By the HON. NEAL DOW.
The policy of license to the liquor traffic had been the uniform practice
of the civilized world since the reign of Edward VI., of England, when
it was first established. Since that time, in England, there have been
more than four hundred and fifty separate acts relating to the traffic,
each of them being a vain attempt to improve upon all that had gone
before, in the hope, if not in the expectation, of diminishing in some
degree the tremendous evils coming from it. For the last twenty years
there has been no session of Parliament, I think, at which there have not
been several separate bills introduced, relating to that matter; at some
of them, these bills have been in number, from eight to ten, sometimes
even twelve. When our fathers first came over the waters to this western
world, they brought with them the policy of license, because at that time
no other had been attempted or thought of.
In 1820 Maine was separated from Massachusetts and set up housekeeping
for herself, bringing with her, as a part of her outfit, the policy of
license, which had been brought over in the “Mayflower” by the Pilgrim
Fathers, and established in Plymouth colony in the first years of its
existence. By the peculiar industries of Maine the people were led into
the habit of the excessive use of strong drink. All our people living
a little way back from the sea coast were engaged in the lumbering
business. We had vast forests of invaluable pine, whence Maine was and
is called the “Pine Tree State.” The people through all the winter
season were living in camps in the woods, engaged in felling the trees
and transporting them to the water courses, by which they would be taken
to the innumerable saw mills which crowded the falls on almost all our
streams. In the camps, away from home influences and home restraints,
the “lumbermen” indulged freely in strong drink, which was a large and
indispensable part of their rations.
On the breaking up of the streams in the spring, these men were engaged
in “driving river,” as it was called, i. e., following the “drives” of
logs, many, many miles down all the water courses to the “booms,” whence
they were impounded and secured ready for the saw mills which were kept
in operation through the year, often running night and day. On these
drives many of the men were often in the icy water more or less all day,
dislodging the logs from rocks or shallows, by which they were stopped
in their course down stream. In all this laborious and trying work, the
men used rum freely and largely, as the universal custom was in those
days. In those old times I have seen our great rivers covered for miles,
from shore to shore, with innumerable logs, so closely packed as almost
to hide the water from view. Many “river drivers” were following along
on either shore to prevent the logs from “lodging,” and to “start” all
that had been “grounded.” At night I have seen these men in great numbers
around their camp fires, wild and boisterous, under the influence of
liquor, like so many Comanche savages just home from the war path, with
many scalps hanging at their belts. On many of these drives the men
would be engaged for weeks, with rum as the most important part of their
ration. On the return of these men to civilized life a large part of them
would spend in a week, in a drunken carouse, all the wages paid them for
their winter’s work, without regard to wife and children at home.
The saw mills in Maine were on a very large scale, and were in great
numbers. There were great masses of men engaged in them, all using rum
freely and in immense quantities. I have heard it said that two quarts
a day to each man was the regular allowance. While all these men—in
whatever department working—earned large wages, they were not at all
benefited by that, because they spent all in rum, except a miserable
pittance doled out to the wretched wife and children.
The transportation of this “lumber” to the West Indies—the principal
market for it—was a very great industry; it was called the “West India
Trade.” Great numbers of vessels were engaged in it, running from all
our principal ports which had direct communication with the vast system
of saw mills on all our streams. The returns for this lumber were mostly
West India rum and molasses, to be converted into New England rum, at
our numerous distilleries. All along our sea coast great numbers of our
people were engaged in the mackerel and cod fisheries; there were a
great many vessels employed in that industry, the products of which were
mostly sent to the West Indies in the lumber ships, the returns for which
were also “rum and molasses!” I have heard men say who were owners of
timber lands and of saw mills—“operators” on a large scale, and owners
of West India traders—that Maine was never a dollar the richer for all
these great industries. The returns were mostly in rum, and in molasses
converted into rum, so that our boundless forests of invaluable timber
were literally poured down the throats of our people in the form of rum.
The result of all this was that Maine was the poorest state in the Union,
consuming the entire value of all its property of every kind in rum, in
every period of less than twenty years.
I have run hastily over this account of the condition of Maine in the old
rum time to show that our people, according to the general opinion on
this subject, were most unlikely to adopt a policy of prohibition to the
liquor traffic, which was spread everywhere all over the state, and was
intimately interwoven into all the habits and customs of the time. All
over the state there was a general appearance of neglect and dilapidation
in houses, barns, school houses, farms, churches. By their habits of
drinking a great many of our people were disinclined to work, and many
of them were unfitted for it. It used to be said that three-fourths of
the farms were mortgaged to the town, village and country traders, all of
whom kept in stock liquors of all sorts as the most important and most
profitable part of their supplies.
A few men in Maine resolved to change all that by changing the law by
which the liquor traffic was licensed, and by substituting for it the
policy of prohibition. This was supposed to be a great undertaking,
as in fact it was. An indispensable preparatory step was to change
public opinion, on which all law is supposed to be founded. To do this
meetings were held all over the state—not only in the larger towns,
but in villages and in all the rural districts. There was hardly a
little country church or town house or roadside school house where we
did not lay out before the people the fact that the liquor traffic was
inconsistent with the general good; that it was in deadly hostility to
every interest of nation, state and people. In our missionary work about
the state, traveling in our own carriages in summer, and in our own
sleighs in winter, we took with us large supplies of tracts relating to
the liquor traffic and its results. These were prepared for the purpose,
and were distributed freely at all our meetings, and we threw them out to
the people as we passed their houses, and as we met them on our way; and
to the children as we passed the country school houses. In this way, by
persistent work, we changed the public opinion upon the matter and fired
the hearts of the people with a burning indignation against the liquor
traffic, by which they were made poor and kept poor.
This work was continued for several years without intermission; we had a
definite object in view, and that was to overthrow the liquor traffic, to
outlaw it, to put it under the ban, and to drive it out as a pestilent
thing, the whole influence of which was to spread poverty, pauperism,
suffering, wretchedness and crime broadcast among the people, at the same
time that no possible good came from it. In due time we made earnest
application to the legislature for a law of prohibition, but our prayers
were not heeded. We were regarded as having no rights which politicians
were bound to respect, and we were treated with small courtesy. We soon
took in the situation, and addressed ourselves at once to the only
instrumentality through which we could possibly succeed—that is, the
ballot box. We sent in great numbers of petitions to the legislature, but
we were beaten by more than two to one. At the next election we swept the
State House clear of almost every man who had voted against us; we did
this irrespective of all party ties and affiliations.
To the legislature thus elected we sent no petitions; we went there in
person, with a bill all prepared, and offered it as one that would be
acceptable to temperance men. It was on Friday, the 30th of May, 1851,
that we did this. We had a public hearing in the Representative Hall on
the afternoon of that day. Saturday, the 31st of May, was to be the last
day of the session. The committee voted unanimously to accept the bill as
it was, with no change whatever. It was printed on Friday night and laid
upon the desks of the members the next morning. Immediately after the
morning hour it was taken up for consideration.
Now this was the situation on that Saturday morning. The liquor traffic
was a lawful trade in Maine, as it was throughout the civilized world.
There were liquor shops, wholesale and retail, all over the state, with
large stocks of liquor for sale, as there are now in all our states,
where the traffic is yet prosecuted by authority of law, and under its
protection. The bill lying upon the members’ desks proposed to change
all that; it forbade the trade absolutely; it declared that there was
no property in intoxicating liquors kept for unlawful sale; that such
liquors so kept, or supposed to be so kept, should be seized on complaint
and warrant, or on sight, without warrant, and should be confiscated and
destroyed, unless the claimant could show to the satisfaction of the
court that they were not intended for sale. They might be seized wherever
seen; on railway cars, on steamboats, or in transitu by any other mode
of transportation; they might be hunted like wild and dangerous beasts,
and like them, if resistance was offered, they might be destroyed upon
the spot. If it be decided that the liquors are kept for unlawful sale,
the party is sentenced, in addition to the loss of the liquor, to a fine
of one hundred dollars and costs, and on the second conviction, to the
same fine and to imprisonment at hard labor for six months. And it was
expressly provided that no action should be had or maintained in any
court in the state for the recovery of intoxicating liquors nor for the
value thereof. The liquor traffic was put by that bill outside the law,
beyond its protection, and was denounced as an enemy to the state and
people—utterly inconsistent with the public welfare.
On that Saturday this extraordinary measure, such as had never been heard
of in the world before, with no change whatever, was passed through all
its stages to be enacted, and on Monday, at nine o’clock in the morning,
it was approved by the Governor, and from that moment it was the law,
because the act provided that it should take effect when signed by the
executive. All the stocks of liquors in the state were then liable to
be seized and destroyed, but the local authorities allowed the parties
having them in possession a reasonable time in which to “send them away
to other states and countries where they could be lawfully sold;” and
this was done. There was a hasty departure of these liquors from all
parts of the state. It was not an appeal to the legislature by petitions
that accomplished this wonderful overturn in the status of the liquor
traffic in Maine, it was simply and only because the people put their
will in relation to it into the ballot box. There is no other way in
which it can be done in any other states, or in the nation. This movement
against the liquor traffic is now, as it was then, a far more important
political question than any other, more important than all others
combined, to every interest of the nation, state, and people. What has
been the result of this legislation?
“In some places liquor is sold secretly in violation of law, as many
other offences are committed against the statutes, but in large
districts of the state, the liquor traffic is nearly or quite unknown,
where formerly it was carried on like any other trade.
“SIDNEY PERHAM,
“Governor of Maine.”
“I can and do, from my own personal observation, unhesitatingly affirm
that the consumption of intoxicating liquors in Maine is not to-day
one-fourth so great as it was twenty years ago; in the country portions
of the state the sale and use have almost entirely ceased. In my opinion
our remarkable temperance reform of to-day is the legitimate child of the
law.
“WM. P. FRYE,
“M. C. of Maine, and ex-Att’y Gen’l of the State.”
“I have the honor unhesitatingly to concur in the opinions expressed in
the foregoing by my colleague, Hon. Wm. Frye.
“LOT M. MORRILL,
“U. S. Senate.”
“I concur in the foregoing statements; and on the point of the relative
amount of liquors sold at present in Maine and in those states where a
system of license prevails, I am very sure from personal knowledge and
observation that the sales are immeasurably less in Maine.
“J. G. BLAINE,
“Speaker U. S. House of Representatives.”
“I concur in the statements made by Mr. Frye. Of the great good produced
by the Prohibitory Liquor Law of Maine, no man can doubt who has seen its
result. It has been of immense value.
“H. HAMLIN,
“U. S. Senate.”
“We are satisfied that there is much less intemperance in Maine than
formerly, and that the result is largely produced by what is termed
prohibitory legislation.
“JOHN A. PETERS, M. C of Maine.
“EUGENE HALE, M. C. of Maine.”
“I fully concur in the statement of my colleague, Mr. Frye, in regard to
the effect of the enforcement of the liquor law in the state of Maine.
“JOHN LYNCH, M. C. of Maine.”
These certificates are from both Senators and all the Representatives of
Maine in Congress.
These statements are indorsed by many mayors and ex-mayors of cities, and
many other officials in every part of the state; by General Chamberlaine,
ex-Governor and President of Bowdoin College, and by many clergymen in
every county in the state.
The convention of Good Templars resolved, “That by the operation of
the Maine law in this state, the traffic in intoxicating liquors has
been greatly diminished, and that the happy effects of this change are
everywhere apparent, and that the quantity of liquors now sold in this
state can not be one-tenth as much as it was formerly.”
The State Conventions of the Republican party of Maine have always
adopted resolves relating to this matter. I have some of them before me
now.
Republican State Convention of 1878: “Temperance among the people may
be greatly promoted by wise prohibitory legislation, as well as by all
those moral agencies which have secured us beneficent results; and it
is a source of congratulation that the principle of prohibition, which
has always been upheld by Republicans, is now concurred in by so large
a majority of the people that it is no longer a party question, the
Democrats having for several years declined to contest and dispute
it.” 1879: “We recognize temperance as a cause which has conferred
the greatest benefits on the state, and we sustain the principle of
prohibition which in its operation has so largely suppressed liquor
selling, and added incalculably to the sum of virtue and prosperity among
the people.” 1880: “Experience has demonstrated the wisdom of the policy
of prohibition as an auxiliary of temperance, and as contributing to the
material wealth, happiness and prosperity of the state; and we refer with
confidence and pride to an undeviating support of the same as one of the
cardinal principles of the Republican party of Maine.”
There was no election in 1881, and no convention, but the resolve of 1882
is:
“We refer with confidence and pride to the general result of
the Republican party in support of the policy of prohibiting
the traffic in intoxicating liquors, the wisdom and efficiency
of which legislation in promoting the moral and material
interests of Maine have been demonstrated through the practical
annihilation of that traffic in a large portion of the state;
and we favor such legislation and such enforcement of law as
will secure to every portion of our territory freedom from that
traffic. We further recommend the submission to the people of a
prohibitory Constitutional amendment.”
Such is the latest authoritative and comprehensive testimony to the
actual results of prohibition in Maine. Similar testimonies could easily
be obtained from the most influential sources in every part of the state.
Every brewery and distillery has been suppressed. Molasses, which is yet
imported into the state in large quantities, is no longer converted into
rum, but is used exclusively for domestic purposes, while a large part of
it is converted into sugar by improved processes. The share of Maine of
the national drink bill would be about $13,000,000, but I am far within
the truth in saying that one million will cover the cost of all liquors
smuggled into the state in violation of law. From the poorest state in
the Union, Maine has become one of the most prosperous, and it has gained
immeasurably in many other ways from the policy of prohibition.