‘And we most earnestly pray your honors to with hold granting licenses to any persons in this Town who are not recommended by us—believing it to be the sincere and general opinion of the inhabitants by a test vote on the temperance Question last March, that the Public good does not require the sale of Ardent Spirits except for medicinal purposes & the arts: as manifested by choosing a Board of Selectmen pledged to sustain the course we have taken relative to the applications aforesaid—your concurence in our views & the wishes of a large majority of the inhabitants & legal voters of this town is most humbly and respectfully requested.’I found among Mr. James' papers a marked copy of the Boston Blade, a rank example of yellow journalism in the 40s. Under a cut representing Bacchus seated on a barrel on wheels, drawn by a disreputable nag, preceded by a man going through the air on a broomstick, we read as follows: ‘The above cut represents smutty Ben, the blacksmith (Benjamin Moore), the spy and informer, going at full speed to collect witnesses with a horse and buggy belonging to old Galen of the James, with old pugnose T. C. (Timothy Cotting) in the foreground with a baker's broom to keep the road clean.’ Other men prominent in temperance affairs came in for their
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[p. 85] caused discord, and tradition says that there were riotous proceedings and the pioneer was threatened with bodily harm.
In 1830, Galen James was appointed overseer of the poor, and during his term of office the issuing of spirits to the occupants of the poor house was prohibited, and the order stood on the books for some years thereafter.
In 1836, 7 and 8, he was elected selectman on the temperance ticket.
One of his associates at this time was James O. Curtis, another shipbuilder and ardent temperance worker.
The following extract from the selectmen's records defines their position.
It is from a petition to the County Commissioners who according to the law at that time had the right to issue liquor licenses over the heads of the selectmen.
Medford, MA. 1908.
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