WHY HAS MAINE REVOLTED?

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume I, Issue 255, 14 October 1911, Page 3

WHY HAS MAINE REVOLTED?

EVIDENCE AGAINST PROHIBITION. Religious and public opinion in -Maine lias for many years been gradually veering to the conviction that prohibition is alike fallacious and futile. At first people fondly imagined that prohibition would bring in the millennium. and the clergy of Maine believed that no-liecnse and prohibition would be an aid to church-going and develop loftier religious ideals; they accordingly invoked ‘‘tht' beggarly elements of the law,” and after many years discovered their mistake. That Methodist preacher, the Rev. C. S. Cumming, declared, as far back as 1900, that there were seventy towns in Maine in which no religious service was he’d. 'l'bo Rev. A. E. Dunning. D.D., writing to the ‘‘Andover Review” more recently, stated that there were ninety-five towns where no religious s'l-vico of any kind was held. The Rt'v. A. H. AV right, pastor of St. Lawrence street Congregational Church. Portland, in a recent sermon, said: — “The condition of things here is simply amazing to all honest. unprejudiced, ami right-minded citizens. Liquor-sel-ling is n crime in this state in the eyes of the civil la w ; liquor-sellers an' criminals. Vet here in our Christian city, governed by Christian men, we are told that not less than 300 places are open and in full operation for the sale of.int ixicants.” Is it any wonder then that “all honest, unprejudiced, and rightminded citizens" of Maine should revolt against a condition of affairs that sanctions the continuance of 300 sly grog-shops in a city ot 10,000 people.' And. remember, for years past the sl\ grog-vendor has voted with the fanatical prohibitionist against tht' repeal ol the prohibitory law! Thus it appears that no-license and prohibition have destroyed in Maim> aII reverence for religion, all respect for civil law, and thrown the prohibitionist and the sly grog-seller into the same camp. Is it not matter for congratulation that at last a majority of citizens of Maine have revolted against this continued outrage upon common decencyA el some good, well-intentioned, but misguided people in New Zealand Mould have us believe, notwithstanding the unimpeachable testimony ol tht* veracious witnesses quoted, and the fact that Maine has now virtually declared for licensing, that no-license and prohibition -local and national —would in New Zealand constitute our highest good. It is all a delusion. Maine, after 51) years of iniquity and back-sliding under no-license, has repented ; and, like the prodigal. Maine may now be said to have com?' to herself —turned over a new leaf. The experience of Maim' under no-liceiise and prohibition ought to be a warning to all nolicense and prohibition advocates in this Dominion. Surely wo are better as ire are with one well-regulated, properly-kopt hotel under license than with three despicable sly grog-shops under prohibition—the churches empty or emptying, and “right-minded clergymen” deploring, like the clergy of Maine, the moral and religious deg>neracv of the community under noficense. That is why Maine revolted.*