CHAPTER I.

SPORADIC

MOVEMENTS.

AVING traced the history of intemperance down through

the ages to our times, we retrace our steps a little to notice the first beginnings of the Temperance Reformation, and to sketch its progress down to the end of the year 1882.

The accompanying picture fittingly represents the condition

of society when this reformation began. In the darkest periods of intemperance there were some who protested against the ruinous customs, and called for reform. But for long ages they were few, and far in advance of the average sentiments of their times. Like all other reforms starting up out of low moral conditions pervading all classes of society, the beginnings were small, feeble, and inconstant.

The first seed-sowing of the Temperance Reformation, which

has produced so abundant a harvest in our days, may be traced through isolated individual movements, during the dark and troublous periods of the last century. Modern Jonadabs and Rechabs rose up, emulating in purity of example and heroic virtue, their forerunners in ancient times.

"No more shall the sons of Rechab dwell

Alone in the Eastern clime,

But their fame shall arise, while his children tell
The deeds of the olden time.

"From the drifting sands and sungirt shores,
To the snows of our northern hills,

They have passed, and lo! their mighty breath
The wide earth round us fills.

"Three thousand years, and the sacred lights
Have died on Judah's hills,

And the tones that thrilled with love or mirth
Are hushed in death and still.

"But the sons of Rechab still are met,
As their fathers met of yore;

And the vow among them lingers yet,
To touch the wine no more."

Three notable men, Hons. Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, and General Israel Putnam, were redoubtable champions of reform.

Benjamin Franklin was a man of abstemious habits. While a journeyman printer in London he frequently protested against the drinking customs of his fellow-printers; and all through his after life, amid the allurements of exalted stations, even at the dissipated court of France, he maintained strict abstinence principles.

JOHN ADAMS.

We have already noticed "the elder Adams," of Braintree, Mass., just before the Revolution, raising his voice against the drinking customs of his times, and especially against the

tippling taverns which greatly abounded. Mr. Adams was not then far from twenty-five years old. He freely denounced the evil of intemperance, and exerted himself to reduce the number of the licensed houses. In his "Journal," June 4, 1761, he made a record which evinces the spirit of the man:

Discharged my venom to Bill Veasey against the multitude, poverty, ill government, and ill effects of licensed houses, and the timorous temper, as well as the criminal design, of the select men who grant them approbation.

Mr. Adams' exertions against the granting of such numerous licenses were not without at least temporary good effects. At the town meeting in Braintree, March 18, 1761, it was voted, by a large majority, that there should be "no persons licensed in the town for retailing spirituous liquors, and that only three persons be approbated for inn-holders, suitably situated in each precinct." The cause assigned for this action was, "There is reason to apprehend that the present prevailing depravity of manners throughout the land in general, and in this town in particular, is, in a great measure, owing to the unnecessary increase of licensed houses." Mr. Adams also influenced the Court of Sessions to reduce the number of licensed houses elsewhere.

These good results, however, were only temporary. Fifty years later, in a letter to Dr. Benjamin Rush, alluding to these early efforts, he said: "I only acquired the reputation of a hypocrite and an ambitious demagogue by it. The number of licensed houses was soon reinstated; drams, grog, and sotting were not diminished, and remain to this day as deplorable as ever."

ISRAEL PUTNAM.

General Putnam, in Connecticut, was not less decided, as a letter addressed to the County Court will show:

BROOKLYN, Feb. 18, 1782.

GENTLEMEN: Being an enemy to idleness, dissipation, and intemperance, I would object against any measure that would be conducive thereto. The multiplying of public houses where the public good does not

require it has a direct tendency to ruin the morals of the youth, and promote idleness and intemperance among all ranks of people, especially as the grand object of the candidates for licenses is money, and when that is the case, men are not apt to be overtender of people's morals or purses. The authorities of this town, I think, have run into a great error in approbating an additional number of public houses, especially in this parish.

To the honorable County Court to be holden at Windham ye 19th inst.

THE FATHERS OF THE REVOLUTION,

so eminent for courage and wise foresight, while resisting the aggressions of a foreign foe, did not overlook the great enemy of intemperance within their own borders. As early as Feb. 27, 1774, the Continental Congress uttered its manifesto against the increasing evil of strong drink :

Resolved, That it be recommended to the several Legislatures of the United States immediately to pass laws the most effectual for putting an immediate stop to the pernicious practice of distilling grain, by which the most extensive evils are likely to be derived, if not quickly prevented.

A close examination of this period affords no evidence that this action produced any salutary effect, except in a single instance. The Provincial Congress of New Hampshire, in August, 1775, passed a preamble and resolution, in which they deplored the great prevalence of intemperance, and recommended that the treats given to soldiers on muster days should be diminished, and that they be wholly discontinued on the days when the officers are elected.'

These recommendations produced but little impression upon the public mind. They were too superficial to restrain an evil which had become so thoroughly domesticated. It was too closely interwoven into the web of society to be easily eliminated; and, instead of a diminution, its sway and power were soon greatly increased. It was the period of the greatest moral darkness in the history of our country.

n Archives." By Peter Force. Fourth Series, vol. iii, p. 520.

CONGRESSIONAL DEBATE.

In the Congress in 1789 the question of taxing imports came up. The debate reflects the sentiments of some eminent men. Hon. Roger Sherman, of Connecticut, proposed a tax of fifteen cents per gallon on West India rum; Mr. Lawrence, of New York, feared that so high a duty would lead to smuggling, and consequent loss of revenue; Mr. Fitzsimmons, of Pennsylvania, thought there was "no object from which they could collect revenue more to be subjected to a high duty than ardent spirits of every kind, and if they could lay the duty so high as to lessen the consumption in any degree the better, for it is not an article of necessity, but of luxury, and a luxury of the most pernicious kind."

Mr. Madison, of Virginia, said: "I would tax this article with as high a duty as can be collected, and I am sure, if we judge from what we have heard and seen in the several parts of the Union, that it is the sense of the people of America that this article should have a duty imposed upon it weighty indeed."

In December, 1790, the College of Physicians of Philadelphia memorialized Congress on this subject, calling attention to "the pernicious effects of distilled liquors upon morals and manners,” and in producing "a great portion of the most obstinate, painful, and mortal disorders which afflict the human body." They also "impair the faculties of the mind, and thereby tend to dishonor our character as a nation, and degrade our species as intelligent beings." They declared that "the habitual use of distilled spirits is wholly unnecessary." They then say:

Your memorialists have beheld with regret the feeble influence of reason and religion in restraining the evils which they have enumerated. They center their hopes, therefore, of an effectual remedy of them in the wisdom and power of the Legislature of the United States; and in behalf of the interests of humanity, to which their profession is closely allied, they thus publicly entreat Congress, by their obligations, to protect the lives of their constituents, and by their regard to the character of our nation, and to the rank of our species in the scale of beings, to impose such heavy