Population.—The population in 1880 was 648,936; in 1890, 661,086; in 1900, 694,466; and in 1910, 742,371.[4] From 1880 to 1900 there was an increase of only 7%, a percentage which was exceeded in every other state in the Union except Nevada and Vermont. Of the total population of 1900, 599,291, or 86.3%, were native whites, 93,330 were foreign-born, 1,319 were negroes, 798 were Indians, 119 were Chinese, and 4 were Japanese. Of the inhabitants born in the United States, 588,211, or 97.8%, were natives of New England and 560,506 were natives of Maine, and of the foreign-born 67,077, or 71.8%, were natives of Canada (36,169 English and 30,908 French), and 10,159, or 10.8%, were natives of Ireland. Of the total population, 199,734 were of foreign parentage—i.e. either one or both parents were foreign-born—and 89,857 were of Canadian parentage, both on the father’s and on the mother’s side (41,355 English and 48,502 French). The French-speaking inhabitants probably number considerably more than 50,000. They are of two quite distinct classes. One, numbering about 15,000, includes those who became citizens by the establishment of the northern boundary in 1842 and their descendants. They are largely of Acadian stock. The state has established among them a well-appointed training school for teachers, conducted in the English language, the graduates of which render excellent service in the common schools. The other class is of French-Canadian immigrants, who find profitable employment in the manufacturing centres. The colony of Swedes established by the state near its north-eastern border in 1870 has proved in every way successful. The Indians are remnants of the Penobscot and Passamaquoddy tribes, the Passamaquoddies being a little the more numerous. The Penobscots’ chief gathering places are on the islands of the Penobscot river north of Old Town; the Passamaquoddies’, on the shores of Passamaquoddy Bay and the banks of the Saint Croix river.
Roman Catholics are more numerous than all the Protestant sects taken together, having in 1906 a membership of 113,419 out of a total of 212,988 in all denominations. In the last decade of the 19th century the urban population (i.e. population of places having 4,000 inhabitants or more) increased from 226,268 to 251,685, or 11.2%; the semi-urban population (i.e. population of incorporated places, or the approximate equivalent, having less than 4,000 inhabitants) increased from 14,221 to 26,674, or 87.5%; while the rural population (i.e. population outside of incorporated places) decreased from 420,597 to 416,134, or 1%. The principal cities of the state are: Portland, pop. (1910), 58,571; Lewiston, 26,247; Bangor, 24,803; Biddeford, 17,079; Auburn, 15,064; Augusta (the capital), 13,211; Waterville, 11,458; Bath, 9,396; Westbrook, 8,281; and Rockland, 8,174.
Administration.—Maine has had but one state constitution; this was ratified in December 1819, about three months before the admission of the state into the Union. It admits of amendment by a two-thirds vote of both houses of the legislature followed by a majority vote of the electorate at the next September election; or, as provided by an amendment adopted in 1875, the legislature may by a two-thirds vote of each house summon a constitutional convention. From 1819 to 1875 twelve amendments were adopted; in 1875, after nine more were added, the twenty-one were incorporated in the text; and between 1875 and 1899 nine more were adopted. Suffrage is conferred by the constitution on all male citizens of the United States who are at least twenty-one years of age and have, for some other reason than because of being in the military, naval or marine service of the United States, or of being students at college, lived in the state for three months next preceding any election; the following classes, however, are excepted: paupers, persons under guardianship, Indians not taxed, and, as provided by an amendment adopted in 1892, persons intellectually incapable of reading the state constitution in the English language or of writing their names. State elections were annual until 1897 when they were made biennial; they are held on the second Monday in September in even numbered years, Maine being one of the few states in the Union in which they are not held in November.
The governor is the only executive officer of the state elected by popular vote. There is no lieutenant-governor, the president of the Senate succeeding to the office of governor in case of a vacancy, but there is a council of seven members elected by the legislature (not more than one from any one senatorial district), whose sole function is to advise the governor. The governor’s term of office is two years (before 1879 it was one year); and the constitution further directs that he shall be at least thirty years of age at the beginning of his term, that he shall be a native-born citizen of the United States, that when elected he shall have been a resident of the state for five years, and that he shall reside in the state while in office. His power of appointment is unusually extensive and the advice and consent of the council (instead of that of the Senate as in other states) are required for his appointments. He appoints all judges, coroners and notaries public, besides all other civil and military officers for whose appointment neither the constitution nor the laws provide otherwise. The governor is commander-in-chief of the state militia. Any bill of which he disapproves he can within five days after its passage prevent from becoming a law unless it is passed over his veto by a two-thirds vote of each house of the legislature. He and the council examine and pass upon election returns; he may summon extra sessions of the legislature, and he may grant pardons, reprieves, and commutations in all cases except impeachment, but the manner of hearing applications for pardon is in a measure prescribed by statute, and he must present to the legislature an account of each case in which he grants a pardon. His salary is $2,000 a year. The seven members of the council, the secretary of state, the treasurer, the attorney general and the commissioner of agriculture are elected biennially by a joint ballot of the two houses of the legislature, which also elects, one every two years, the three state assessors, whose term is six years.
The legislature meets biennially at Augusta, the capital, and is composed of a Senate of thirty-one members and a House of Representatives of one hundred and fifty-one members. Members of each house are elected for a term of two years: one senator from each senatorial district and one to seven representatives (one for a population of 1,500, and seven for a population of 26,250) from each township, or, where the township or plantation has less than 1,500 inhabitants, from each representative district, according to its population. There is a new reapportionment every ten years, counting from 1821. Every senator and every representative must at the beginning of his term have been for five years a citizen of the United States, for one year a resident of the state, and for three months next preceding his election, as well as during his term of office, a resident of the township or district which he represents; and every senator must be at least twenty-five years of age. All revenue bills must originate in the House of Representatives, but to such bills the Senate may propose amendments provided they relate solely to raising revenue. Other bills may originate in either house. In September 1908 a constitutional amendment was adopted providing for referendum and initiative by the people. Any bill proposed in the legislature or passed by it must be referred to popular vote before becoming law, if there is a referendum petition therefor signed by 10,000 voters; and a petition signed by 12,000 voters initiates new legislation.
At the head of the department of justice is the supreme judicial court, which consists of a chief justice and seven associate justices appointed by the governor and council for a term of seven years. When it sits as a law court, at least five of its justices must be present, and it holds three such sessions annually: one at Augusta, one at Bangor, and one at Portland. But only one of its justices is required for a trial court, and trial courts are held two or three times a year in each county for the trial of both civil and criminal cases which come before it in the first instance or upon appeal. In Cumberland and Kennebec counties there is a superior court presided over by one justice and having extensive civil and criminal jurisdiction; and in each of the counties there are a probate court for the settlement of the estates of deceased persons and courts of the trial justice and the justice of the peace for the trial of petty offences and of civil cases in which the debt or damage involved does not exceed $20.
The principal forms of local government are the town (or township), the plantation, the county and the city. As in other parts of New England, the town is the most important of these. At the regular town meeting held in March the electorate of the town assembles, decides what shall be done for the town during the ensuing year, elects officers to execute its decisions with limited discretion, and votes money to meet the expenses. The principal officers are the selectmen (usually three), town clerk, assessors, collector, treasurer, school committee and road commissioner. A populous section of a town, in order to promote certain financial ends, is commonly incorporated as a village without however becoming a governing organization distinct from the town. Maine is the only state in the Union that retains what is known as the organized plantation. This is a governmental unit organized from an unincorporated township having at least 200 inhabitants,[5] and its principal officers are the moderator, clerk, three assessors, treasurer, collector, constable and school committee. The county is a sort of intermediate organization between the state and the towns to assist chiefly in the administration of justice, especially in the custody of offenders, and in the making and care of roads. Its officers are three commissioners, a treasurer, a register of deeds, a judge and a register of probate, and a sheriff. They are all elected: the commissioners for a term of six years, one retiring every two years, the register of deeds and the judge and the register of probate for a term of four years, and the others for two years. Among other duties the commissioners care for county property, manage county business and take charge of county roads. Maine has no general law under which cities are chartered, and does not even set a minimum population. A town may, therefore, be incorporated as a city whenever it can obtain from the legislature a city charter which a majority of its electorate prefers to a continuance under its town government; consequently there is much variety in the government of the various cities of the state.
By the laws of Maine the property rights of a wife are approximately equal to those of a husband. A woman does not lose nor a man acquire right to property by marriage, and a wife may manage, sell, or will her property without the assent of her husband. She may even receive as her own the wages of her personal labour which was not performed for her own family. In the absence of a will, bar or release, there is no legal distinction between the rights of a widower in the estate of his deceased wife and those of a widow in the estate of her deceased husband. The grounds for divorce in the state are adultery, impotence, extreme cruelty, desertion for three consecutive years next preceding the application, gross and confirmed habits of intoxication, cruel and abusive treatment, or a husband’s gross or wanton refusal or neglect to provide a suitable maintenance for his wife.
Under the laws of Maine a householder owning and occupying a house and lot may hold the same, or such part of it as does not exceed $500 in value, as a homestead exempt from attachment, except for the satisfaction of liens for labour or material, by filing in the registry of deeds a certificate stating his desire for such an exemption, provided he is not the owner of an exempted lot purchased from the state; and the exemption may be continued during the widowhood of his widow or the minority of his children. A considerable amount of personal property, including apparel, household furniture not exceeding $100 in value, a library not exceeding $150 in value, interest in a pew in a meeting-house, and a specified amount of fuel, provisions, tools or farming implements, and domestic animals, and one fishing boat, is also exempt from attachment.
Maine was the first state in the Union to enact a law for prohibiting the sale of intoxicating liquors. An act for restricting the sale of such liquors was passed in 1846; the first prohibitory act was passed, largely through the influence of Neal Dow, in 1851; this was frequently amended; and in 1884 an amendment to the constitution was adopted which declares the manufacture of intoxicating liquors and their sale, except “for medicinal and mechanical purposes and the arts,” forever prohibited. By the law enacted for enforcing this prohibition the governor and council appoint a state liquor commissioner from whom alone the selectmen of a town, the mayor or aldermen of a city, are authorized to receive the liquors which may be sold within the exceptions named in the amendment, and the selectmen, mayor or aldermen appoint an agent who alone is authorized to sell any of these liquors within their jurisdiction and who is forbidden to sell any whatever to minors, Indians, soldiers and drunkards. But the law labours under the disadvantage of all laws not vigorously sustained by general public sentiment, and is grossly violated. For the most part it is executed to the degree demanded by local sentiment in the several municipalities, thus operating in practice much the same as a “local option” law. The law looks to checking the demand by preventing the supply; and since habitual reliance on the stringency of law tends to the neglect of other influences for the removal of evils from the community, the citizens seem to absolve themselves from personal responsibility, both for the execution of the law and for the existence of the evil itself. There has been a strong movement for the repeal of the law, and the question of prohibition has long been an important one in state politics.