Norwich bulletin., 1914-04-02
The Question of Temperance.

MT. Editor: An article has recently appeared in our local papers, once seemingly from anti suffrage head quarters and again as a letter from an individual. The article in question purports to treat of the relation of suffragists to temperance, but in its text treats largely of suffrag gists and prohibition. There are suffragists of all degrees of hopefulness. Some, doubtless, are happy in the faith that woman suffrage would sweep away the liquor evil, and many other evils as well Others believe that it would do much to better conditions, while still others believe in it merely because it appeals to their reason and their sense of justice We find the same variance among the antis. Some profess belief that many womanly virtues would dis appear with the granting political power to women, that the good in women is merely the result of their be- ing kept in subtection. Others simply have a preference for male govern ment, while yet others are only tenn peramentally opposed or satisfied with present conditions.
 Thus it is with the liquor question. Sufragists as well as antis are di- Tided as to whether license or no license is the wiser policy. In some instances, in the free states, women have voted against prohibition because they deemed 1t wiser to work for high
  cal option. What most suffragists claim is that woman suffrage has made a marked advance toward temperance. They base their claims upon statistics and upon the attitude of those large Organizati tions which are formed for the purpose of advancing the cause of tenn perance. The prohibition party has long had a woman suffrage plank. The w. c. T U. numbers many sanra agists, The Boston COngregationaliSt recently published an article, reprinted in our local papers, showing the gains for en1perance made by womeH's votes iH Illinois. The Pacific, a journal repre- senting the Congregational churches of the Pacific coast, said in its issue of Dec 1, 1912: 1.-TWO years ago we had but 200 dry towns in all California. Today we have about 6T5." The state president of the Wyoming w. C. T. U. wrote that before the granting of equal suffrage all Wyoming was wet, and that now 90 per cent. of the state is dry territory. Every county but one in Utah is dry and in 1911 no cities went dry 16 of the IS wet cities, so called, being mining camps. Kansas has long been prohibition state. In Colorado, within four years after the granting of equal suffrage, the number of no-license towns had quadrupled, and now 50 out of 62 are dry. Equal suffrage has nowhere led to statewide prohibition, but it has everywhere led to a large extension of nolicense ter ritory and has done much to take the saloon out of politics. The states that have adopted prohibition have usually had some local reason for so doing I This is particularly true of the south- ern states, where the negro population presents such a problem.
 Opinions upon all subjects differ and there are those who claim that women buy and drink more liquor than men, but as a rule even the most ar dent anti acknowledges that there is more drunkenness among men Suffra- i gis1s feel that the mother and the home suffer most deeply from the drinking man and that the voice of women would be raised against the evils of intemperance.
 i THE OFFICERS OF THE NORWICH Ii EQUAL FRANCHISE LEAGUE
 March 31St