It’s been a hundred years since we’ve seen anything like it: The People’s Veto. From this spring’s veto of the proposed tax law changes, to last November’s overturn of gay marriage, to repeal of the beverage tax in 2008, recently it’s been so triumphant that one has to return to a time when this weapon of citizen activism was first deployed with more frequent success.

Welcome to the summer of 1910, a hundred years ago, the first time the People’s Veto clauses of the Maine constitution were put to test on the ballot. This recently ratified enactment, part of a movement that won approval in the same era in California and other mostly western states, was invoked a record three times in Maine’s 1910 elections.

The first battle challenged a law tightening up Maine’s prohibition laws. A second law under siege was one to create a new town by splitting York in two. The third fight using this new tool in the civic affairs arsenal was one directing Cumberland County taxpayers to build a new bridge joining Portland and South Portland.

In large part, ultimate success in halting the laws concerning both York and the Portland area can be attributed to the unpopularity of the measures with the citizens of these areas. It wasn’t difficult, then, once leaders in all three municipalities made it known to the rest of the state that they didn’t want much part of the bills that would most affect themselves for others in Maine to follow suit. (By the end of the decade however, a new structure, formerly dubbed the “Million Dollar Bridge” did win approval.)

However, the question capturing the most fervent interest on the referendum ballot was the one attempting to regulate an intoxicating substance; as with similar attempts to wrestle with another such product in our own time, this question generated the most attention. The fact that Maine since the 1850’s was supporting prohibition was hard to deny. It was such a prominent leader in the movement that it became, the first state in America to so.

Regardless of the outcome of the referendum vote, Maine was a bit ambivalent about the inebriating spirits in practice. For one thing, Maine courts had ruled that beverages with less than three percent alcohol content were allowed by the law, thus creating a perceived loophole the legislature sought to address in 1909. This it did by enacting a statute that lowered the threshold to one percent. (The limit in the national prohibition of the 1920’s was even smaller, one half of one percent.)

It was this enactment, dubbed the “Milliken Law,” that 10-thousand petitioners successfully forced onto the state’s 1910 general election ballot. Proponents noted that the one percent used as the proposed standard was the same used by federal revenue authorities in defining whether a drink contained enough alcohol to be subject to taxation in the states where drinking was still legal.

Opponents portrayed the law as one that would ban products that were otherwise considered innocuous. Their newspaper ads, for example, asserted that it “Prohibits the Sale of Even Root Beer -the Babies’ Drink.”

When the votes were counted, 31,093 favored the change to one percent while 40, 476 said no, keep the root beer and hard cider on the shelves. Profile of the vote showed a curious alliance of the state’s largest cities joining with Maine’s tiniest towns to deliver the winning margin to “wet” forces. The idea seemed to be that major cities were the most popular venue for trading in both legal and illicit consumption. The state’s smallest towns, however, accustomed to the autonomy that comes with the independent cultures of such hamlets, just wanted to be left alone.

Thus, the most “wet” voting county was the state’s largest, Cumberland County. The second most “wet” was the state’s most remote, Aroostook. Maine’s largest city, Portland, for example, voted against the Milliken law 5,172 to 2,807. The 1,894 to 1,101 outcome in Bangor, the third largest, illustrated a similar trend even though voting in Lewiston-Auburn, the state’s second largest population center, was much closer.

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Communities illustrating the “wet” trend of Maine’s smallest towns were Naples, voting 57 to II, Harpswell, 102 to 19, Chesterville 80 to 41, and Temple 58 to 22 against the law.

“The Valley” towns of Aroostook, some 350-miles to the north of Portland, were the most overwhelming in registering their disapproval, Madawaska voting 183 to 6 and Van Buren 215 to 10 against the constrictions of the Milliken law. “Leave our root beer alone!” seemed to be their message.

Mid-sized and central Maine communities tended to be either “dry” or closely divided on the issue. True to this trend was Somerset County, where Skowhegan voted 397 to 229, Fairfield 209 to 147and Madison 176 to 156 in favor of lightening Prohibition’s grip.

The public rebuke to the three laws on the ballot a hundred years ago at this time was not the only way in which the public took a swing against the establishment. Nineteen ten was also a year where popular unrest with incumbent office holders themselves reached one of the highest levels in Maine history.

 The first use of referendum weaponry was thus also accompanied by an election that rocked the State House in other ways as well.

More in my next column.