Alcoholism - Prohibition : Part 5

The Curse and the Cure of Strong Drink
by T. S. Arthur

(Page 22 of 22)

While we were earnestly at work in bringing up the public opinion of the State to the point of demanding the prohibition of the liquor traffic, as a more important political and social question than any other or all others, I was startled at hearing a gentleman of the town of Raymond declare that in his town the people consumed in strong drink its entire valuation in every period of eighteen years eight months and twenty-five days! "Here are the figures," he said; "I know the quantity of liquor brought into the town annually.

I am so situated that I am able to state this accurately, beyond all possibility of doubt, except that liquors may be brought here by other than the ordinary mode of transportation without my knowledge; but the quantities stated in this paper (which he held in his hand), and their cost are within my knowledge." This was part of a speech to his fellow-townsmen, and his statement was admitted to be true. Now there is not a drop of liquor sold in that town, and there has not been any sold there for many years. This statement may strike us at first blush to be tremendously exaggerated, that the people of any locality should consume in strong drink the entire value of its real estate and personal property in every period of less than twenty years. But let us examine it.

We learn from the Bureau of Statistics that the annual liquor bill of the United States is seven hundred millions of dollars. This does not include the enormous quantity of "crooked whiskey" which has been put upon the market with or without the knowledge, consent, assent or complicity of our public officers, from the highest to the lowest. The drink bill of the United Kingdom, with a population smaller than ours, is more than this by many millions. This valuation - seven hundred millions of dollars - is the price, by the quantity, taken from the figures as they come into the public office, while the cost to the consumers is vastly greater. Now, this sum with annual compound interest for ten years, amounts to the enormous figure of eight billions nine hundred and forty-four millions one hundred and forty-one thousands of dollars - almost nine thousand millions of dollars! For twenty years the amount is twenty-five billions two hundred and forty-five millions six hundred and eighty-one thousands of dollars. Twenty-five thousand two hundred and forty-five millions of dollars and more; actually as much, within a fraction, as the entire value of the personal and landed property of the United States! My friend of Raymond may well be credited in the statement made to his fellow-townsmen.

Now, as the result of the Maine Law, in Maine, the wealth and prosperity of the people have greatly increased. This can be seen in every part of the State, and is obvious to the most casual observer who knew what Maine was before the law of prohibition and knows what it has been since and down to the present time. Evidences of industry, enterprise and thrift everywhere, instead of the general poverty, unthrift and shabbiness of the old rum-time.

The share of Maine of the National drink-bill would be about thirteen millions of dollars, and but for the Maine Law, we should be consuming our full proportion; but now I feel myself fully warranted in saying that we do not expend in that way one-tenth of that sum. A mayor of the city of Portland, in a message to the City Council, said: "The quantity of liquor now sold is not one-fiftieth part as much as it was before the enactment of the law." The difference, whatever it may be, between the sum we should waste in strong drink, but for the law, and that which we actually squander in that way, we have in our pockets, in our savings banks and in our business, so that Maine has suffered far less, financially, during this crisis than any other part of the country.

I have said the drink-bill of Maine, but for prohibition, would be about thirteen millions of dollars annually, in proportion to that of the whole country. Now, this sum, with annual compound interest at six percent., in ten years will amount to one hundred and seventy millions three hundred and nineteen thousand five hundred and twenty-eight dollars, and in twenty years to four hundred and sixty-three millions eight hundred and fifty-four thousand four hundred and twenty dollars - more than twice the entire valuation of the State by the estimate made in 1870, which was two hundred and twenty-four millions eight hundred and twenty-two thousand nine hundred and thirteen dollars. There was a reason then for the fact, that in the old rum-time the people of Maine were poor and unthrifty in every way - and for that other fact, that now they are prosperous and flourishing, with a better business than that of any other State, proportionately.

Notwithstanding the fact that in Portland a great conflagration destroyed ten millions of dollars in 1866, burned down half the town, and turned ten thousand people out of doors, the prosperity of the city has been steadily on the increase. Its valuation, in 1860, was twenty-one millions eight hundred and sixty-six thousand dollars, and in 1870, twenty-nine millions four hundred and thirty-nine thousand two hundred and fifty-seven dollars. In the last year the increase in valuation, in spite of the hard times, was four hundred and eighty thousand dollars, while Boston, with free rum, has lost more than eight millions, and New York and Brooklyn has experienced an immense depreciation.

I think I have said enough to satisfy every intelligent, unprejudiced man that the absolute prohibition and suppression of the liquor traffic has been in the highest interest of our State and people.

I am very truly, yours,
Neal Dow.

And here we close our discussion of the most important of all the social questions that are today before the people; and, in doing so, declare it as our solemn conviction, that until the liquor traffic is abolished, and the evils with which it curses the people removed, all efforts at moral reforms must languish, and the Church find impediments in her way which cannot be removed. The CURSE is upon us, and there is but one CURE: Total Abstinence, by the help of God, for the individual, and Prohibition for the State.

About the Author

Timothy Shay Arthur (1809 - 1885) was a popular nineteenth-century American author. He is most famous for his temperance novel Ten Nights in a Bar-Room and What I Saw There, which helped demonize alcohol in the eyes of the American public. Virtually forgotten now, Arthur did much to articulate and disseminate the values, beliefs, and habits that defined respectable, decorous middle-class life in antebellum America.