Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1914-08-18
a Few Facts to Consider.

rum trust exclaims: Sixty years OF
| prohibition and rum still sold In
| Mainel"
We would add: And the decalogue
since Moses and still every command
ment is violatedi" Shall we resubmit
It?
A minister who has held pastorates
in half a dozen states and who came
to Maine last year, recently remarked
to the writer: 81 have never found in
any state such mentally alert, active,
intelligent and altogether useful men
as 1 meet in Maine"
Sixty years of outlawed rum!
The demand for drink is not so great
as the demand for drinkers.
Stop the stimulation of trade" and
the rum traffic would sink like a rock
in the sea.
The rum traffic is an acknowledged
evil; it should be made a world out
law. America should lead.
The government alone should supply
the demand for intoxicants." That
would end the demand for drinkers"
The profit should be taken out of
rum by prompt government action.
That would put thousands of lazy,
constituencies thugs at work.
With the demand for drinkers WHIP
ed out, then Christian civilization could
educate las the rum traffic now adj
vises) against the evils of intemper-
ance. Then the high example of such
as our President Wilson and his fam
lily, and the families of several of his
cabinet members, could be held forth
to shame the social idiocy that pro-
notes rum in it's every function.
Rum always brings equality. No
agency has been invented that is so
perfect an equalizer in all it's attri-
butes as is rum. A man attempts to
prove his ability to carry off, rum,
feels equal to king or a god, and
proves his equality with swine.
Here is a man who fed from q
license state with his family to escape
the sight of rum on display In every
other window" He came to Maine
where rum is an outlaw and for a time
was at peace. but the rum traffic found
him out and "circularized' him.
Here is the economic side: The order
of Secretary Of the Navy Daniels pro-
hibiting intoxicants on board ships Of
the navy, had for it's foundation such
statements as the following from
Surgeon General Breasted:
1.-THE numerous courts-martial of
officers for drunkenness, and the ef-
fects of alcohol, are destructive of dis
cipline and morale, bad for the en-
listed men, and detrimental to the rep
utation and good name of the service"
There Is the rum revelation in 1914 of
people gradually throwing off the hand
Of King Alcohol and seeing saneiy and
normally. officers of our American
navy, having been given the privileges
of gentlemen, have abused them In
such way as to make numerous
courts martial of officers for drunken
ness and the effects of alcohol" nee
essary, and to lower the morale and
efficiency of the navy. giving promise
of disaster at some critical moment.
Rum here again has proved the great
equalizer. Officers of the u. s. navy
have no right to claim any recognition
higher than that of the enlisted men.
More depends upon them, yet rum uses
them all alike and puts all on the
same level of untrustworthiness. Off,
GERS have no superior control over
rum. Great Industrial concerns are
basing their rules and regulations upon
that fact. Their prohibition" prohibits,
An intoxicated man may appear Sob
er, or sober man intoxicated to a
person who is himself in an abnormal
state from one or more drinks Of rum.
People living In license cities often
remark that they see few intoxicated
men. They have become SO aceustom-
ed to the partially dazed, beclouded
condition of the great number OF
moderate drinkers that they have
come to accept 1t as normal. and only
the man in the gutter 10 recognized as