the great pleasure and satsfac
ton of sitting in the gallery of magnificent City
hall and looking down that of life, 1900 boys
sat at the banquet tables heard them give their vari
yells, and noted with admiration the splendid en-
thusiasm; all in the interest of the noble of Civ
c Righteousness and the upft of the moral forces in
great commonwealth.
too had the pleasure of listening to your address
of welcome and your excellent advice and admontion
to those young lives before you Imagine my astonish
ment when read the statement credited to you in the
press. l exclaimed Can! OF Can it be possible that
Mayor Curtis, the who gave such good advice to
that multitude of boys before the good cit
liens of beloved State, and advocates the e
CALLING of the accursed traffic that would bring naught
but ruin and disgrace to those very boys and not only
advocates obtaining from off their rin but al
asks the voters of Maine to confer upon him the
highest honor within the power of their franchise
viz to be Chief Executive of State?"
Mr.. Curtis would in all candor ask you what
can be said in favor of the saloon? One writer in des
cribing the saloon has ttngly said, Morally, the
loon is cesspoo of corruption without single
deeming feature 1t stands out in all its horrible de-
formity as the enemy of everything that is
clean, good holy, and posons with its un-
savory breath everything it touches" To license
such institution, legalzes the right to sell
poison, to rob and women of efficiency and
of honor; to curse little children and unborn
generations to torture mothers and wives with slow
murder to damn souls for eternity Would you and the
party whose platform you stand, for the sake of
few paltry dollars, place the gded saloons Con-
gress street and the prominent of your city
also open the way whereby the condition might
obtain in other towns and cities of State? ask
would you do it, even if that were so much
clear gain in dollars and cents? But the truth that
for every dollar the Government gets license it pays
out from 81 to $40 in caring for the direct and indirect
effects of alcohol.
You may me, prohibition doesn't prohib
it."
Note the following, ''The American Brewers Re-
view declares that Cincinnati breweres did business
to the amount of Five hundred thousand dollars
($500,000) year in West Virginia, which they lose
by the operation of the Anti-Liquor law" Pray
tell how this fact harmonzes with the cry of the
Liquor interests Prohibition doesn't Prohibit"
cannot believe the clean citizenship of Maine are
ready to take backward step when the rally cry is
sounding from the Atlantic to the Pacific "a Saloon
greatly FASTENED all the high positions like
your good SELF would lend their influence to that noble
end and not decry law and seek to bring it into
disrepute.
Yours sincerely
JAMES H. AMES.