PROHIBITION STALWARTS.

Te Aroha News, Volume XXVII, Issue 43216, 17 August 1907, Page 1

PROHIBITION STALWARTS.

GENERAL IpLAL DOW. As a speaker he had the qualities of freshness, geniality, and versatility. He reasoned well, as Cato said of Plato, but he never wearied his hearers, and no one ever fell asleep while Neal Dow was on his feet. There is no reoord of. a meeting addressed by him at which the resolutions in favour of the AU lianoe policy was rejected,- or, came near rejection. The vot* * ing was generally unanimous, v though he told more than once of a great meeting at Leeds, when a hat was lifted up on aystick against one of the resolu* tions, “ but,” added Neal Dow with a twinkle of the eye, u the hat had no head inside.” It cannot be said that he was always amenable to advice. He liked to do not only his own thinking and talking, but at times his own travelling arrangements, and self-reliance ocoas* ioually had an unpleasant sequence. On a foggy night, after addressing a meeting in London, he was put in charge of a guide to conduct him to the Aldersgate Street, Junction and see him into his train. But he would not let the guide remain, and on learning that the next train was the one he wanted, he got into it without further inquiry, but it was the wrong one, and took him in the opposite direction. Fortunately it stopped before long when he discovered the mistake, and was further fortunate in soon getting a train back, though it was long past midnight before i he reached the house of his host Mr (the late Sir) Richard Farrant. Several of those who had welcomed him in 1857 bade, him farewell in 1875, in the belief that they would see his face no more, unless they visited him at his hospitable home in Congress Street, Portland. ' But it became known that after he had passed four score years he wished to visit his -British friends a fourih time'; and he probably would have done sp but for the restraining vigilance of his nearest relatives. Twenty-two years, all but a few days, were granted him after quitting our shores last time before he received the command to rest from bis labours, As long as he could travel m behalf of the cause he loved, he gravelled; as long as he could spe'ok or write for. it, he spoke and wrote ; as long as he could think and pray for it, he thought and prayed. He lived to see the Prohibitory law made firmer and stronger, and he lived thirteen years., after, rejoicing that the citizens of Maine had on September Bth, 1884, put Prohibition into the State Constitution, so that no legislation of a contary'kiud impossible until Prohibition is taken out of tbe Constitution. I, is a peculiarity of American jurisprudence that State Constitutions can be amended by a poll of the electorate,’and no legislation is valid in contravention of the Constitution The Prohibitory principle was included m the Constitution of Maine by a vote of 68,000 (in round numbers) to 23.000, a majority of 45,000. As the years sped on Neal Dow’s marvellous activity reached this country, and it seemed as if he were to take his place among the centeuariaus j of New England. %

(To be continued.)