St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1882-02-24
Temperance.
Fighting Alcohol.
REPRESENTATIVES, OF THE W. G. T. L.
BEFORE THE HOUSE COMMITTEE.

Temperance Union before the Select
| Committee on Alcoholic Liquors of the
House of Representatives, Hon. J. T.
! Wait, of Connecticut, chairman.
Mrs. c. b. Buell., corresponding sec
rotary of the National Society, i'll ii few
well-chosen words introduced the
speaker. who. addressed the committee
as follows:
1T is with great sOlicitude that add
dress this honorable committee so
| licitude because of the vast and sa-
cred interests involved in our plea and
because of the great and dearly-loved
army of women whom | serve, whose
voice | this morning am; not alone
this | realize also the dignity of the
forum to which | come. The popular
branch of the Congress of the United
| States, the direct representative of
the people of the United States, has i'll
its wisdom and in answer to the loudly
expressed wish of the people, appoint
ed this committee for the express pur-
pose of receiving and considering all
petitions and memorials and proposed
legislation touching the alcoholic liq-
nor traffic. There are before you pc
titions numerOusly signed by women
asking for an amendment to the con-
stitution of the United States forever
prohibiting the importation, manutac-
ture and sale of all Intoxicating liquors.
These women are citizens of the Uni
ted States and of the several states
from which you come, and they do thus
petition the government for Il redress
of grievances.
What these grievances are | need
not enumerate. They are confessed by
all. They are recorded i'll the annual
destruction of grain that ought to be
used as food, in the injury to labor that
otherwise might increase the nations
health, in the burden of taxation in
CURED because of the pauperism, in
sanity and crime caused directly and
indirectly by the use of Intoxicating
liquors, in the general decentralization
to society consequent upon the traffic
i'll these liquors, i'll the political cor
ruption of which this traffic is the con-
tinued cause and the ever ready ac-
complice.
ain the consideration of these griev-
ances women are no more concerned
than men: i'll the material prosperity
of the country, in the political purity
of the government, they have an equal
interest but there are grievances
which more heavily press upon women,
and more loudly plead for redress. OF
the home woman is the acknowledged
cOnservatOr of its interests. She is the
natural guardian its prosperity is her
greatest joy and pride; its ruin her
greatest grief and shame. The use of
Intoxicating liquors imperils and de-
stroys every interest of the home, and
the traffic i'll Intoxicating liquors is the
arsenal of weapons, the fortress of sup
plies by which this use is fastened up
on the home, upon society, upon the
state and nation. Gentlemen of the
committee, may not women petition
for ii redress of these grievances
| What else can woman do! She can
not by direct political influence make
Legislators who shall set the strong arm
of the law against the traffic. She can
plead, but she cannot enforce her plea
with the stimulant of hope of reward
or the tonic of fear of punishment.
Pardon me, gentlemen, if there be an
implied imputatiOn of susceptibility to
such stimulants or tOnics. Thus do |
urge you to a more careful, if possible,
consideration of the prayer of these pc
titioners than you would give if they
were citizens who might otherwise en-
force their claims.
I'VE are well aware that the several
states are sovereign in their power to
deal with the manufacture and sale of
Intoxicating liquors; that they may,
by constitutional statutory law, absO-
lutely prohibit the traffic; but we also
know that they cannot control the i'm
pOrtation and inter-cOmmerce i'll these
beverages, and the presence of these
liquors within the territory of the
states, though they receive no direct
protection of the general government,
does embarrass very greatly the opera
ton of state laws.
The recognition of the traffic by
taxation does give it dignity, and that
which should be branded as an outlaw
demands Il representation of its inter
ests in the Congress of the United
States on the basis of revenue paid to
the Treasury of the United States, and
thus Il traffic which is in some of the
states absolutely prohibited, and in all
is under the restraint of police regula-
tons, claims the general government
as an ally to the extent of the tax re
ceived.
such variance of interests i'll the
spirit of state and national legislation
can but tend to disintegratiOn-not to
union.
"The Washington monument yOnder
contains stones from the various states !;
that from my own, Iowa, bears this
inscription iowa, like the borders
of her rivers, tends to perpetual I'm
ion" This union shall be perpetual
ted, not only 10y common ancestors,
by common commercial interests. by
great railroad bands from ocean to
ocean, by common acceptance i'll all the
states of the Christian faith and i'll the
multitude of blessed associations that
come TO us therefrom, but this spirit
of union must be maintained by har-
mony in legislation.
The general government is the
creature of the state governments it
must do no violence to them by an
abuse of even the spirit of its derived
powers.
"The abolition of the liquor traffic is
the proper subject of constitutional
law, for the reason of its broad and
general relation to all the interests of
the body polite. Judged by the test
| of other amendments, II more than
equals them in dignity and signiti-
canoe"
At the close of the address Judge
Wait said:
'Mrs. Foster, we thank you most
cordially for your very able and forci-
BILE address, which shows much
thought, study, and ability, and We
will give the cause you represent our
most candid and conscientious consid-
Grafton. The warm sympathy of this