The Rice belt journal. (Welsh, Calcasieu Parish, La.) 1900-19??, 1913-12-26
ADDRESS or MRS. ARMOUR
Leader of Woman's Christian Tenn
perance Union Makes a Strong
Appeal at National Conven-
ton for Prohibition.

1t may be that all of you people here
do not know that come from Georgia
the great empire state of the South
That was the first state in that section
of the country that ever went dry. II
carried so many states in its wake that
since then Tennessee has gone dry,
| North Carolina has gone dry, Oklahoma
has gone dry, and West Virginia has
gone dry by $4,000 majority, and the
world is going dry.
j One day was agonizing before God
as | saw how the liquor traffic cared
fnanght for man nor God nor gospel,
where there was no law; that there
was nothing in this world that it would
not destroy that was good, pure and
holy for tainted dollars that it could
put into its tills, and / said, How long
oh Lord, faithful and true, how long?"
And God spoke to me these words as
| plainly as IL he had uttered them.
"Why criest thou unto me? Speak
unto the children Of Israel that they 60
forward" And there came into my
soul the profound conviction that God
had given us everything that was
necessary to win this fight, and arose
from my knees with the determination
that these United States of America
should be a saloonless nation in 1920,
as MrsaStevens had already proclaimed.
/ knew that if the United States went
dry, the world would soon rally to the
same standard. And so am here to.
night with only one burning desire,
that may stir the heart of every man
and woman in this house who believes
in God, to get up and get busy and
claim the victory that God has already
decreed.
1t will not be an easy fight. Who
wants an easy fight? ! don't. Behold
the black cross of Abraham Lincoln and
the thorn crowned agony of Jesus
Christ and then talk to me about an
easy fight. What glory would there
be in that? The liquor dealers of the
United States Of America met this
spring and pledged s60,00O,0G0 for cam.
paign work. feel complimented, don't
you? Yea, verify And the brewers
met down here. They say prohibition
doesn't prohibit, yet the Philadelphia
papers proclaimed in great headlines
that 700 brewers had met and discussed
how they could defeat prohibition.
Behold, my friends. the brewers have
met to see hhw they can destroy their
own business. did not know that
they had repented.
No, it is not going to be an easy
fight. want to remind you that the
Lord told us years ago that "They shall
fight against thee" We have got to
fight in this world. But hear the rest
OF it: "They shall not prevail against
thee for ] am with thee, saith the
Lord" If there is a liquor man in this
house tonight, / give you notice that
your business has got to 60, for the
mouth of the Lord hath spoken.
We are in this fight to win. said
to gentleman who told me that his
mother was a christian and his father
a Methodist preacher, that if he were
not a temperance man he ought to be
turned out of the church. He replied,
GOD bless you, 90 on; We may as well
tell you to 90 on because the world
can't stop YOU" may add that the
flesh and the devil can't stop lis. We
are determined to win this fight and we
are winning 1t every day. All, little
did any man or woman of crusade DAYS
know what the WomaD's Christian
Temperance Union would grow into.
AT that time as the world counted
prestige, We had no ppestige; as the
world counted honor, we had no honor
as the world counted power. we had /
no power. We were a little handful !
alone, outcast, despised and rejected of I
men, like our Lord and Master. Today
behold this great international gather.
ing; see with your own eyes how God
has led us with cloud by day and
pillar Of fire by night until today the
w. G. T. U. sits Intellectually and
morally crowned and accepted of
the mightiest world powers in the
moral and spiritual intellectual world 1
We are more important than all the
political parties in this country put to.
gether, and that is not a circumstance
% what we are going to be when we
get the ballot. Friends there Is one /,
prayer that ] have prayed for the ;
women who have come as delegates TO /
ms convention, and that is that in
sUnpyy ono r,,irrh4 l., L -. IL -