Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1924-03-19
Brewster at Waterville
(Continued from Pace One)

was up to the citizens to treat this
law as they are wont to treat other
criminal laws.
Mr.. Brewster spoke of the great
increase in crime in the country dur
ing the past few years, the fact that
there were two thousand less mar
riages last year and three thousand
more divorces than ever before.
Very many men, declared the
speaker, view with q tolerant air
the illegal transactions of the boot
logger but they are absolutely on
parity with every other criminal
He referred to the breaker of the
liquor laws as a selective anarchist.
He stated his belief that it would
not be very long before the purchas-
er would be found as guilty as the
seller and he quoted Attorney Dyer
as saying that the key to the stu
alton is through the respectable citi-
zen who buys his liquor but has.
standing in society instead of the
bootlegger who is an outcast
Mr.. Brewster spoke of the liquor
squads in each county whose work
1t was to enforce the law and the
careful manner in which many 20
lice departments avoided the en-
enforcement of this law while they
made some attempt to enforce all
the others.
From his talk concerning the pro-
hibitory law Mr.. Brewster changed
his subject to the matter of his pro-
posed amendment and the way it is
being received throughout the state.
Concerning this he spoke as follows:
1 have proposed a constitutional
amendment prohibiting the appro-
priation of public funds to sectarian
DNht tel
mean schools which were under the
control of any particular religious
denominations or schools established
and maintained to promote the reli-
gious tenets of any denomination.
1 do not understand it to affect any
-sectarian academy. The classes
of schools affected by this amend
ment would be of two kinds. The
first class consists of the academies
and seminaries of the State founded
by various religious denominations
and in general requiring their boards
OF trustees to be of a certain church.
In most cases these academies and
seminaries do not now REQUIRE reli-
gious instruction. There are ten
such academies now receiving State
Aid-eight Protestant and two Cath
Ole. The other class is chiefly tvpi-
lied in Maine by the parochial school
system of the Roman Catholic
Church taking children of common
school age and giving them secular
instruction as well as religious train
ing in the doctrines of the Roman
Catholic Church.
Some Of those opposed 10 the con-
stitutional amendment proposed by
me have undertaken to draw a dis.
tinction between these two classes OF
schools and have advanced the pro
posal to prohibit giving state funds
TO any schools Established and
maintained to promote the religious
tenets of any denomination" but not
to forbid giving money to schools
which. while they may be under the
control of one or another religious
denomination. do not exist to pro-
mote it's tenets.
In Its practical results this would
mean that no public funds would be
given to Roman Catholic parochial
schools. but that public funds could
&c given to the various academies
and seminaries Of the State which
. are largely Protestant.
l think all the citizens of our
State appreciate to the full the SER
| vice which the various academies and
seminaries instituted under denom-
national auspices have rendered to
the cause of education in this State.
Some of them have already declined