Five Mile Beach weekly journal., 1923-02-16


shouted yer it.
We routed the foe in many of his
strongholds; we drove rum almost en-
tirely from the field of the farmer,
from the mechanics shop, from the
raising Of buildings, from cuttings,
parties, etc. We drove it mostly from
wedding circles, from funerals and
from the social board. We made it
unpopular to drink. The young were
instructed in temperance and taught
to abjure strong drink. Thousands
were thus guarded and saved,
and stopped in their downward career
and thousands were reclaimed and
made men again. Temperance was
popular; intemperance was under the
ban of public sentiment. We had per-
suaded every respectable merchant to
abandon it's traffic. Some, to be sure,
had given it up with great reluctance,
but they could not withstand the pres
sure. 1t was sold, as it has been ever
since, by unprincipled men who have
neither conscience nor shame. Thus
far we had gained a mighty victory
over the foe of human happiness.
The First BOOtleggers
Some, however, who claimed to be
respectable, sold on the sly, under
assumed names, such as striped pig"
white root beer" "oil," etc. The
initiated all understood the secret and
knew what to call for. A laughable
affair happened in a village where 1
resided. A merchant sold it under the
name of "oil." There was a man who
used to order 'oil,' and his jug would
be filled with wine, his favorite drink.
This man was sexton to a Universalist
church and "a requested by the dea-
cons to procure wine for the sacra-
ment. He carried a jug to the Store,
but it, so happened that the merchant
was out and his clerk, having been
there but a few days, had not been in
structed in the art. Therefore when
the sexton ordered his jug filled with
''oil" he filled it with lamp oil. The
mistake was not discovered until the
cups were passed to the commune
cants; then there were terrible wry
faces and splitting, but after a little
whispering and smelling the sacra-
mentwas postponed.
Some who would have it would send
to Boston for it, and often jokes were
played upon them. In one town sew
eral put their money together and or
dered a barrel of rum, but when it
was tapped nothing came out but
water. The merchant who sent it de-
clared it was rum when it started,
and where it was converted into water
they never could ascertain; so they
lost their money and their rum. An
other party ordered a barrel, but the
man who drew it from the depot, some
10 miles, being thirsty, tapped it on
the way and failed to stop it's running.
So when the art reached the village
it contained nothing but a drunken
teamster and an empty barrel. This
was getting rum under difficulties.
We soon found, however, that fer
mented beverages were doing great
mischief. Many who had signed the
pledge and given up distilled spirits
were feeding their appetites with
lighter drinks, and thus making their
way back to drunkenness and ruin.
b6Slu6S, uduy WIZ COuAQ AOC oAOA0
these costly drinks said if the wealthy
would drink wine they would drink
rum. And the only way out of this
difficulty SCENE dto me that the pledge
must be altered so as to embrace
everything that would intoxicate.
Here the enemy gave us a fearful bat
tie, but we fought it out on that line.
We turned our guns upon the lighter
drinks, and as victory is always sure
to the right, in the end, after a des-
perate conflict we triumphed and put
into our pledge all that makes drunk
come" This had been a long and
fierce contest with one of the greatest
evils of the age.
Moral SuaSiOn and Legal COmpuls1On
Now another new chapter opens in
the history of this campaign. Up to
this point moral %suasion" had been
our chief weapon The idea was
started of taking it into politics and
carrying it to the polls, and involving
the Legislature in behalf of temper
ance. 1t is now (about 1870, if l
recollect right, about 20 years since
Neal Dow's Maine law was passed and
the responsibility of breaking up rum
selling and rum drinking thrown upon
the police. I have watched this fea-
ture of the temperance reform. I have
kept my eye upon this struggle in
Maine, Vermont and Massachusetts
and other parts of New England and
the West. And i must record that the
temperance cause stands M better,
and 1 question if it does as well as it
did 20 years ago. I more than fear
that on the whole it has gone back
ward. Not because the law is unjust
or wrong. No, no, the rum seller
should be stopped, if possible, but law
not sustained by the public is no law
at all, and this is the case with this