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.”