DOES PROHIBITION PROHIBIT?
We are told many times that prohibition can not be made effectual, and the prohibition State of Maine is pointed out as an example of this. But here are some statements from Mr. Samuel F. Pearson, Portland's sheriff, made before the Pine Tree Club, Boston, as to how effectual prohibition may be when rightly enforced:— “Since 1846 the prohibitory law has been on the statute books. Why has it not been effectual? I will tell you how it is to-day. Three-fourths of the territory of the State of Maine is perfectly free from liquor-selling. I will tell you how I know my territory is free from it. I paid a man $3. per day to drive from Portland to Lewiston, 36 miles, and try his best to purchase intoxicants. He used his best skill, for I had paid him for that, and found not a drop. I know of a time when on the same route he traversed 47 places were open where for three cents one could buy rum and molasses. Who can say that prohibition does not prohibit in this territory?” “Till 1856 Portland drank up every 20 years the whole assessed valuation of the city. There used to be 71 distilleries and 19 breweries, and now there are none. Does not prohibition prohibit?” “There are fewer saloons in Maine than in any State where the traffic is controlled rather than prohibited. I consider my present work, compared with my services in the Union army, as an eagle to an English sparrow. I cry shame upon the United States for receiving an income from the liquor licenses which stimulate the vice of its people. “But do the results show that prohibition prohibits? If it does not, why do they offer me $40,000 to let four men sell freely for nine months?” “A clothing dealer said his January trade was $800 better than that of the year before, his February trade $1,300 better than that of February, 1900, and his March trade $1,800 better than a year ago. “Even a good old Irish woman who keeps a little store said to me, ‘Sheriff, I'm doing double the business I was. A year ago I had from $40 to $60 on my books every Saturday, and last Saturday only $3.20.’” “This means something. I love Portland, and I'm helping, not hurting it. “Let us, before singing about the land of the free and the home of the brave, consider the fact that no other land under heaven has so many slaves to drink per million of population as the United States, where every eleventh man is a drunkard.”