Rensselaer Republican, Volume 20, Number 25, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 February 1888 — WARRIORS AGAINST WHISKEY. [ARTICLE]

WARRIORS AGAINST WHISKEY.

<is Gossip. A bout the Temperance Agitation and its Early A dvocates. New York Graphic. The crowd at the up town hotels' last night was larger and more cosmopolitan than usual. Congress adjourned over yesterday afternoon until Monday, and many of the statesmen had left the Capital early in the morning and hurried over to New York to spend a couple of days away from office-hunters and cates of legislation. There were Semtors, lobbyists, Representatives and men with claims and hobbies—the usual melange that fills the corridors of the big Washington hotels during the Congressional season. Strangely enough the question which seems to agitate the Republican brethren most in forecastings is the stand they must take with reference to the temperance agitation, and the discussion last night brought out some old reminiscences of the early struggles for the formation of a party to fight the rum power. “Just look at our Harry Hardwick Faxon, for instance,” said a Maseachusetts Congressman last night,who comes from quite a prohibition district, without being strictly prohibitory himself; “Harry is one of the most ardent advocates of rooting out beer and even light wines, yet I can remember when the shrewd and genial Quaker made a big fortune out of the sale of ardent spirits. And he has never thrown the fortune away on account of the source from which he drew it. Daring war times Harry saw that a tax was soon to be placed on whisky, and the good temperance man bought several thousand barrels of whisky and ram and held them for the expected advance. Lt came and Harry has been a rich man and a strong temperance advocate ever since.” George West, who represents the Saratoga district of this State in Congress, is a jolly, big girthed fellow who came over here from England years ago and made a fortune. He is not by any means an enthusiastic temperance man, but he is a good party man and will follow where the leaders indicate. It is a rather curious fact that in his district, in the county more famous than all other counties in this country for water, Saratoga, the first regularly orgarized temperance society in America was formed. In the little village of Moreau, not far from the famous springs, in the district school house, the first meeting was held. The Rev. Lebbeus Armstrong, who was an old-time preacher up in that section, and who was a good deal of a horny handed reformer in his way, and Dr. Billy jClarke, who was one of the men that had ofttimes fallen from grace and seen the outside of the church, only to be admitted again, were the pioneers in the movement. It was in the fall of 1808, and there were not more than a dozen present of the hundred who attended the meeting that were in favor of absolute temperance, not to mention prohibition, which was then an unthought of question. Another peculiar feature of the gathering was that one oi the elements which later on grew to be the greatest power for good in the cause was sedulously and emphatically shut out of the little school house. No women were admitted to the meeting, and when half a dozen of them so far forgot the prescribed bounds of their sphere as to take their knitting work, and from the vestibule of the school house listen to the discussions of their fathers, hnebands and sons, the Rev. Dr. . 'y - . Armstrong sallied forth from the meeting,and with virtuous indignation drove them back to their pots and pans. - Time slipped along, and the temperance movement gathered strength very slowly. Indeed, the failure to take any radical ground on the question was a marked feature of the early agitation. Not only was there a wide liberality of feeling towards occasional drinkers, but as an evidence of how small thought was given to prohibition in those days it was mentioned by one of the statesmen last night who hails from Massachusetts that the first reformers built a brewery in Boston for the accommodation of the temperance people. The movement was in the commencement really a protest against excessive whiskey drinking, rather than a cry against the use of any liquor whatever. In 1898 the first National Convention of the advocates of temperance was held in Independence Hall, Philadelphia,and over four hundred people were present and twenty States represented—not a woman was among the delegates. Three years later another National meeting was held in Saratoga, and then, for the first time, a woman walked down the aisle of the little church where the gathering had assembled and took her place among the men who had come to advocate the new ism. It was the beginning of a new era,and the presence of that"brave-eyed little woman helj ed the convention in framing the first resolution ever passed in America pledging themselves to labor for the adoption of the principle of total abstinence from intoxicating drinks as beverages. r ' 1 - This woman, wbo waß tha first one that ever sat in a temperance convention, was Elisa Trimble; the daughter of Governor Trimble, of Ohio

who was one of the pioneers in the agitation against whisky. Nearly thirtyseven years after, when Eliza had long laid aside any ambition to shine in conventions and had her hands full of the cares thrown around her by the family she had raised and educated, another effort ’to trample down the whisky business and root out the saloon called the little woman out for another effort in the old cause that still held a warm place in her heart. She lived at Hillsboro in Ohio, where she had married Judge Johnson, who loved his generous tipple and let his good wife do the temperance act for the entire family. When that wonderful women’s crusade began in the West the little lady put herself at the head of it, and during all the months of its agitation, until it faded away in utter failure, she led the praying and singing bands throughout the State. She is alive yet, but the good Judge has put down his foot, and the gentle lady must sing and pray in front of saloons no more. In the early and perhaps toward a somewhat later period in the agitation of the question many of the reformers had peculiar notions about their duties to themselves and the men they were trying to turn away from whisky drinking. .