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.
>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.
I drink. I also brew. Anyone that thinks that alcohol is evil should be reminded that Jesus’s first miracle was turning water into wine... and why would Jesus produce something evil?
Bartender, just give me the bottle.
And the one next to it there on the shelf...
Try one of the War on Drugs threads.
Once again Freepers are missing the religious component of this.
Yes, we who can handle our drinks find them to be busybodies but these women feel that they are doing the work of the Lord. That is why they are against Homosexualism and Abortion too.
Their point of view is that our body belongs to God and we should not do anything to corrupt it.
I don’t fully agree with them but I do respect them. I do see why many women whose homes have been destroyed by alcoholism see the drink as the devil. If you read the posting you will notice that these women are against drugs and any and all kinds of narcotics.
I know Jesus Christ partook wine but I wonder how strong that wine was and how the Lord worked with alcoholics back then. So much is missing in our history that we dont have a full picture of how addictions were handled.
Yea, I’ve always asked that of the prohibition types.
Never got any answer.
And they’re the next prohibitionists as soon as they get drunk with power.
Any excuse will do.
Nah, these nags are worse than the ACLU. At least I can sip a nice Scotch while griping about the ACLU. :-)
A perfectly legitimate position. But, at least if we're talking about alcohol, not something that the government should decide for adults.
Amen, brother!
It won’t be popular here but I have always thought the true feminists were the 19th century feminists like these.
Their opposition to abortion and alcohol were both intrinsic to understanding the sources of misery for women.
Alcohol is related to 40% of all violent crime and 40% of all automobile accidents.
Its amazing to me that alcohol gets the light treatment that it does in society.
I do think it will start moving in the direction of smoking which would be good in my view.
Alcohol abuse does a lot of social harm and yet its considered scandalous to criticize it.
I wish these women would be more successful.
Just call it medicine and the pain will disappear... AND the Gov will pay for it. ;-)
Mamma Mia, these people would strip the hills of Piedmont and Burgundy, kill the pride of Bavaria!
I don’t drink, but that picture is inspiration to start. Guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty,...
Is that a promise?
Just curious,
Would you, or do you, drink non-alcoholic beer or non-alcoholic wine, and if so, how much?
In Oliver Stone’s “W”, George W. Bush is shown drinking non-alcoholic beer, and he seems fine, and finally gets his life together
Hopefully! LOL
Such policies may even be hailed by tomorrow's "economic conservatives" for their ability to keep taxes lower, and by "social conservatives" in the spirit of the prohibition ladies here (or in the context of gluttony, etc). They might get creative and declare "war on illness", or tie it somehow into national security and get the neo diaper-wetting cons to sign on. Leftists of all stripes will sign on obviously to protect their precious "right" to medical care.
The major theme faced in these battles is the difference between positive and negative liberties. Health care (a "positive liberty") will be declared a fundamental human right, while production, purchase, or consumption of consumer products ("negative liberties") will move from right first to privilege, and then to crime. Compulsory collectivism is the natural enemy of liberty; new generations of "rights" never augment - they only supplant. The long-term battles faced tomorrow will not have battle lines drawn along today's normally accepted political dichotomy.
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