BY MISS FRANCES E. WILLARD,
President of W. C. T. U.

Much as I disliked the restriction then, I am now sincerely grateful that my Puritan father not only commanded me not to read novels, but successfully prohibited the temptation from coming in his children’s way. Until I was fifteen years old I never saw a volume of the kind. “Pilgrim’s Progress” was the nearest approach we made, but it seems profanation to refer to that choice English classic in this degenerate connection. [I should add that Rev. Dr. Tefft’s “Shoulder Knot” was also early read at our house, in the Ladies’ Repository; but, then, that delightful work was a historical story, and even my father praised it.]

A kind and garrulous seamstress who declared that this law of our household was “a shame,” told us what she could remember of “The Children of the Abbey,” and finally brought in, surreptitiously, “Jane Eyre” and “Thaddeus of Warsaw.” But the glamor of those highly seasoned pages was unhealthful and made “human nature’s daily food,” the common pastoral life we led, and nature’s soothing beauty seem so tame and tasteless that the revulsion was my life’s first sorrow. How evanescent and unreal was the pleasure of such reading; a sort of spiritual hasheesh eating with hard and painful waking; a benumbing of the healthful, every-day activities of life; a losing of so much that was simple and sweet, to gain so little that was, at best, a fevered and fantastic vision of utter unreality. In all the years since then I have believed that novel writing, save for some high, heroic moral aim, while the most diversified, is the most unproductive of all industries! The young people who read the greatest quantity of novels know the least, and are the dullest in aspect, and the most vapid in conversation. The flavor of individuality has been burnt out of them, always imagining themselves in an artificial relation to life, always content to look through their author’s glasses, they become as commonplace as pawns upon a chess board. “Sir, we had good talk!” was Sam Johnson’s highest praise of any whom he met. But any talk save the dreariest commonplace and most tiresome reiteration is impossible with the regulation reader of novels or player of games. And this is, in my judgment, because God, by the very laws of mind, must punish those who kill time instead of cultivating it. For time is the stuff that life is made of; the crucible of character, the arena of achievement, and woe to those who fritter it away. They can not help paying great nature’s penalty, and “mediocre,” “failure,” or “imbecile” will surely be stamped upon their foreheads. Therefore I would have each generous youth and maiden say to every story-spinner, except the few great names that can be counted on the fingers of one hand: “I really can not patronize your wares, and will not furnish you my head for a football, or my fancy for a sieve. By writing these books you get money and a fleeting, unsubstantial fame, but by reading them I should turn my possibility of success in life to the certainty of failure. Myself plus time is the capital stock with which the good Heavenly Father has pitted me against the world to see if I can gain some foothold. I can not afford to be a mere spectator. I am a wrestler for the laurel in life’s Olympian games. I can make history, why should I maunder in a hammock and read the endless repetitions of romance? No, find yourself a cheaper pattern, for I count myself too valuable for the sponge-like use that you would put me to.”

Nay, I would have our young people reach a higher key than this. Because of life’s real story with its mystery and pathos; because of the romance that crowds into every year; the plot that thickens daily, and the tragedy that lies a little way beyond; because of Christ and his kingdom—the mightiest drama of the ages, let us be up and doing with a heart for any fate. Humanity is worth our while; to love, to bless, to work for it.

These ought to be the bread of life to us, the tireless inspiration of each full day of honest toil. God meant this to be so, for only thus do we cease chasing about for happiness, and find blessedness instead.

I thought, while fresh in mind, to sketch a real, live, every-day romance of which my heart is full; and I ask true hearts to cherish the impetus it is capable of giving toward noble character and Christlike deeds.

THE O’ER-TRUE TALE.

One stormy evening about thirty-five years ago a gentleman of lithe figure and alert face answered the door-bell of his spacious home in Portland, Maine. A lady stood before him closely veiled, who, on entering the cheery sitting-room where the gentleman and his wife had been cozily seated around the evening lamp, proved to be the latter’s girlhood friend. She had come on the saddest errand that woman’s misery ever compels. What she divulged was none the less a secret to her loyal heart because an open secret to her neighbors. It was the old, old story of an inebriate husband who had not come home for days, and whose business situation was forfeited, and children on the threshold of want. She closed by giving the location of the saloon where she had reason to believe him concealed, and pitifully murmured, turning to Neal Dow (for it was he), “Can’t you find my husband, and won’t you bring him home?”

In his own decisive fashion Mr. Dow sought the saloon, found the two-fold victim of inherent appetite and outward temptation, and asked the saloon keeper’s aid in conveying the half-unconscious man to the carriage. To his astonishment this was refused in tones of anger, and the declaration made that he had better attend to his own business, no man liked this impertinent interference, and the saloon keeper certainly did not propose to get the ill will of his best patron. He also pointed to his license hanging on the wall; said he paid a good sum for the privilege of selling, and meant to get his money back with interest. This was Neal Dow’s first interview with a saloon keeper, and it aroused all the indignation of his upright nature and all the energies of his undaunted will. Turning to go he fired this Parthian arrow at the vender: “So you mean to tell me that you’ll go right on selling to this man?” and receiving an explosively affirmative reply, he added: “The people of the State of Maine will see if you will keep on selling.” From that time the grand old “Father of Prohibitory Law” took for his motto, “This one thing I do.” He associated good men with him; traveled over the state in his own carriage; spoke in school houses and wherever he could get admission; in his own phrase he “sowed the State of Maine knee-deep with temperance literature;” the common people heard him gladly; the caucus decided to send men to the legislature who would represent the people’s will in this supreme decision, and on the 26th of May, 1851, prohibition became the legal method of the Pine Tree State in reference to the liquor traffic.

During the great discussion that preceded this action three legislators were whittling, whistling and discussing “how it was best to vote.” Two of them said they should be struck with political lightning if they voted for the new law, but the third—“Farmer Skillig” was his name, I think—declared, in the honest, downright tones of the average “legislator with hay-seed in his hair,” that this was the right sort of a law, and he’d vote for it and take his chances. Sequel: The time servers were never heard of more, after they had served their time, but Farmer Skillig flourished on and on in the legislature like the green bay tree.

Last summer I met on the shore of Puget’s Sound, where he is a leading citizen of Olympia, capital of Washington Territory, Captain Hall, who told me a suggestive incident about the famous “Maine law.” It seems the bill was passed on Saturday, and the (Democratic) Governor Hubbard being absent from the capital over Sunday, it was feared the saloon interest would search out and destroy the legal copy, and as the date of adjournment was close at hand, the subject might be laid over for a year. True to their instincts, the liquor men did their best to find the “only true copy,” forcing their way into the State House on the Sabbath, breaking open desks, etc., but Captain Hale, who was a member of the House, had taken the precious “bill” under his care and carried it in his breast pocket until the Governor’s return, when his signature was promptly affixed and the law was safe. Four years later, by one of those “reactions” of which history is full, a license law was substituted, which, after two years of trial was overthrown, and by overwhelming majorities prohibition came again and took up its peaceful and permanent abode in Maine.

Like every other law it has been constantly strengthened by the introduction of better machinery for enforcement. The “search and seizure clauses” have greatly energized the executive arm; the outlawing of “clubs,” the including of cider, the provision for a constabulary force to be appointed by the Governor on application from a county—all these “cogs in the wheel” are a terror to evil doers, but a praise to them that do well. And now what has this law wrought out for Maine? It has driven every distillery and brewery out of the state. It has so decreased crime that Maine has less of it in proportion than any other state in the Union. Its state’s prison, by recent showing, had but 400 inmates, or only one in every sixteen hundred (1,600) inhabitants. In the same year Massachusetts had one to every four hundred and sixty of her population. It has decreased internal revenue receipts from the manufacture and sale of alcoholics to an average of seven cents to each person, while in the United States at large the average is one dollar and seventy-one cents per capita.

Many newspapers edited in the interest of license have circulated the report that Maine leads off in the number of persons arrested, according to its population, but artfully concealed the fact that so large a number of these arrests are not for what a license state calls “crime,” but are for selling intoxicating liquors at all!

In 1882 the United States revenue report shows that while $1.71 per inhabitant were collected in the whole Union, only 4 cents per inhabitant were collected in Maine. Prohibitory Maine has about the same population as license New Jersey; yet the liquor tax in the former state is only 3 cents per inhabitant, while in the latter state it is $2.40, and in the country at large $1.83. In reply to the assertion that tobacco and opium eating are taking the place of liquor drinking in Maine, I may mention that the tobacco tax paid by Maine is only 17 cents per inhabitant, while the average for the country is $1.00 per inhabitant; and that opium eating is far less prevalent here than in other eastern states.

This analysis might be carried on indefinitely with equally satisfactory results in answering the question: What has prohibition done for Maine?

In 1876 Hon. Henry W. Blair, of New Hampshire, introduced to the people of the United States the idea of constitutional prohibition, and offered in Congress an amendment to the National Constitution prohibiting the traffic in strong drink. Coming from a source so prominent, and following so soon upon the woman’s crusade, this idea was like the spark to tinder, being caught up with zeal in all parts of the nation, and petitions have since been addressed to almost every state legislature, as well as annually presented to the National Congress. In 1880 the people of Kansas voted upon this question, giving eight thousand majority for prohibition; in 1882 Iowa gave thirty thousand, and in 1883 Ohio cast three hundred and thirty thousand votes for, and only ninety thousand against constitutional prohibition, but was “counted out” by party manipulation, as the temperance people publicly declare. Practically, then, the jury of the people has passed sentence against the liquor traffic every time that the great chancery suit of “Home versus Saloon” has been submitted to them. Meanwhile, “the mother of us all” in prohibition work was Maine, and the whole temperance host, both within and beyond that noble old pioneer state, felt that she should not be outdone by her daughters of the newer New England in the West. And so petitions poured in on the legislature of Maine asking for the submission of an amendment to the constitution which should ground the prohibitory principle in the state’s organic law. This request was at first declined, not from antagonism to prohibition itself, for neither party dare attack that by any open declaration, but on the ground that since the fathers fell asleep all things might well continue as they were; new fangled ideas were well enough for new regions, but said the average politician,

Still the temperance people urged that Maine should not be outdone; that she should march with the age; that

More than this, it was argued that constitutional prohibition has many advantages over local and statutory prohibition, and against it no good or logical objections have ever been made, although the organs, attorneys and friends of the saloon have said and written much.

Constitutional prohibition is superior to statutory because it is more democratic and best accords with the idea of republicanism. The friends of temperance, unlike the distillers, brewers and retailers, are willing to trust the people.

Constitutional prohibition is superior to statutory because it is a more certain and perfect expression of public sentiment; because it carries with it greater weight and dignity; because it is non-partisan (though it requires before it a party to submit, and after it a party to enforce).

Constitutional prohibition best accords with correct principles of law-making, the constitution being a general statement of principles, rights and obligations. It can not be repealed by the legislature, since every member of that body on being “qualified” raises his hand in solemn oath that he will defend the constitution. It holds the law already on the statute book as with a clinched nail, and therefore furnishes a stronger cage and better lock for the tiger of license and the lion of taxation. If it does not kill him it chains the mad dog of rum and beer with a short chain and puts up a sign—THIS IS A MAD DOG! So that few will go near him and nobody can let him loose without the consent of the people.

For these reasons, and many others cogently set forth by Rev. H. C. Munson, Secretary of the Maine Temperance Alliance, the people pursued the legislature and the amendment was submitted at its last session. Public interest was at once concentrated on Maine; nor in America alone, but wherever English is spoken the heart of the people was aroused. From New Zealand came a letter to Hon. John B. Finch, the great prohibition orator and chief Good Templar of the world. It read in this fashion: “We hear that the parliament in your province of Maine has submitted prohibition to a vote of the people to know if after thirty years’ trial they think it the best method of handling the liquor traffic. Tell them for the sake of humanity to stand by their law, for a vote in Maine counts one in New Zealand either for or against outlawing the dram shop.”

Mrs. Emily Pitt Stevens, the gifted California lady who came to help in the campaign said: “If you defeat the prohibition amendment I can not go back to my vineyard-cursed state, and tell them so, but prefer to be buried face downward under a lone pine in the state that went back on its record.”

Mrs. Pearson, vice president of the Woman’s Temperance Association of England, and associate of its president, Margaret Lucas (sister of John Bright), declared that if Maine failed she would be glad that three thousand miles of brine separated her from the faces she would have no courage to look into. And so on every side rang the refrain of warning. Three hundred speakers went up and down through the state, most of them “to the manor born,” nearly all freely giving their services. This was perhaps our most effective argument as “speakers from a distance.”

Your verdict will be that of the whole Anglo-Saxon race. Sometimes a part stands for the whole, and to-day you are the world’s jury. Arnold of Winkelried stood for all the republics of the wide world. Luther stood for all Protestants. The men at Gettysburg stood for the nation. Who will ask, or who remember what man was chosen Governor in Maine this year? Only a handful of people for a little time, but humanity cares what decision you give on the outlawing of those dealers who would sell alcoholic poison as a drink, because we are in the midst of the great fight for a clear brain, and everybody has a vital interest that victory shall be won.

The “sword marks” of John B. Finch were everywhere; Mary A. Woodbridge, chieftain of Ohio’s gigantic battle, told how fields were won; Col. Chevis, a gallant Southron, “who served under Stonewall Jackson,” but whom the temperance cause has reconstructed, did admirable service. Mrs. McLaughlin, with her winsome eloquence; Mrs. Kimball, with her polished style; Mrs. Lucy H. Washington, with her rapier-like logic, all were there. Ministers of every denomination entered the field; a Catholic priest “stumped” one of the fifteen counties; the temperance societies were a unit in their devotion, and while the seething caldron of politics was at its height, the temperance campaign, perfectly distinct, went on beside it; with prayers instead of processions, torches of truth rather than pine knots, and “Coronation” instead of “We’ll vote for Blaine and Robie.”

Speaking in eleven chief towns on as many successive nights I found the W. C. T. U. had worked up the meetings with great care. For “a success” in this line does not “happen,” but is organized, preËmpted, captured by consecrated common sense. I can readily tell a meeting that is a work of art and “made up of every creature’s best” from one thrown together with a pitch-fork. In most towns they had the opera house and banked up the stage with flowers; in one there was a veritable hedge of golden rod; in nearly all the cross and flag were foremost, side by side, and our W. C. T. U. motto, “For God and Home and Native Land” was sometimes in gilt letters on emerald velvet, others in delicate tracery of decorative work, or in evergreen on a white ground. Always they gave our anthem of the national W. C. T. U., composed by Drs. J. E. Rankin and Bischoff, of Washington, and beginning:

At Belfast the ladies had turned the Unitarian Church into a bower of beauty with potted plants in every window, the national colors in great folds above the people’s heads, mottoes in profusion, and on a table below the tall, old fashioned pulpit they had placed a veritable ballot box, borrowed from the town clerk, and poised over it a snow white dove with a “Yes” ballot in its beak. When I saw that latest “witty invention” of the unrepresented class it seemed to me pathetic beyond words, and so eloquent that no matter how spent might be the arrow of my speech, the voters must give heed to its appeal.

Thus gently and patiently wrought the W. C. T. U. of Maine under its beloved leader, Mrs. L. M. N. Stevens, of Portland, who has been for years the foremost temperance figure in the state, except Neal Dow, and whose mingled strength and gentleness outrank that famous leader in the people’s heart. Four days prior to the voting Mrs. Stevens presided over the annual convention of the W. C. T. U., held in the town of Gardiner, for the purpose of final and concerted action as to what should be done at the polls. Nothing proves more plainly the profound hold of the temperance reform upon the heart of woman, nor more surprisingly demonstrates the change in public sentiment, than the willingness of these conservative women of the church to go directly to the polls. At first they counseled with their western sisters who knew the methods pursued in Iowa, Ohio, and other states, but Mrs. Woodbridge suggested nothing beyond renting vacant rooms near the voting precincts, serving refreshments there, and giving out votes to those who passed that way. My own observations in Iowa were of similar character. I was in Marion, Iowa, on the 27th of June, 1882, their voting day, where an all day prayer meeting was held; the children marched and sang, the lunch was served, and out of nine hundred voters, eight hundred votes were cast for the amendment. But we women were like Mary’s little lamb, and “waited patiently about” till the voters came to lunch, though sending out the children with amendment ballots and bouquets. When these methods were suggested the ladies quietly said, “But the leading men in our towns think it important that we should see the votes go in, for they say ‘there’s many a slip ’twixt the cup and the lip’ in this matter, and our ‘Yes’ ballot might be cast aside when the men had left our presence.” It goes without saying that the western sisters did not discourage those brave women, but rejoiced in these modern Baraks who had said, “If thou wilt go with me I will go up,” and the brave Deborahs who had answered, “I will surely go with thee.”

Among the methods chosen was an address to the voters asking them to represent their home constituency, to be sent out just before the portentious September 8th, “a day for which all other days were made,” as it seemed to those earnest hearts. With this address plenty of “Yes” ballots were to be inclosed for the “vest pocket vote,” unknown to any save the man who casts it, is often a factor of power. Mrs. Woodbridge told the ladies that in Ohio they decorated tent, booth, or rooms of the W. C. T. U. with mottoes, and had prominently in view a large Bible, on a pulpit cushion, which, without preconcerted action, was almost always open to Isaiah v., with the passage marked: “Woe unto him that justifieth the wicked for a reward.”

A delegation of ladies came four hundred miles to attend this convention, from Aroostook county, which covers a larger area than the State of Massachusetts. The W. C. T. U. in that county has “conquered a peace,” and is the right arm of the enforcing power. They reported that one hundred Scandinavians had become naturalized for the express purpose of voting “Yes” on the prohibition amendment.

Among the resolutions passed by this convention was the following (an exact copy of the one adopted by our National W. C. T. U. at its last session): “Resolved, That we will lend our influence to that party, by whatever name called, which furnishes the best embodiment of prohibition principles, and will most surely protect our homes.” In the evening we had a meeting under the trees in the town park, where thousands congregated, and the full moon looked down on us, an emblem of the purity and elevation that characterize our cause. Though the street population was out in force, there was perfect quiet and decorum, and not one whiff of tobacco smoke sullied the pleasant air.

And now the fateful day wore on apace. Fortunately the Sabbath came just before, and representative clergymen of all denominations, including the Universalist and Catholic, Episcopal and Unitarian, had united to request that every pulpit should be a temperance Gatling gun that day, to send into the pews a steady fire of intelligent conviction. From the circular I take this sentence, which furnishes the key of the campaign everywhere: “One thing we very much desire: that there should come over our people next Sunday a deep and solemn feeling that this is God’s battle with sin.”

The waking thought of the white-ribbon host in Maine can readily be guessed: “God grant us good weather to-day.” What was that but another way of wishing for the best light on this last act of a great drama, only this was no mimic stage, but one on which the measureless hope and uplift of humanity were to be exhibited for all the world to see? Woman’s secret prayer was to be transmuted by spiritual alchemy into manhood’s sturdy resolve; the cherished hope of the gentle was to become the stern decision of the strong; the “cause” was to radiate out from temperance ministry and Band of Hope into the wide, free area of a mighty Commonwealth. Let me give from telegrams, letters, and newspapers, a few pulses out of the people’s heart that day soon after noon:

Augusta.

Seven wards; three to six women at each all day. Gov. A. P. Morrill called on Mrs. Dr. Quinby, President W. C. T. U., and said he had never known an election so orderly and pleasant. He and others attributed it to the presence of the ladies. He wished they could deposit ballots in their own right. Mrs. Q.’s sons, fourteen and nineteen years of age, went with her to the different wards. One pastor escorted his wife to the polls.