Posted on 12/05/2008 10:57:18 AM PST by re_tail20
Seventy-five years ago today, golden beer flowed freely from bar taps, champagne corks ricocheted off ceilings and moonshine came out of the closet.
It was the end of Prohibition, but not everyone was lifting a glass in celebration.
The Woman's Christian Temperance Union, whose members famously kneeled down on sticky saloon floors and prayed, had battled hard for a sober America and lost.
Today, their fight continues.
The 5,000 members of the Evanston-based group will again turn to prayer to help tipplers remember there's a devil in that demon liquor.
"I am begging you to please call or contact as many of your members as possible and encourage them to reserve special time Friday for earnest prayer about this," e-mailed national president Rita K. Wert. "This is not a day we are choosing to celebrate because of the sad and unfortunate implications of the repeal."
Today, the women of the temperance union advocate and educate not only against alcohol but use of tobacco and illegal narcotics. The group also opposes abortion and gay marriage, Wert said.
The days of kneeling on the barroom floor are over. But the group -- whose annual dues top out at $15 -- still tries to get its sober message out in other ways, like anti-drinking coloring contests for kids.
It's not easy, Wert said.
"They are definitely more crafty," she said of alcohol and tobacco companies. "They're out to make a buck. They don't care."
Though the group's national officers are all under 60 years old, Wert said she runs up against stereotypes of "little old ladies with curly hair and sneakers."
In Chicago and the suburbs, there are only about six members total, said Mary McWilliams, an amateur Evanston historian who manages the Frances Willard Home. The home is the group's national headquarters, willed to the union by Willard, its second president.
Willard, who died in 1898, was a leader in the temperance movement as well as the women's suffrage movement, McWilliams said.
"She knew the only way they were going to get meaningful temperance legislation was to get out the [women's] vote," she said.
The house, at 1730 Chicago Ave., is open for tours the first and third Sundays of every month from 1 to 4 p.m.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
And thanks to them we got the mobster era, and the Kennedys. And today’s Drug Lords are no different.........
Actually, I find a lot of young conservatives . . . and not the “religious right” . . . that never drink. They may not be for prohibition, but they don’t partake.
Hey! That's about three mixed drinks worth!.........
Not saying that I didn’t drink to excess at times in my younger days, but why should the majority of us who can take or it or leave it be denied the simple pleasure of a few drinks now and then because of a minority who can’t handle it, or abuse it? Especially knowing as we do that prohibition doesn’t work in eliminating the problem, and causes many problems of its own.
Can’t think of a more obnoxious group of busybodies.
Ah yes; as a former “White ribbon baby”; this brings back memories of my Grandmother.
Really? You've never heard of the ACLU?
Party like it’s 1933!!
At least their positions on the modern issues of abortion and marriage between homosexuals are sound, I think
/johnny
‘twould be nice if Christian folks stuck to the bible for their proscriptions. There are plenty of them in there, without folks making up more of them.
I bet their Christmas party is a barrel of laughs.
They could be coming back, particularly with socialized medicine.
Under a socialized system, government will have a pecuniary interest in reducing or even eliminating alcohol.
I can see common interests between the prohibitionists and folks like Edwards that want to mandate medical treatment, anti-smoking, and anti-transfat people.
President Obama, Vice President Biden, Secretary of State Clinton, Attorney General Holder, ....
Get me a drink... make it a double.
No kidding. Scary stuff!
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