Page 54

1886

ther, the tide of immigration, which
hitherto has been flowing into the more
accessible but less healthy sections
along the main branch of the Baltimore
and Ohio railroad, is beginning to set
in this direction, and there is a con-
stantly increasing demand for property
along the route of the Metropolitan
branch railroad, which needs only to be
encouraged to still further increase. In
view of this state of things, there is
an element in the county, many of
whom, however, are honest in their opin-
ions, which would undo all the good
that Local Option has done. But the pe-
tition which has just gone before the
legislature must be so appalling to the
resubmissionists that for a time at least
the good people of Montgomery may
rest assured that local option will not
be disturbed.

MR. DAVIS’ ADDRESS

The following is the address prepared
by Mr. Davis, Chairman, in behalf of
the Local Option Committee:
Mr. Chairman:—I am doubtless in-
debted to the frosts of many winters
for the honor of being made Chairman
of this large and respectable Delega-
tion.

It represents every interest, district
and neighborhood in the county. These
gentlemen have left their homes, their
families and their business to bear to
you, in person, a petition upon a sub-
ject of deep and absorbing interest to
the people of Montgomery, as well as
to the adjoining county of Howard. A
subject, the germ of which was planted
more than fifty years ago, whose fruc-
tification and growth, though slow at
first, has taken deep root and spread to
every valley and hillside from the Pa-
tapsco to the Potomac. It is just fifty-
two years, when, as the youngest and
now only surviving member of the
Board of Trustees of the Brookeville
Academy, I signed the first petition for
a Local Option law for the benefit and
protection of that Academy that I had
then ever heard of, or had any knowl-
edge of being in existence. I now be-
lieve it to be the oldest strictly Local
Option law in the United States. The
Maine liquor law was enacted in 1851,
while the Brookeville law dated back to
1834. I feel proud of that, as one of the
best acts of my life; for while it great-
ly benefitted the Academy, it furnished

an example for many similar exemp-
tions throughout the State. In 1862 I
had the honor of being a member of
this body. In looking over the Code, I
discovered that the limits of the Brooke-
ville exemption had been cut down
from one and-a-half to one-half a mile
around the village. I immediately
wrote to my friend, Dr. Magruder, my
immediate senior in the Board, appris-
ing him of the fact, and suggested that
if he would send me a petition I would
try and restore the original limit. In a
short time the petition came, signed not
only by the Trustees of the Academy,
as by them alone in the first instance;
but by every voter in the village. Among
the latter were two signatures which as-
tonished me. They were the names of
two very worthy and useful citizens,
who could not go beyond the limits of
the prohibited district without falling
under the influence of the intoxicating
bowl. In presenting the petition, I
called attention to that fact, and stated
that to my mind it was an irresistible
appeal from human weakness and frail-
ty to the strong arm of the law to pro-
tect us even against our own personal
infirmity. No sooner was the presenta-
tion of this petition published, than I
received a letter from the late William
Thompson, of R., for several years
printer to the House of Delegates, in-
forming me of a death in his neighbor-
hood, under very distressing circum-
stances, and that he wished I would in-
clude the village of Goshen, near which
he lived, in the proposed prohibition.
My reply was, “send me a petition upon
which to found a bill.”

I have faith not only in the right of
petition, but also in the power and in-
fluence of petitions; and when this pe-
tition came from the land of Goshen, I
had no difficulty in including Goshen
within the mystic bounds of prohibi-
tion. Immediately succeeding this pe-
tition, came one from Sandy Spring, a
place now well known to fame, for a two-
miles’ circuit around that prosperous
and flourishing village; and then came
one for a four-miles’ circuit around the
school and church at Emory. I incor-
porated them all into one bill, and so it
came to pass that in a part of the Dis-
trict of about 160 square miles the lines
overlapped two or three deep, and, as
the County Surveyor would say, ran
foul of each other; but not with clash-
ing claims and interests, for all here was
harmony, peace and concord.