WHY HAS MAINE REVOLTED?

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1241, 25 September 1911, Page 6

WHY HAS MAINE REVOLTED?

EVIDENCE AGAINST. PROHIBITION. Religious' and public opinion in' Maine has for many years been gradually veering to.the conviction that prohibition is alike fallacious and futile. At first peoplo fondly imagined that prohibition would bring in Hie millennium, and the clergy of Maine believed that no-license and prohibition would bo an aid to church-going and develop loftier religious ideals; they accordingly invoked "the beggarly elements of the law," and after many years discovered their mistake. That Methodist preacher, the Rev. C. S. dimming, declared, as £ar back as 1000, that there were seventy towns in Maine in which no religions servico was held. Tho Rev. A. E. Dunning, D.D., writing to tho "Audover Review" more recently, stated that there were ninety-five towns where no religions service of any kind was held. The Rev- A. H. Wright, pastor of St. Lawfenco Street Congregational Church, Portland, in a recent sermon, said:—"Tho condition of things here is simply amazing to all honest, unprejudiced, and right-minded citizens. Li-quor-selling is a crime in this state in tho eyes of the'civil law; liquor-sellers are oriminals. Yet hero in our Christian city, governed by Christian men, we are told than, not less thau 300 places are open and in full operation for tho sale of intoxicants." Is it any wonder then that "all honest, unprejudiced, and rightminded citizens" of Maine-should revolt against a condition of affairs that sanctions tlyo continuanco of 300 sly-grog shops in a city of iO.oilO people? And, remember, for years past tfno slv-grog vendor has voted' with the fanatical prohibitionist against the repeal of tho prohibitory law! Thus it appears that no-license and prohibition liavo destroyed in Maine all 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 decency? Yet toiisa good, well-intentioned, but misguided people in New Zealand would have us believe, notwithstanding tho unimpeachable testimony of tho veracious witnesses quoted, and tho fact that Maine has now virtually declared for licensin" that no-licenso and prohibition-local' and national—would in Xcv; Zealand constitute our highest good. It is all a delusion. Maine, after fifty, years of iniquity ami back-sliding under no-license, has repented; \and, like the prodigal, Maine may now be said to have come to herself —turned over a new leaf. Tho exporionco of Maine under no-liceu.se and prohibition ought to be a warning to all no-license and prohibition advocates in this Dominion. Surely wo arc better as wo aro with ono well-regulated, properly-kept hotel under license than with three despicable sly-grog shops under prohibition—the churches empty or emptying, and "rightminded clergymen" deploring, liko the clergy of Maine, the moral and religious degeneracy of the community undor nolicense. That is why Maine revolted. *