The Monitor. [volume] (Woodstown, N.J.) 1884-1892, 1884-06-27
PLEADING FOR PROHIBITION.
Miss Wizards Speech Before the Committee

the memorial never saw the light of day.
GENTLEMEN The temperance women of
America have never before asked for one mo-
ment of your time. Thousands of them have
worked and prayed for your success i'll the
heroic days gone by, but up to this hour
they have laid no tax on the attention of the
peoples representatives in presidential con-
vention assembled. But though the posi-
ton is new one, cannot count myself
other than at home in your presence, gentle
men, as you represent that great party which,
on the prairles of Wisconsin, my honored
father helped to build, and whose early motto
reused my girlish enthusiasm, Free soil,
free speech, free labor, and free men," But
l rejoice to-day in the sisterhood of the
women's party = the Womans Christian
Temperance Union-where | may march side
by side with that brilliant southern leader,
Mrs. Sallie f. Chaplin of South Carolina,
who in our new anti-slavery war, the fight for
free brain, is my beloved coadjutor.
am here in no individual character, but as
the delegated representative of the Woman's
Christian Temperance Union of forty eight
states and territories, including the District
of Columbia to present to your thought the
memorial of the American home against the
American saloon. You will notice that we
make no account of foreign drink customs
but speak and work directly against an insti-
tuition which derives its authority from our
own government. Our society is the lineal
descendant of that whirlwind of the Lord
known as the 'sWoman's Temperance Cru
SADIE" of 1874, and stands not only for total
abstinence and prohibition, but for no section
alism in politics, no sex in citizenship. We
recognize state rights as to the adoption of
these principles, but move forward in one
grand, solid phalanx-a society as we'll known
FInr6o ic h11t no IF tbo
last ten years work society that has an open
hand for the Catholic as well as for the Protest
ant and for the foreign as well as the native
born. We know that in America the great
changing mill of government, kept in motion
at enormous COST turns out just one product,
and that is protection for life and limb and
property. But it seems to us women that the
citadel of purity the palladium of liberty,
the home, our brothers have forgotten ade-
quately to protect. Therefore I am here to-
day to speak on behalf of millions of
women, good and true, but grieved and sor-
rowful, to ask that the guarantees and safe
guards of law shall be stripped from the
saloons of my country that their furnished
gold shall no more pollute our treasury, and
that the land we love may at once and forever
go out of partnership with the liquor traffic.
Gentlemen some political party will re-
spond to this plea from the hearts of women
asking for protection from stimulant which
nerves with dangerous strength the manly
arm that God meant to be woman's shelter
and protection SO that mans cruelty becomes
the greatest toward those he loves the best.
Some party will declare that when our best
beloved go forth into life's battle they shall
not have to take chances so unequal in the
fight for clear brain, nor run the gauntlet of
saloons legalized and set along our streets.
Some party will take to heart this object les
son of 1.-THE Nations Annual Drink Bill,
shown in the chart / have had placed before
your eyes to-day, with its nine hundred mil
lions for intoxicating liquors to five millions
for the spread of Christ's gospel.
The Greenback convention has already re-
ceived with favor this memorial. Senator
Donnan our gallant Iowa champion has Sc
sured its reading in your own great conven-
ton and its reference to your committee. To-
morrow you will act upon it. On July 6th,
it will be presented to the Democratic conven-
ton in this city, and on July 23d to that of the
Prohibition Home Protection party in Pitts
burg Pa.
A great chief of your party who was with
us as the hero of your last convention, said
that not in the turmoil of politics, but at the
sacred freside hearth does God prepare the
verdict of great, free people. Let me say,
gentlemen, that the party which declares for
national prOnlDltlOn IN loO4 Will De the one
for which the temperance women of this
land will pray and work, circulate literature,
convene assemblies, and do all in our power
to secure it's success. Nor is the influence of
these women to be forgotten or lightly es-
teemed as the past has sufficiently proved.
While l have tried to speak, my spirit has
been sustained and soothed by the presence
of that devoted army whom | am here to
represent AS womanly, as considerate, as
gentle as the women of the w. G. L. u from
Alabama to Wyoming would wish me to
be in this presence, l have tried to be, that
1 might justly represent them-g ood-natured
as sunshine, steadfast as gravitation, persist
emit as Christians faith. | have no harsh
word to speak of any. The liquor traffic is
the lawful heritage of less wise, less kind,
and less enlightened past For its existence
in this gentler age we are all more or less re-
sponsible.
Let us combine to put it away with malice
toward none, with charity for all" Daugh-
tiers of heroes and sisters of patriots are those
for whose dear sake have dared to speak to-
day. DeTocqueville said: Life is neither
pleasure nor pain it is a serious business
to be entered on with courage and IN spirit
of self-sacrfce." Gentlemen, in that spirit
/ have tried to speak-not because / wished
to be heard but to represent, as best l could,
the homes of America in their sacred warfare
against the American saloon. May God lead
and guide us all into lives and deeds of ten
derest charity and divinest toll for the sorrow