p. 159 | Good Health

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, California · May 15, 1879

Good Health.

Maine.

Now comes the State of Maine, after an experience of twenty-eight years in the prohibition of intoxicating drinks, and what have we for results? Entire failure, says one. More liquor drank than before, says another. Can't make men moral by law, says a third. I told you so, says a fourth.

Let us see. Let us weigh carefully and justly all the evidence we can find, and see if the verdict corresponds with that of those interested in the liquor traffic. Neal Dow, the man who introduced the prohibitory license law into the legislature of Maine twenty-eight years ago, is still living, and still fighting the rum traffic, cheered and encouraged by the wonderful success that has crowned his labors for the good of mankind. In a newspaper article on temperance, the following paragraph occurs:—

‘‘All experience shows the folly of attempting to make men moral by statute. The Maine liquor law, which has been in force for years, has utterly failed to secure the ends aimed at.’’

In replying to this, Mr. Dow says that from the enactment of the law in 1851 to the present hour there has not transpired one single fact to justify the assertions that the law had been a failure; but on the contrary, it had been a wonderful success from the beginning. Before the law, liquors were sold freely in every little town in the State, wholesale and retail, now there is not an open bar or grog shop in the State. The distilleries and breweries are all suppressed by the strong arm of the law, and there is none in the State. No liquors are brought into the State publicly, and if brought have to be smuggled in in concealed packages, and if discovered, confiscated and destroyed. He says that not more than one-twentieth part as much is consumed as was before the law, and none estimate it at more than one-tenth. Where the people formerly spent $10,000,000, they now only spend $500,000. Before the law, every little corner grocery was a grog shop, and now the liquor traffic is entirely unknown in all the small towns, villages, and rural districts.

In the large towns and cities there is some sold on the sly, the profits tempting them to take the risk. They have now a man in the penitentiary for seven years and two months for defying the law. Those who engage in this illicit vocation are the lowest characters and mostly foreigners. Mr. Dow says the improvement of the condition of the people is wonderful, as none could fail to perceive who knew their condition formerly and now. Both political parties endorse it, and public opinion backs them up.

Now if the law was of no force, the first to find it would be the politicians. The last Democratic State Convention made an effort to modify the law, but were defeated by an overwhelming vote. At the last session of the legislature a motion to strike out of the law beer and cider could get only seventeen votes to favor it out of 250. Now, with these facts before us, is it not true that prohibition does prohibit? Of course it does; it cannot do otherwise; and when we see it asserted that the Maine law does no good, we know that those who so state either are not well informed, or intend to deceive.

No, my friends and co-laborers in the great cause of temperance and humanity, be of good cheer. The Maine law has come to stay, and stay it will, till the last nail is driven into the coffin of King Alcohol. Push on the column.