The Brattleboro daily reformer. (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1913-1955, 1916-03-28

its early days practically everyone, fol-
lowing the New England custom, drank
wine. 1t was served instead of tea in
the afternoons, and even ministers in
dulged in friendly cup. Then in the
early part of the nineteenth century,
temperance spread throughout New |
England, this movement developed into I
the prohibition movement and in 1851,
Vermont followed Maine as one of the |
original prohibition states.
Prohibition in Vermont worked very
well at first but it soon brought in its !
wake the usual hypocrisy such as is now
familiar in Maine. Under the Vermont !
prohibition law, the towns operated So
called agencies where liquor could be
purchased for medicinal and mechani- |
cal purposes. 1t was customary for one
to 60 to the town agency, register any
name, and when asked if the liquor was
intended for medicinal or mechanical
purposes, to answer both The agent
usually augmented his stock of liquors
| belonging TO the town with a private
stock that he sold at a profit. There
were besides the agencies, drug stores
| and joints where liquor could be bought.
! Sheriffs and other enforcing officers
usually arrested the jointists once a
month and the offenders were fined.
Hotels sold liquor openly. In the little
town of Brattleboro, which under local
option has no bars, one hotel had bar
that would not be tolerated in a license
town today. In fact the prohibition law
was so much of a dead letter in its
1 final days that a banquet attended by
the governor and state officials, started
off with highballs and ended with
champagne.
In 1902 Percival w. Clement, pro-
| e u e
governor on the local option ticket.
II None of the candidates had sufficient
votes to carry the election but a Re
publican legislature chose Clement s OPP
ponent, Mccullough. At the same ses-
sion the legislature voted to submit a
local option bill to a referendum. The
+ issue then was sharply drawn between
t local option and prohibition. Local OPP
j ton carried on narrow margin of 729
votes.
: 1t was surprising to see the change
that local option made. Towns that had
I openly defied the state law voted out
+ the illegal saloon that they had former
. " patronized Under local option, the
r number Of licensed towns steadily de-
q creased from ninety-two in 1903 to
: twenty in 1914. And this did not mean
: that blind tigers were being patro-
. hlLCtt OII tIlt SlN dS III O1u DIOHlBljlOl
q days, but it meant real closing. Prima
/ facie evidence of this is found in the
: fact that in 1899 under prohibition
n there We're sos federal liquor licenses
. in Vermont as against only ESQ fedora
liquor licenses in a recent wear.
+ Today the number of saloons in Yer
+ mont are IN proportion to the Legitimate
: demand for them. Burlington, with it
j fine hotels and large summer tours
- population, has license. Brattleboro,
N residence town, has none. OCCASIONAL,
Z the prohibition forces in town lill
- Barre with q large foreign population
i gain the upper hand and the town goe
- dry. Then the Italians sell liquor in dc
~ fance of the law until the town de
& cides that it might as well have reve
i, nue. from the sale of this liquor an
: then the vote is ''wet. =
- Even with this excellent shown
{, for local option, Vermont might hav
Il returned to the prohibition column if
i had not been for the proximity {
i Maine. Maine facts constituted the i
- cal optionists most effective weapo
80 When the prohibitionist said that tt
\ proposed law was not like the old di
-, carded Vermont law, the local optic
- list pointed to Maine. When the prob
D. biti0nists brought in a speaker fro
81 Kansas, the answer was: " Kansas is
~ long wav from Vermont, tell us abo1
Maine As an illustration of the di
~ ferent results between Maine prohit
4 ton and Vermont local option, the f,
- lowing comparisons between a Mai
0ag Dry city and a Vermont "dry
Z, city, and between Maine . dry eli
81 and a Vermont license city we
- used to great effect in the campaie
- The figures given below are from t
10 official reports of the cities in gu,
sds ton:
~. a. Burlington, Vt. Bangor, n
g. (License) prohibition
~ ~ Population -. 20, 46S 20,8o3
~ ~ Arrests for in
-, ~ toxication, in
IN, Ia six years. 49,, 2,19S 1879
''' In these two cities of the same pt
9th ulation there were 1851 more ARE
ONE for drunkenness in the Maine prohi
ION tion city than in the Vermont licel
of city.
The Brattlehoro, Vt
bad DRY Under Brewer, !
ire Local Option) (Prohibitio
+ed Population. !. ,541 1867
tba Arrests for in
bad toxication in
iis - three years. 132 223
dry, 1hese statlstlcs cover the years ~
ton 1912 and 1913. Statistics for other We
eed- in Brewer were not available. For
inn three years mentioned there were
re- more arrests in prohibition Brewer Il
in Brattleboro under local option
OBJ Comparison between other Maine
Vermont cities and towns show the So
libi- proportion of drunkenness as tn
ina quoted above. The population of Ma
aine and Vermont is similar, with the matt
le. born predominating-M Nicholson
oula- Boston Transcript March 20.
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