Maine History Online

Temperance

Slavery was a moral abstraction for many Maine residents but the consumption of alcohol and related temperance efforts affected Mainers more directly.

Alcohol had long been consumed on a grand scale in the colonies and in the United States leading one scholar to refer to the young nation as "the alcoholic republic." Maine manufactured rum from West Indies molasses, brewed beer in local communities, shipped spirits in locally produced casks, and consumed a variety of intoxicating beverages, as did their peers in other colonies and states. Not everyone was pleased.

After burbling along at a low threshold for decades, temperance became a national moral reform effort early in the 19th century as the tenets of the Second Great Awakening took hold. The reform movement linked family stability and civic welfare to temperance. Men, as heads of families, wage earners, and citizen voters, were the target of both local and national temperance campaigns.

Because alcohol was seen as pernicious, the temperance cure was both urgent and pervasive amounting to a religious crusade against a known evil. Banners, parades, speeches, rallies, publications, organizations, and the ever-present pledge permeated Maine communities. Some periodicals, such as The Youth's Temperance Visitor published in Rockland, directed their lessons and concerns at the next generation. There were even warnings printed in native languages targeting Maine's Indians.

The most prevalent of the temperance efforts were organized by local societies. Founded in 1829, the Bath Temperance Society issued its first annual report the following year. They claimed membership of 286 in a town of 3773, which they saw as "small, compared to the whole population," but to which they also attributed a "powerful and happy influence."

Believing themselves "engaged in a high and noble work," the Society took credit for reducing the number of licensed retailers from 57 to 32, and for changing the social temper of the town so that "It is no longer considered, as an act of decorum to use ['ardent spirits'] in the entertaining of visitants."

Temperance societies could not alone change the environment of saloons and social drinking, which expanded as the nation grew, urbanized, and industrialized, and added even more immigrants to its midst whose cultures included a variety of liquid intoxicants. A problem this broad required legislation to ameliorate the effects of what many saw as a national, social disease. Enter Neal Dow, the "Napoleon of Temperance."

Dow, a businessman, helped found the Maine Temperance Society before entering politics in Portland, where he became mayor in 1851. It was from that position that he successfully wrote and submitted to the state legislature "A Bill for the Suppression of Drinking Houses and Tippling Shops" that prohibited the manufacture and sale of all alcoholic beverages. The bill also allowed the search for and seizure of suspected contraband.

Known as the Maine Law, it was the first of its kind in the nation, and launched its architect onto the national, and international temperance stage where he became a public speaker much in demand, particularly in Great Britain. That not all Mainers were fans can be gleaned from the 1855 "Rum Riot" in Portland and Dow's ouster from politics. Nevertheless, prohibition remained the law of Maine until the national prohibition law was repealed in 1933. Then Mainers, too, repealed statewide prohibition.

As Hannibal Hamlin was a temperance man, so too Neal Dow was an anti-slavery advocate, but temperance was his chief cause. As colonel in the 13th Maine Volunteer Infantry during the Civil War, Dow famously required his soldiers to sign the temperance pledge, gaining his regiment a distinction more favored by the commanding officer and concerned parents than by their enlisted sons. He even ran for president as part of the national Prohibition Party in 1880, garnering above 10,000 votes.

Even with the law on their side, temperance societies, pledges, and publications saw only temporary success in their efforts. Mainers signed pledges, but continued to drink.

Most galling was the University of Maine's "Stein Song" written in 1904 by a couple of freshmen. Essentially a drinking song, it toasts the university in every line, stanza, and chorus. Still, the temperance movement was ahead of the medical establishment in viewing alcohol and its effects as a disease, and was relentless in its pursuit of a cure.

On the national scene, Lillian Stevens of Stroudwater became the assistant to Women's Christian Temperance Union leader Frances Willard and, after Willard died in 1898, became head of the group. Stevens (1844-1914) was president of the Maine WCTU from 1878 to 1914.