1909] On the Maine Coast 



Taft administration, in which Hon. Philander C. 

 Knox became Secretary of State and Mr. Henry M. f llows 

 Hoyt, Counselor. Anderson, however, was called 

 back after the sudden death of Hoyt in November, 

 1909, while on his way to Ottawa to discuss fishery 

 matters with Laurier. 



At Eastport we investigated the large so-called 

 "sardine" industry, the fish really used being young 

 herring, for true sardines (or pilchards) do not range 

 on our Atlantic Coast north of the Florida Keys. 

 During the summer many clear-eyed boys and girls 

 find employment in the canneries. The state had The 

 been "dry" for years, and her sturdy lads were grow- 

 ing up with no knowledge of the saloon and no taint 

 of its varied evils. Yet opponents of prohibition fre- 

 quently characterized the Maine law as a failure ! Cer- 

 tainly liquor was- secretly sold in the larger towns, and 

 summer visitors to the "Maine Woods" were fre- 

 quently greeted at night or in dark corners with the 

 familiar: "I can tell you where you can get some." 

 But the real mission of prohibition is to save the 

 young, not to change the habits of adults or deprive 

 confirmed saturates of alcohol. Furthermore, while 

 a vicious traffic may in some degree defy the law, to 

 legalize it is worse; and however lenient or even lax 

 statutes may be, they are never obeyed by liquor 

 interests anywhere. 



In the isolated life of the fisher folk of the rocky, Grand 

 outlying island of Grand Menan, shut off from the Menan 

 rest of mankind, we got a glimpse of another world, 

 while the run in a small river steamer up the St. 

 John through the meadows and pastures of New 

 Brunswick to the head of navigation at Fredericton 



C 259 3 



