The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1888-11-07

presented does not fill up the full meas
ure of the very unchristian conduct of
this professedly Christian and philan-
thropic body. 1t drives the iron into
the soul of the minority in the follow
ing resolutions:
Resolved, That it is the sense of the Ma
tional Woman's Christian Temperance I'm
ion that no member should speak from the
public platform to antagonize our policy to-
ward the party to which our influence is
pledged, and that any member thus antag-
onizing our policy is hereby deemed dis
loyal.
OF this resolution the Christian I'M
ION says:
care you then so dstrustful of your own
policy? Are you so afraid of your own
avowed principles that you dare not have
them discussed? The minority have proved
their loyalty to temperance and even to
prohibition by quite as vigorous service and
quite as great self-denial as that which the
majority have shown, and that they should
state to the convention reasons why they
not helpful, to the cause all have at heart
This is prescription of free speech in its
most odious form, not even disguised under
a pleasing phraseology"
In a trenchant letter in the Independ-
ent, Mrs. j. Ellen Foster, one of this
prescribed minority of temperance
workers, says:
" No woman enjoys the official patronage
who publicly antagonizes the political policy
of the Union; no evangelist is sent out who
is not in sympathy with the party work no
one is Endorsed as national organizer who
declares her opposition to this policy. The
official organ is a pronounced partisan pa
per. Like other partisan papers, it reports
news and facts so to make for their side
The paper for the work among foreign born
citizens is party campaign paper during
this year. The edition of the Union Signal
for state and county fair work was made to
bristle with arguments in favor of prohibit
ton party work. The blight of partisanship
is upon everything, and women who expect
to purify politics lend themselves to nsinu-
atoms and half statements of truth for party
effect as readily as the veriest demagogues
in the old political parties which they con-
denim. This course has driven the women
to great inconsistencies and many illogical
positions They talk about opposing sweet
reasonableness to severe epithet,' they make
gentle and dignified denial of any
wrong intent toward any of our num-
ber,' and then proceed to adopt with
applause, charges evidence of which is
withheld) against the personal integrity of
a sister whom they profess to love and
honor. They formally declare the most
slanderous insinuations of their willing
press to be characterized by Christian
courtesy Their president commended
to her followers as spicy reading an
open letter containing most brutal attack
upon Christian minister and which also
contained insinuations against the charac-
ter of beloved sister, Against such
treatment there is no redress since the code
of Christian courtesy has swept away the
ancient rule, an eye for an eye and tooth
for tooth. They indulge in tumultuous
applause at the name and presence of third
party candidates, but their president de-
clares that sooner than support Warner
Miller in his present candidacy in New
York, Let the minions of that accursed
business (saloon) elect their candidates and
80 fill up the measure of their wrath To-
day those same minions know that the in
fiuence of this Christian organization in the
vital issues to be settled on November 9th
will strengthen the opposition to the man
L., ~, .ln1I q ~,
looms by saying he preferred defeat to sue
cess due to saloon influence"
Mrs. Foster characterizes the po-
litical action of the Union in the fol-
lowing scathing paragraph:
"In civil courts to obtain property under
false pretenses is embezzlement and to
divert funds from their assigned and con-
stitutional uses is fraud This is what
the Woman's Christian Temperance Union
has done, the difference in honor being in
favor of the embezzler; the grand larceny
committed by this Christian organization
being of heart and soul and home infu-
ence, while the embezzler merely steals
material value"
l. ulo 10 oCNClC, DuI ~ 10 JuoI duu VI ulA-
full. Mrs. Foster shows in a strong
light the non-partisan and non-political
character of this protesting minority by
exposing the falsity of the charge that
republican women alone protest against
the party action of the national society.
The facts are that republican, demo-
cratic and third party women, North
and South, East and West, have joined
in this protest. This episode is in
structive in various ways. 1t illustrates
in striking way, among other things,
the difference between theory and prac-
tice in the claim Of the advocates of
woman suffrage that woman in politics
will purify partisan courses. If they
make such an unseemly display in what
was in fact, if not in name, political
convention, the outer court of the tenn
pie of suffrage, what sort of an exhibit
ton may be expected should they force