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ILJI ** XA _ ._ 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 jg 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 ■ * * H - ■ k ‘ A *VW I I I' I 2—■. »' 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