New-York tribune., 1912-01-17
ARMY CANTEEN URGED,
DESPITE THE ". c. 7. U.
Wives of Army Officers Enlist
Clergy in Campaign for
Repeal of Law.

Did the left ears OF the members OF the
woman's Christian Temperance Union burn
yesterday afternoon? Because If they did
not there is no truth in the old saying.
The first gun Of the army women's cam
paign for the restoration Of the canteen was
fred yesterday at the Waldorf-Astoria, at
a meeting called by the National League
for the Civic Education of Women, and
when the last OF the six speakers got
through with the Woman's Christian Tenn
perance Union and the part 1t took in abol-
ishing the canteen in 1901 there were not
many forms Of objurgation left unused.
misguided" was the mildest adjective
applied to the members. The Rev. Norman
Guthrie, of st. Marks Church, said 1.-The
dear ladies went about the matter like
a stampeded herd. These" he OBJ
served. stand in the way of every common
sense device for regulating evil. If they
are so dreadfully moral why don't they go
and found q Siberian colony and let the
world grapple with its problems?'
'I wonder" said Major Louis Livingston
Seaman, after giving figures, drawn from
long experience as a medical officer, on the
increase of venereal diseases among SOL
diers since the abolition of the canteen,
due to their fTeQuenting resorts outside
the reservations, II wonder If there is any
way of convincing the w. G.. T. U. that
its act caused the spread of vile diseases?
Probably not 1t will continue to interfere
with an institution of which 1t is hope
lessly ignorant, and of which 1t refuses to
know anything"
The Rev. Herbert Shipman, formerly
chaplain of the United States army, told
the audience that many of the W. c. T.
us believed the canteen TO be a bottle
slung from the soldiers belt. "A round
bottle, something like .hot-water bottle,
which the soldier fills with rum in the
early morning and wears at his belt, and
drains when the silent stars look down.
why a woman said TO me- earnestly, do
you advocate the soldiers carrying that
awful canteen and putting II TO his lips?
Yes" said Mrs Roe. wife of General
Charles F. Roe, of the New York Ma
tional Guard, at the end Of Mr.. Shipman's
speech II was talking this morning to a
woman who is high in the Prohibition
party and she criticised me severely for
wanting the soldier to carry the canteen.'
/ thought for a minute of taking the trouble
to explain to her that the canteen wasn't
a bottle but a place in military reserva-
light wines under respectable and orderly
conditions.
But / didn't. just looked at her and
said, I declare l don't believe you even
know what our national hymn is
81 do, she said. It's my Country, 'Tis
of Thee"
owen Wister, in a telegram read by the
Rev. Thomas r. Slicer who presided, tried
to say a good word for the Woman's Chris
tian Temperance Union, but It is to be
feared they won't appreciate 1t. He wrote:
The woman's Christian Temperance
Union shouldn't be blamed so much as cer-
tain distilling interests which really brought
about the abolishment of the canteen.
The notion of bracketing the Womans
Christian Temperance Union and the liquid
interests tickled the audience, which first
snickered and then roared.
Mrs. Roe was one of two women who
were there to speak for the army. Mrs.
Burbank, wife of General James B. Bur
bank. of the United States army, was the
other.
Mrs. Roe in straight talk of soldier
like brevity, urged the restoration by the
government of the canteen under the bet
| ter name Of the enlisted mems club and
tAtHdH6t
Prohibition has never accomplished any,
thing" she said. I'VE cannot make people
moral by law. Why should a soldier be
deprived of all rights of man because he
is a soldier? If a judge or a banker or a
shopkeeper wants drink he gets it and
pays for it. Why shouldn't a soldier have
the same privilege"
In her fifteen years experience of the
army, Mrs. Roe declared, she had found
the enlisted men self-respecting and worthy
TO be classed with any equal number Of
citizens. She wound UP with a story Of a
trip she her children and nurse took from
Fort Custer to Fort Ellis, Montana. under
the escort Of a sergeant and six men.
I'VE passed many saloons" she said
'but not a man fell by the way. I was
protected as delicately as If my husband
had been of the party"