While Oglethorpe remained at Savannah the law was strictly enforced, and all spirits found were destroyed; but after he left it was allowed to fall into abeyance, and in 1742 it was formally repealed by Parliament.
The modern legislative movement took its rise between 1830 and 1840, when the whole of New England was convulsed by an uncompromising campaign against intemperance. Almost the entire community seemed for a time carried away by the crusade against intoxicants. In nearly every place powerful temperance societies were formed; many gin merchants closed their distilleries, and saloon keepers put up their shutters and bade the people come and spill the contents of their rum barrels down the gutters. At first, teetotalers relied solely on moral suasion; but soon the more advanced section in Massachusetts and Maine demanded that the law should aid them by putting a stop to the legalised sale of drink. As early as 1837 a committee of the Maine Legislature on licensing laws reported that “the traffic (in strong drink) is attended with the most appalling evils to the community.... It is an unmitigated evil.... Your committee are not only of opinion that the law giving the right to sell ardent spirits should be repealed, but that a law should be passed to prohibit the traffic in them, except so far as the arts or the practice of medicine may be concerned.” At that time the traffic in intoxicants in Maine was considerable; but the saloon keepers were without any efficient organisation, and consequently could not offer any united opposition to the new movement. There were seven distilleries, and between three and four hundred rum shops in Portland alone. According to the Hon. Woodbury Davis, ex-Judge of the Supreme Court of the United States, “nearly every tavern in country and in city had its bar; at almost every village and ‘corner’ was a grog shop, and in most places of that kind more than one.... Men helplessly drunk in the streets and by the wayside was a common sight; and at elections and other public gatherings there were scenes of debauchery and riot enough to make one ashamed of his race.”
It is often stated that before the passing of prohibitory legislation Maine was one of the poorest and most deeply indebted States in the Union. This is true, but it is not the whole truth. Maine had not long been separated from Massachusetts, and its Legislature, maybe partly intoxicated by its newly acquired powers, ventured on some expensive undertakings. A few costly public buildings were erected, and a premium of eight cents a bushel was offered to farmers on all wheat or corn over fifty bushels that they raised in a year. The consequence was that the heavy taxes proved altogether insufficient to meet the expenditure, and by early in the forties a State debt had been incurred, equal to three dollars a head of the population. Money was very scarce, and both the local government and private individuals were glad to borrow wherever they could. But in spite of the scarcity of money, Maine was not generally regarded as poor. It took the first place in the Union as a shipbuilding State, and the second in the coasting and fishery trades. “The prosperity of Maine,” wrote a skilled financial observer in 1847, “was never greater than at this moment.... She will become one of the first States of the Union.” Ten years earlier, in his Annual Address to the Legislature, the Governor said: “It affords me great pleasure on this occasion to be able to speak of the prosperous condition of the State.... The State, as well as our citizens individually, are rich in lands, in timber, in granite and lime quarries, in water power for manufacturing purposes, and, to an equal extent at least, with any other State in the Union, in all the essentials of profitable industry except monied capital.”
Neal Dow, the son of a rich Quaker farmer, travelled from village to village in Maine, urging the people to rise up against the legalised sale of the drink; and, largely in consequence of his agitation, a tentative Prohibition Act was passed in 1846. The first Act was a complete failure; it only dealt with ardent spirits, and did not provide adequate means for suppressing the traffic in them. Five years later, Mr. Dow, then Mayor of Portland, framed a more comprehensive measure, and had it rushed through the State Legislature in a couple of days. When the people understood what the new Bill meant, its provisions excited a great deal of opposition. Rioting took place in several towns, and was only put down by calling out the militia. In one of these riots a lad was killed, and this so strengthened the pro-liquor party that in 1857 the Act was repealed; but it was re-carried the following year, and it has ever since been in force. A final step was taken in 1884, when an amendment to the Constitution was submitted to direct popular vote, providing that the sale of liquors be for ever prohibited. Seventy thousand electors voted for it and only 23,000 against, so the alteration was made. The consequence of this is that the sale of drink can now only become legalised in Maine by two-thirds of the electors voting directly for it.
For many years the one aim of the temperance party has been to make the prohibition law as effective as possible, and to secure its enforcement throughout the State. Wherever any clause in it has been found unworkable it has been quickly altered, and every possible legal device has been used to ensure the destruction of the drink traffic. The manufacture, sale, or keeping for sale of intoxicating liquors as a beverage is absolutely prohibited. Any person illegally selling, attempting to sell or assisting to sell is liable, on a first conviction, to a fine of fifty dollars, and imprisonment for thirty days, and to increasing penalties for subsequent convictions, the maximum imprisonment being two years. It is considered sufficient to convict if a person pays the United States internal revenue liquor tax, issues a notice offering to sell, or delivers to another any liquor. Liberal powers of search are given to the authorities, and all liquor found by them is destroyed by spilling on the ground. Municipal officers are compelled to take action on having their attention drawn to any cases of supposed law breaking; and thirty taxpayers in any county can, on petition, obtain the appointment of special constables to secure the better enforcement of the law. The necessary sale of spirits for medical, mechanical and manufacturing purposes is made by specially nominated agents, who are supposed to obtain no profit by such sales, but to be paid a reasonable remuneration by the municipalities appointing them.
In considering the working of this law, it must be remembered that Maine presents almost as favourable a situation as could be asked in order to give prohibition a fair trial. It is isolated, and has no towns of any size. Its citizens are mostly native born Americans, farmers and fishermen, innately religious and law-abiding. The foreign element, which presents so disturbing a factor in many parts, is almost a negligable quantity here. In 1850 there was a population of 583,169, of whom only 31,825 were foreigners. Nearly three-quarters of the people were engaged in agriculture, about one-tenth were mariners, and another tenth found employment in connection with the trade in timber. Apart from saw-mills, all the factories together did not employ above two or three thousand men. Since then factories have greatly increased, and a number of French Canadians and Irish have settled in the State. But Maine is still principally an agricultural district, and its largest city to-day contains less than forty thousand people.
After a trial of forty years, has prohibition proved a success or a failure in Maine? The answer to this question entirely depends on the point of view from which one looks at the subject. In so far as it has not entirely destroyed the drink traffic, prohibition is not a success; but it has succeeded in diminishing crime, pauperism and drunkenness, and in greatly in-creasing the wealth of the people. In 1857, a few years after the law came into force, there were only eleven savings banks in the State, with 5000 depositors, and a total of deposits and accrued profits of about a million dollars. In 1882 there were fifty-five savings banks, with 90,000 depositors; and the Hon. J. G. Blaine estimated the aggregate deposits and accrued profits at 30,000,000 dollars or more.
Pauperism has shown a steady decrease. From 1860 to 1870, in spite of an increase in most of the neighbouring States, the number of recipients of official charity was diminished by 21·4 per cent.; from 1870 to 1880, there was a further diminution of 11·6 per cent.; and from 1880 to 1890, notwithstanding the fact that the increase for the whole of the States was 10 per cent., there was still further reduction in Maine of over 20 per cent. In 1890 the number of paupers was 1161, or only about one-sixth per cent, of the population. The significance of these figures is increased when it is remembered that Maine is an old settled State, and in such the number of pensioners of public charity is usually far greater than in newly opened up districts. Insanity, on the other hand, has spread during the last thirty years by leaps and bounds. From 1860 to 1870 the number of insane in the State increased by 12·5 per cent.; from 1870 to 1880, the increase was 94·7 per cent.; and although the complete figures for the last decade are not yet published, there is every reason to believe that they will be no more favourable. At first this seems to show that there must be some mysterious connection between teetotalism and madness; but further investigation reveals the fact that this increase has not been confined to Maine alone. In seven other North Atlantic States, where liquor selling is permitted, the increase has been far greater: during the first period it was 48·8 per cent., and during the latter 138·4 per cent. The voluminous statistics on divorce supplied by the Government Bureau on Labour[1] do not tell conclusively either one way or another as to the influence of the law on married life; for divorce laws differ so greatly in various States as to make comparisons practically valueless. In Maine there are abundant facilities for undoing the marriage tie; consequently, the number of divorces granted is decidedly over the average for the whole of the country: though in some States, where divorce is even easier than in Maine, such as Illinois, the proportion is far greater than there.
Crime is steadily on the decrease, and the average number of criminals in Maine is lower than in any other State in the Union. The number of convicts in the State Prison is now less than in any time for twenty-seven years; in 1890 there were 65 convicts; in 1891, 50; in 1892, 34. The total number of commitments to the county gaols for all crimes (including offences against the drink laws) is also on the decrease, as is shown by the fact that in 1890 there were 3780; in 1891, 3665; and in 1892, 3515 commitments.
The official returns of the value of property cannot be altogether relied upon; for it is a notorious fact that real estate is systematically under-estimated for the purpose of taxation. But while giving no accurate idea of the value of the holdings in the State, they do show that the material prosperity of Maine has greatly increased. In 1857 the valuation of property was about a hundred million dollars; according to the annual report of the State Board of Assessors for 1893 the valuation was 270,812,782 dollars. The Census Department estimated the true valuation of real estate in Maine in 1890 at 254,069,559 dollars.