Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1890-01-19
THE NATIONAL NEXT.
Non.Partisan W. C. 7. q. Women to
Organize This Week.
A LETTER FROM MISS INGERSOLL.
She Denies That Any Political Party is
Back Of the New Union.
EVENTS THAT LED TO A SEPARATION

Now that the State Convention of the
Non-Partisan W. G. 7. U. women has been
held with such successful results, the women
of the faction are actively engaged getting
ready for the Cleveland meeting to be held
this week.. This will be a three days con-
ference, in Music Hall, Cleveland, COM
mencing Wednesday morning at 10 o'clock.
A letter was received in this city yesterday
from Miss Mary E. Ingersoll, Corresponding
Secretary of the Non-P Partisan W. c. T. U,
of the State of o hio. The person to whom
the letter was addressed had written to Miss
Ingersoll, asking her to give the arrange
ments for the National Convention and to
reply to several statements that had been
made by persons who were evidently en-
deavoring to decry the non-partisan move
ment. The following is Miss Ingersoll's
letter in full:
be held In Music Hall. which has the largest
seating capacity of any auditorium in the city,
and which has recently been placed in the
bands hands OF the n. m Mno1;paEtis2n W. G. = U. Of
Prohibitionist), to be used by our union for
gospel temperance work.
The convention will be entertained by the
citizens OF Cleveland. who have always given
generous support and hearty sympathy to the
non-partiSan union, which was one of the first,
il not the first, organization Of temperance
women formed In the country, but which with
drew from the State and National Union in
1885, Immediately after the State Union in
dorsed the resolution passed at ST. Louis by
the National Union, giving the influence of the
organization to the Prohibition party. Our
City Union has five separate institutions has
erected one costing $4,000, and is probably the
strongest local union in the country.
INTEREST IN THE MOVEMENT.
There is no means Of knowing now how large
the representation at the convention will be,
although letters received from all over the
country indicate very great interest in the
movement. not only on the part OF temperance
women, but also Of religious papers, Of promi-
anticipate that any large number of those who
form the new organization will be drawn from
the old one. We make no effort to secure this
result, but only to bring together those who be-
lieve that the right principle upon which to
conduct the temperance work is that upon
which men and women of all political parties,
as OF all Christian denominations, can unite.
do not imagine that there will be any
marked effect, any general disintegration of
the old organization as the result of the forma-
tion of the new. We do not aim to accomplish
but only to call into our ranks the women who
have fallen out of the other because of the par
tisan policy, and those also who have never
been identified with it for the same reason.
1 can most emphatically assert that so far as
Ohio women are concerned, the Republican
party has no more to do with our organization
than the Queen of England has. We are, in
our State Union, as entirely independent OF
that party as we are of the Prohibition party
or the Democratic party. Temperance men in |
all parties support our work and work for us
when we ask it. as we often have DONE in State
and municipal legislation, and the non-partisan
temperance women of Cleveland or of Ohio |
will never attach their organizations to any
party. That is the principle upon which we
stand, and the only one upon which we can |
hope for success. MARY E. INGERsoLL.
Each one of the women spoken to yester- |
day talked very hopefully of the Cleveland |
convention. Cleveland was selected as the |
place of meeting because several non-
partisan unions have already been formed |
there, and, in fact, throughout the State of |
Ohio. The Ohio w. C. 7. o. Endorsed the |
st. Louis resolution in 1885, and shortly |
sfterward several of the strongest unions in |
the State withdrew their connection with |
the State and national organizations.
MODEST ABOUT NUMBERS.
Later more non-partisan unions were |
formed, and in 1886 all these united in an |
san W. G. T. o., of which Mrs. E. j. Phin-
ney, of Cleveland, is President 1t is not ex-
pected by the leaders of the non-partisan |
that the new national union, if |
one is formed, will rival IN numbers the pa
rent organization. Many women who SYM
pathize with the new movement are expected
to hesitate to break away from the associa-
tions of years. Many such have put their
money and more than decade of labor into
institutions controlled by the so-called par
tisan unions. Many timid women will hesi-
tate to join what may seem to them an un-
certain movement.
The new National Union will be largely
of women not willing to have their
influence, by vote of that union, lent to
any political party, and who believe that a
political party test should never be pre-
sented to a society of Christian women,
banded together to do gospel temperance
work, any more than it should be to a
Christian church
Many of the local leaders in this move
ment are in their personal sympathies with
the Prohibition party. All of them believe
in the prohibition of the liquor traffic, and
in that sense are Prohibitionists. The ma
iority of them are veterans in temperance
work, having enlisted during the crusade of
1874
Mrs. H. G. Campbell, of Allegheny, who
was elected President of the Pennsylvania
Union, Mrs. Harry White, who was elected
Vice President at large, and Mrs. Ellen M.
Watson, the Corresponding Secretary, are
the principal delegates who will go from
Western Pennsylvania to the Cleveland
They will go Tuesday night.