Democratic Sentinel, Volume 19, Number 25, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 June 1895 — WELCOME TO WOMEN. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

WELCOME TO WOMEN.

LADY HENRY SOMERSET OPENS W. C. T. U. CONVENTION. Hundreds of Visitor** from America in Attendance and Their Presence lo Illustrate the Remarkable Advance of Woman. World'** Temperance Conic: A world's council of women! A convention whose delegates came from every English-siteaking community upon the face of the globe and from every land when* ‘civilization and Christianity have raised the people from the low levels of savagery. A congress of women who hare attained distinction as orators, authors. journalists, church workers, missionaries, tempera n(*e advocates, suffrage leaders, moralists, reformers and philanthropists. This is what has just been held

in the modern Babylon, the capital of the great British Empire. It is an event which marks an epoch in the history of humanity; an event which shows that human society is beginning to flow in new and noblep.qhajmais. , It was in 1873 tha; a number of farmers’ wives rose up in revolt in Ohio against the village saloon system. Times were hard. Crops Vefo poor, and fhe'few dollars which the husband spent across the bar represented a pair of shoes for the wife and a new dress for the ragged daughter. It was no mere moral spasm; it was no sudden burst of prohibition principles; it was the dire necessity of daily bread. The women took counsel together, and then acted. Their action within niuc-t.v-six hours developed into and became known all over the United States as “The Crusaders.” There was no unanimity nt first in either pld# <,r performance. In some communities' they merely prayed and sang; in others they resorted to moral suasion; in some they held indignation meetings, and in others fell hack on brute force. As the war progressed it was soon noticed that prayer and praise, persuasion nud politeness, kindness and gentleness had gathered a rich harvest, where the ax and the club, the mob and the petard, the missile and the dynamite cartridge of speech had resulted in naught but harm. It was a victory for Christianity and true temperance. And the victors organized upon this basis, Christianity and temperance, and thus took their name. This is how the Woman’s Christian Temperance J.'pion, thy now famous W. C. T. U., came into being. The order spread more rapidly in the East at first than in the West. Headquarters were established in New York and a giant machinery was gradually created and set in operation. The work prospered and grew from day to day. The national campaign was instituted, in which Miss Willard and her lieutenants visited every State and territory. At the national convention in Detroit in October, 1883, the members had a hearty celebration over the report that the W. C. T. U. was thoroughly organized in every State and territory of, the Union. In the meantime the work has gone bravely on. The British Woman’s Temperance Association was formed in 1876. The many temperance societies of Great Britain, and there is quite a host of them in that land, were organized and conducted upon old-fashioned methods. The recent session of the World’s Temperance Union marks the culmination of the greatest demonstration of teetotalers that has ever taken place. The two hundred temperance mass meetings which were addressed by the members of the woman’s temperance associations of the United States, England and other countries were even more of a success than had been anticipated, and it is probable that the demonstration will have no little influence in the political world. The session of the British association was presided over by Lady Henry Somerset, who in an address extolled the work for the cause of morality in the large cities of the United States. Hundreds of visitors from America were present.

LADY SOMERSET AND MISS WILLARD.