This was in force at Nashville only, and was rescinded by an overwhelming majority at New York. At Nashville an amendment to our Constitution offered the previous year by Mrs. Foster, was voted down. It read as follows:

"This association shall be known as the National Woman's Christian Temperance Union, and shall be non-sectarian in religious, and non-partisan in political work."

The convention held that our non-sectarian character had been thoroughly established from the beginning, and as to being non-partisan, it was far from our intent. In St. Louis we had crossed the Rubicon forever, and with us it was a case of "sink or swim, live or die, survive or perish, I give my hand and my heart to this vote." We could not as a national society consent to remain in relations of equal friendship toward one national party that ignored, another that denounced, and a third that espoused, the cause of prohibition. But we did not appreciate the anger of a party in defeat-indeed, we had not supposed that defeat was in store for the Republicans.

CHAPTER IV.

WOMEN IN COUNCIL.

we now called the What it hoped and

Patiently the "Old Guard" (for so National W. C. T. U.) held on its way. prayed for came true, the good men who were angry thought better of the situation after awhile. Ministerial brethren, even, who had declared that our pulpit notices should be read no longer, changed their minds and let us hold meetings in the dear old home churches as aforetime.

At our next National Convention in Philadelphia (autumn of 1885), forty churches were opened to our speakers on the Sabbath day, though we chose Association Hall in preference to the beautiful edifices that were offered us. Among the beautiful decorations of this Hall were the banners and other devices that had made our booth at the late Exposition in New Orleans a fitting. symbol of our womanly work. That the woman-touch is thus to brighten every nook and corner of earth, has always been a cardinal doctrine of my creed, coming to me first as an intuition, later on as a deduction, but always as an emphatic affirmation.

Two hundred and eighty-two delegates were present from forty states and territories. Nearly eleven thousand dollars had been received by our treasurer and our convention was conceded to be by far the strongest and the best that we had ever held. Clearly, our branch of the temperance work had not "been set back twenty years." Forty-four district and national departments of work were provided for; a new constitution was adopted, requiring ten cents per capita to be paid into the national treasury, instead of five cents, as heretofore; our superintendents were organized into a committee to confer with the Executive Committee. Headquarters were removed from New York, where they had never flourished, to 161 La Salle Street, Chicago, Ill.,

Pageants of the New Crusade.

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where, in conjunction with our Woman's Temperance Publishing House, they have greatly gained in power, and the White Cross movement was adopted as a feature of our work.

I was made, per force, superintendent of this new department; also of our national department of publications, and had that of organization assigned me as an ex officio duty.

The Philadelphia Convention was remarkable for the large number of white ribbon women in attendance as visitors, for the number of distinguished persons outside our ranks who addressed it, also for the deference manifested by ministerial and other bodies in sending us fraternal delegates. Probably no convention ever assembled in America in an auditorium more beautifully decorated. The escutcheons of states, the banners of the forty departments, the gay pennons of state and local unions, of young women's societies, and of the children's Loyal Temperance Legion, recalled the pictures and pageants of the mediæval Crusaders and knights of olden chivalry. Mrs. Josephine R. Nichols, national superintendent of introducing temperance work at expositions, state and county fairs, and other great assemblies of the people, had set our women at work preparing these beautiful bits of color and emblems of sentiment and purpose, for the New Orleans Exposition, where we had a handsome booth. I fear, lest in setting forth the political attitude of our society and my relation thereto, I am doing injustice to its real, though less observed, activities. For example, at St. Louis nearly thirty distinct departments were passed in review by their chiefs, in reports printed and circulated throughout the convention, and methods for improving all of these departments were duly discussed and acted on; a strong corps of national organizers was selected, and all our publishing interests provided for.

Indeed, the versatility of our W. C. T. U. can hardly be better illustrated than by the fact that this same convention not only swung us into politics, but adopted the following petition to editors of fashion-plate magazines, reported to us from the Press Department, which sends out news, temperance literature and bulletins to thousands of papers, from Tampa Bay to Puget Sound, and of which Miss Mary Henry is our present Superintendent:

Dear Friend-Knowing that the fashion in woman's dress which requires the constriction of the waist and the compression of the trunk

412

The Fashion Plate Petition.

is one which not only deforms the body in a manner contrary to good taste, but results in serious, sometimes irreparable, injury to important vital organs, and believing that the existence of the widespread perversion of natural instincts which renders this custom so prevalent may be fairly attributable, in part, at least, to erroneous education of the eye, and the establishment of a false and artificial standard of symmetry and beauty, which in our opinion, is largely the result of the influence of the popular fashion-plates of the day, we, the undersigned, most respectfully petition you that, in the name of science and humanity, you will lend your aid toward the elevation of woman to a more perfect physical estate, and consequently to the elevation of humanity, by making the figures upon your fashion-plates conform more nearly to the normal standard and the conditions requisite for the maintenance of health.

The Minneapolis Convention was held in an enormous rink which was packed to the doors whenever any speaker of special prominence appeared. During the great debate on one of the last evenings, the scene was full of a new significance, for women of the South as well as the North, with strong and ready utterance declared for prohibition in politics as well as in law. General Nettleton, a gentleman of local prominence and champion of the anti-saloon (Republican "non-partisan") movement, spoke to the convention, and fairly-or most unfairly-scolded us; the quiet self-restraint with which he was heard, and the immediate return of the convention to the order of the day, without making note or comment, as soon as he had finished, afford, as I believe, the most palpable proof on record that women are capable of constituting a really deliberative body.

Perhaps the most notable feature of that convention was the presence of Mrs. Margaret Bright Lucas, of London, England, the sister of John Bright, and the first president of the "World's Woman's Christian Temperance Union." This distinguished lady crossed the sea when nearly seventy years of age, in token of sisterly good-will toward American temperance women and their work. She came under escort of our own Mrs. Hannah Whitall Smith and accompanied by two other English ladies. Her reception was magnificent, the convention rising in separate groups, first the Crusaders in a body, second the women of New England, then of the Middle States, after these the Western, and the Pacific Coast, and last (by way of climax) the Southern representatives, while the English and American flags waved from the platform and all joined in singing, "God save the Queen."