WOMAN'S CHRISTIAN TEMPERANCE UNION. 



HI 



war in the settlement of all disputed points be- 

 tween nations, and co-operates with the peace 

 societies of this and other lands. 



The official organ is the " Union Signal," 

 which has the largest subscription list of any 

 religious or philanthropic paper in the country 

 except one. Twenty State organizations also 

 have State papers. 



The Department of Young Women's work, 

 which aims to interest the young people in total- 

 abstinence principles and 'in temperance effort, 

 has its own organ, the "Oak and Ivy Leaf." 

 " The Young Crusader " is the children's paper, 

 and the children's society under the auspices of 

 the Union is the Loyal Temperance Legion, 

 which has a membership of between 200,000 and 

 300,000, and aims to teach the boys and girls the 

 " thus saith science " and "thus saith the Lord " 

 regarding temperance and moral truths. 



The Union has its own publishing house, the 

 Woman's Temperance Publishing Association, 

 in Chicago, from which each year millions of 

 pages of temperance and prohibition literature 

 are sent out literally to the ends of the earth. 

 It is a joint-stock company with a paid-up capital 

 of $150,000, the stock entirely owned and con- 

 trolled, and the publishing interests conducted, 

 by 'the women of the Union. 



Its national headquarters are at Evanston, 111., 

 the home of its president, where the correspond- 

 ing secretary and treasurer have their offices, 

 and from which go out the plans of work, all 

 official documents, and suggestions for State, 

 district, county, and local work, and where these 

 officers, with their secretaries, stenographers, and 

 type-writers are engaged in pressing the work. 



The Woman's Lecture Bureau is an outgrowth 

 as well as a part of the National Union. It is 

 controlled by women, although it has upon its 

 list of speakers not only women, but men. It 

 furnishes speakers whose subjects bear not only 

 upon the varied phases of the temperance re- 

 form, but upon popular questions of the day, 

 and aims to supply Sunday-schools, Chautauqua 

 assemblies, summer camps, grand army posts, 

 and young men's Christian associations, and all 

 who desire to arrange for literary, musical, and 

 other entertainments. It accomplishes what no 

 other bureau of the kind does, inasmuch as it 

 keeps its speakers in the field constantly and em- 

 ployed on an average of four evenings in the 

 week the year through. 



Women who are leaders in the Union hare 

 established a temperance hospital in Chicago, to 

 demonstrate that alcoholics are not necessary in 

 medicine, and a well-equipped training school 

 for nurses is connected therewith. 



The officers of the Union are : President, Miss 

 Frances E. Willard, Illinois; Corresponding 

 Secretary, Mrs. Caroline B. Buell, Connecticut ; 

 Recording Secretary, Mrs. Mary R. Woodbridge, 

 Ohio ; Assistant Recording Secretary, Mrs. Ir 

 M. N. Stevens, Maine; Treasurer, Miss Esther 

 Pagh, Ohio. 



Its annual conventions, at which its officers 

 are elected, pla,ns of work revised, new depart- 

 ments added, resolutions passed, reports received, 

 etc., have been held as follow : Cleveland, Ohio, 

 in 1874; Cincinnati, Ohio, 1875: Newark, N. J., 

 1876 ; Chicago, 111., 1877; Baltimore, Md., 1878 : 

 Indianapolis, Ind., 1879 ; Boston, Mass., 1880 : 



Washington, D. C M 1881 ; Loui.sville, Ky 1882 

 Detroit Mid,., 1888; St. Loufe, M,; 



f ad ^ lph v; a '-n Pa ^ 1885: ^'"""M 

 86 Nashville s ' 



Tenn, iss 7: ^ &, 

 11, 1HNJ); At la i.: 

 will be held in Boston, .Ma 

 a mid-year conference will ! |,, ;,j , ' ] ,., 

 Angeles, California, in May, 1891. 



Soon after the organization of the National 

 Union the women of Canada and Great Britain 

 followed suit, and the National Union had hard- 

 ly completed its first year of existence when 

 steps were taken to form an International r n j,,., 

 but it was not till 1883 that the idea took form 

 m the World's Woman's Christian Tempera... ,- 

 Union, electing as its first president Mr-. Mar- 



1882 Mrs. Mary clement Leavitt, of ftwtOfL 

 went to the Pacific coast, and from there, with 

 no assured financial support, unattended, beiran 

 to belt the globe with the white ribbon, the 

 badge of the Union, and carry the gospel of tem- 

 perance to foreign nations, forming unions 

 wherever practicable. Eight years have passed, 

 and this temperance " round-the-world mission- 

 ary " is still pursuing her weary way on the con- 

 tinent, having left behind her,'in as many coun- 

 tries, beginning with the Sandwich Islands, 

 twenty national organizations, auxiliary to the 

 World's Union. She sought to interview em- 

 perors, kings, and queens in every country, only 

 twice being denied audience. In' January, 1889, 

 Miss Jessie Ackerman followed in Mrs. Leavitt's 

 footsteps, gathering her financial support as she 

 went from no other source than her own lectures. 

 Others will follow as the work demands. The 

 general pkin of divisions and subdivisions here 

 tofore mentioned is followed. 



During the past decade science has done nnn-h 

 for the temperance cause, but it remained for 

 the Woman's Christian Temperance Union to 

 make practical these findings through its de- 

 partment of scientific instruction in the public 

 schools, the results of which are to be found in 

 the fact that upon the statute books of 27 States 

 there are laws making compulsory the study of 

 "physiology and hygiene, with special reference 

 to the effect of alcoholic stimulants and narcot- 

 ics upon the human system." In 1887 the Con- 

 gress of the United States passed a law making 

 the same study compulsory in all schools in the 

 District of Columbia and the Territories. By 

 these laws thousands of children, who must oth- 

 erwise be ignorant of scientific facts regarding 

 alcohol and tobacco and their effect upon brain 

 and nerve, are made intelligent and sent out into 

 the world enemies of the saloon. When this 

 work was inaugurated there were no text 

 on the subject, and this fact added its weight to 

 the objections made by school boards to tho 

 study and of legislators 'to enacting laws while 

 there were no facilities for carrying out their 

 provisions. School-book publishers were a-k. <1 

 to prepare them, but declined to furni-h 

 for which there was no demand. T <: 

 demand was the next work, and the c-,nst flu- 

 ency of the legislator was next appealed ti>; this 

 by persistent effort, brought the re<jui.-it|- 

 lation- and created the demand for booka, and 

 the publishers began to supply the marker. 

 The next point of attack was in the school- 



