The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1895-04-06
WITH BLUE RIBBONS.
Tenn perance Work of Francis and
Ned Murphy.
A SERIES OF REMARKABLE MEETINGS.
Murphy's Career-Hendquarte CT
the Hue Ribbon Movement.
[special Correspondenee.l


as great a sensation with his blue rib
bon temperance movement in Connecti-
cut this winter as his father, Francis
Murphy, did in what is known as the
southern tier of counties Of New York
state some 20 years ago.
There is no doubt but the Murphy
meetings of those days were the most
extraordinary gatherings ever held in
this section before or since, though. as
L was told at the time, not at all in adj
vance of his meetings held the same
year in some other places. Francis Muir
ply was a New Englander by adoption,
if not by birth, and at the time he was
converted to prohibition was living
somewhere in Maine, if I remember
Alright. The manner of his conversion
was dramatic enough. He drank too
much one day, had a difficulty with
some one and threw his opponent down
stairs, either killing or seriously injur-
ing him. For this Murphy, upon trial,
was sent to prison for term. During
his incarceration he decided to devote
himself henceforth to urging men not to
drink whisky. He believed he could
find a new way of persuading them if
he studied the problem long enough,
and he devoted most of his waking hours
to that end until his release The result
was the devising of the famous blue rib
bon and individual pledge campaign.
All earlier temperance movements
had had a pledge accompaniment, but
the plan was for the signers to affix
their names to a long list, which was
then kept in the possession of the lee
turer or some temperance society. Muir
phys plan was for each signer to keep
his own pledge and he had thousands
of cards bearing the words of the pledge
printed. Then he added the notion Of
each signer wearing bit of blue rib
bon in his buttonhole ''for Identified
tion," he used to say, and backed up by
the reformer s really eloquent pleas the
pledge and the ribbon made wonderful
progress wherever he took them. In no
section was the blue ribbon movement
a greater success than in the southern
tier This city was for long time the
headquarters of the campaign, and here
he made a number of recruits, who aft
erward became his lieutenants One of
the most promising of these was Billy
Maxwell, whose name will be recog-
nized by persons in many sections who
look III ElS DlU0 TlDDOI CIuSdQGS Oh
the seventies.
After Murphy had covered the imme-
date vicinity of Eln2ira he went a lit
tie farther north, making his headquar-
tiers for weeks at Spencer, a little place
of a few hundred inhabitants, but so
situated at railroad junction as to DO
easily reached from nearly every direc-
ton. There in Methodist camp meet
ing grove, Murphy held blue ribbon
camp meeting lasting two weeks, and
although it was in the summer time,
when the farmers were at their busiest,
they turned out i'll great numbers every
day of the meetings. People from towns
five and ten miles away also fiocked to
the gatherings daily, some coming by
train from the cohverging valleys and
some in all sorts of vehicles over the
hills. At no day during the entire fort
night was the attendance much less
than a thousand, and on the two Sun
days the throng was immense, being
variously estimated at from 3, 900 to
10, 600. Probably the latter figures were
too large, as the former We're undOubt-
eddy too small. Certainly no such
crowds of people had ever before been
seen in quiet Spencer, and if they had
gone there expecting to buy food when
mealtime arrived there would have been
a famine for the regular hOtol resources
of the place were limited to one small
tavern. However, there was no suffer
ing, for nearly every one carried lunch
basket, and temporary eating houses
were erected in the grove for the improv
ident.
L.,
long before the demand for blue ribbon
outran the supply, and by tho close Of
the first week nine tenths of the resi-
dents of Spencer-men, womeC, boys,
girls and babies-were wearing the lit
tie azure knots. Not to wear the 'siden-
tif1cation' badge was to con fess your
self opposed to the whole scheme, and
that was to be ostracized. From Spencer
in each direction the fervor spread. Tho
young ladies of the little town and its
vicinity were organized into corps of as
sistants, whose duty it was to afhx the
ribbons to the newly signed working in
relays, one set beginning where another
set, exhausted with its labors, left off.
I do not dare to say how many persons
put on the blue ribbon during that meet.
ing at Spencer. Ny memory is that
the number was expressed in four fig
ures. Certainly there were thousands.
! At Van Ettenville, a hamlet two or
three miles away, the tavern keeper
| himself became a blue ribboner and
rolled his whisky and beer lin the
wood" out into the road, where he
knocked in the heads of the kegs and
barrels, aud the malt and spirituous
| liquors ran out into dusty highways to
be drunk up by the hot summer sun in
stead of by thirsty human beings.
General Ned, who is now leading
| the Connecticut crusade, was with his
father at Spencer, his business being to
sell photographs of the elder Murphy
and to smile on the newly converted
blue ribboners. He was a lad of not