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VOL. VIII,—No. 27
CHRISTIAN WOMEN CRUSH SALOON KEEPERS
RETAIL LIQUOR DEALERS’ CONVENTION AT CEDAR RAPIDS, IOWA, IS GIVEN A ‘ WELCOME” THAT BLEEDS AND BLIS
TERS—A WITHERING, DEATHLESS DOCUMENT.
HEN a crowd of women get to talk ng.
let their adversaries watch out I And
especially is this so when the women of
an organized band like the Woman s
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Christian Temperance Union unsheath their
swords and level their shafts at a crowd of
whiskey sellers. On the front page of The Bal
timore Sun, the leading daily of that great
city, there recently appeared in a three-column
“box” the following address of “welcome”
which the W. C. T. U. of Cedar Rapids, lowa,
gave to the Retail Liquor Dealers’ Convention
in that city.
Never in the history of the crusade against
whiskey-selling in this country have we seen
anything more timely, pointed and powerful.
Temperance workers everywhere need to
keep and “pass on” the dynamite that is in
it. And the fact that such articles are ap
pearing on the front page of a great metropoli
tan daily shows that the Maryland Anti-Saloon
League under fearless and enterprising lead
ership of William H. Anderson is 4 doing bus
iness” for the cause of God and the right.
But this prominent and unusual handling of
such an article by a great daily speaks to us
Gentlemen: A welcome to a city should be representative, and
since the welcome accorded your association by the Mayor oi Cedar
Rapids represents the thought of but a portion of its citizenship,
it seems fitting that the entire community should communicate to you
its sentiment. Hence, in behalf of those not represented by the
Mayor, the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union extends this greet
ing:
It is quite usual in greeting a body to enumerate its accomplish
ments and tell of its worth and standing. Courtesy to the individual
somewhat embarrasses us here. Shall we greet you as those who
wreck homes, debauch manhood, prostitute womanhood, disgrace and
impoverish childhood? Shall we greet you as those who place upon
the taxpayer the heaviest burden in caring for the results ol jour
traffic?
Your position in a community is quite peculiar. We fail to find a
city that enumerates among its advantages its saloon. The com
mercial club of our city advertises our manufacturing plants, our
churches, our schools and colleges, but never once have the thirty
tow saloons of the city been advertised as a reason for industries to
locate here.
It is said by some that you help a town. Do you make better fathers,
husbands, sons and so raise the standard of citizenship? Do you bring
comfort and happiness to mothers, wives and children? Do you add
to the efficiency of the laborer or business man, and so add to the
material prosperity of the place?
Any business is judged by its results. Some time since Cedar
THE NOTABLE WELCOME TO THE RETAIL LIQUOR DEALERS’ CONVENTION OF IOWA BY THE WOMEN’S CHRISTIAN \
TEMPERANCE UNION OF THAT state. , . V
ATLANTA, GA., AUGUST 28, 1913
A STICK OF DYNAMITE
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MRS. MARY HARRIS ARMOR.
Rejoices at “Welcome” of Her Sister
Co-workers.
Rapids had a Manufacturers’ Week. Every business in the city save
yours exhibited its wares. Yet your ambition is to be classed as a
line of legitimate business. The packing house and Quaker Oats
mills showed their splendid products ready to feed the woild. I lie
pump manufacturers and wood finishing concerns exhibited their con
tributions to comfort and esthetic pleasure. The clothing manufac
turers gave evidence of prosperity. Did the saloons of Cedar Rapids
use their windows or were those ot other places loaned to exhibit
their finished products? No, you find these in the penitentiary, where
eighty-five per cent of the inmates are your graduates. Seventy
per cent of the insane are others. Ninety per cent of pauperism
is another class. The great burden of private charity is due to the
saloon. The taxpayer pays the enormous cost of caring for your pro
duct. But only the Father of us all knows all the blight of manhood,
the shame of womanhood, the wreck of home ,the heartbreak of the
innocent. Ah, no, gentlemen, you are not welcomed to Cedar Rapids
by its homes and social interests.
Yours is not a legitimate business, so declared by the United States
Supreme Court. Our stores open at their pleasure, closed only on the
day of rest. But in self-defense a community limits you as to limes
and seasons. If your places of business are so demoralizing that
they must be closed on election daj’s and holidays, and so dangerous
that they are closed in times oi fire, riot or other occasions of excite
ment, how can a city welcome you at any time?
It is passing strange that the political power you wield can stultify
(Continued on page 16.)
from another standpoint— the crying need for
such a daily in Georgia.
If Maryland and Pennsylvania can have such
dalies if Tennessee can rejoice over such a
fearless sheet as the Nashville Tennesseean,
and other of our sister states can boast and
support such educators of the youth of our
country, then in the Master’s name we ask,
what is the matter with the Empire State of
the South?
Where is the enterprising “Atlanta Spirit,”
that such a force for God and humanitay as a
clean, vigorous, law enforcement daily, is not
sending out its purifying, regenerating influ
ence to thousands of readers every day?
(Jan Christian Georgians longer sit quietly
by holding tight their purse strings and see the
minds of young and old satiated and corrupted
by the sensational, the vile, the degrading sto
ries and half nude pictures so suggestive of
evil that fill most of our dailies and feel God
will not hold thenF responsible for the present
social degeneracy and the inevitable future de
struction of our once pure homes and boasted
civilization? It is no longer where are we
drifting, but where have we drifted?
Let us AWAKE! J.
ONE DOLLAR AND FIFT TOMNTI
A YEAR :: FIVE CENTS A OOFT