The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1892-02-01
THE VIC. 7. U. MEETING.
Address by the President Of the
Massachusetts Union.
RUM TAXES AND NOT GOVERNMENT
TAXES Cypress PEOPLE.

Mrs. Fessanden Uses Be1lamy's I1lustra-
ton to describe the Rum POwer-Fine
Houses and Fine Horses Supported by
Tribute of the Peop1e-High License
Stupid in Submitting to Extortions,
says the Speaker.
The Woman's Christian Union held
very interesting temperance meeting last
evening at the First Baptist church.
Mrs. L. M. N. Stevens, president OF the
State Union, and Mrs. Geo. S. Hunt,
president of the City Union, were pres
emit with Mrs Susan S. Fessenden, presi-
dent of the w. G. T. u, of Massachus-
etts. The address of the evening was
made by Mrs. Fessenden. She began by
speaking of the greatness and decay of
ancient nations; and of the present
GREATNESS of this nation. For what, she
asked, has God raised up such nation?
To give it position of prestige by which
it would be able to lead humanity to a
nobler position. But we have great
perils before us,-from anarchism, social
ism, Catholicism, mormonism, monopoly,
and greater than all, the peril of in
temperance. The lesson of slavery has
taught us that
A National Sin
allows us no rest until it is wiped out
Must we again travel through the misery
and the carnage that were required to
bring about the abolition of slavery?
Another slavery held us unchanged,
bringing youth and age to dishonored
graves, when Mothers Thompson and
Stewart, in remote region of Ohio, be-
gan their crusade. In another Ohio
town was woman teacher who was get
ting salary of 1900 year. This she
gave up to take up the good work to
which she felt God to be calling her. At
first she was greatly troubled in her
course by poverty and social disapproval.
But she kept on courageously, and in
such school was she trained by the
Lord to be leader of the army of
women in combating intemperance.
Mrs. Fessenden described the state of
public opinion when those wemen began
their crusade. The drinking habit was
practised even by the clergy. Lyman
Beecher had described an ordination
where
Thirty Gallons of Rum
were drunk The poet Whittier had told
Mrs. Fessenden only the other day that
when he was boy he was always sent to
the store to get pint of gin when the
minister called. In those days also, the
burial of a pauper in town was always
celebrated by the drinking of quantities
of gin.
Mrs. Fessenden went on to describe
the various methods of temperance agita-
ton, the different organizations, and the
methods and results of their work.
Mr. Bellamy, in his suggestive but i'm
practicable work, had compared our
present structure of society to stage
coach, bearing a number of comfortable
and well satisfied persons on its top,
while the masses of the people drag If
along the hot and dusty road. Mrs. Fes-
sender thought that this illustration OF
the stage coach might be used better to
illustrate the. rum monopoly. And the
| people Of this country,
Stupid, Good-Natured Beasts,
have been dragging that coach along the
road for many years.
They tell you that the people of this
country are taxed to support the govern
ment. tell you that they are taxed to
support the rum monopolists. Go up
and down the land, and see the splendor
in which they live, their houses with
| fine furniture and paintings. their con-
servatories with rare exotics, and their
stables filed with blooded steeds. Look
also at the great cost of our jails and
prisons. Massachusetts, is now about to
| use 100000 to build another penitentia-
| nv. although prohibitive Iowa has offered
good-naturedly to lend the use of one OF
| her unused prisons. believe that this
state Of yours is
Largely Rid of the Influence
| of this power which so holds us in Mas
sachusetts, although you find it quite
| difficult to enforce your law when there
are so many neighbors around you who
are ready to help violate it.
Is it not time then, that there was a
change that the people who are
| dragging the coach should be made to
understand their degradation and sla-
very? This effort is being made, and
| those on the coach are aware OF it. And
they are using every effort to discourage
us in the work; and to neutralize what
| we do. They mean to keep the people
| still subject to the taxes which they are
levying. And the end of this taxation
| by the rum power will cease only when
| we have obtained an
Amendment to the National Constitution
prohibiting the manufacture, Transports
ton and sale of intoxicating liquors.
Mrs. Fessenden proceeded next tc
speak of high license. 1t was a curious
method of reasoning to say that the sale
of rum was a great evil, and yet declare
that the evil might be allowed to do its
work upon the payment of certain sum
If man who could communicate palsy
by laying on of hands should come into
a community, what would sensible PEG
| pie do? Would they prohibit entirely
the practice of his calamitious power Of
touch; or would they tell him that, by
the payment of a certain sum to the
town, he might lay hands indiscriminate,
ly upon their sins? From the financial
point of view, also, high license was a
| failure Mrs. Fessenden knew town