Willard, Frances E. Home Protection Manual: Containing an Argument for the Temperance Ballot for Woman, and How to Obtain it, as a Means of Home Protection; Also Constitution and Plan of Work for State and Local W.C.T. Unions . New York: 'The Independent', 1879. [format: book], [genre: essay; guidebook]. Permission: Public domain
Persistent link to this document: http://lincoln.lib.niu.edu/file.php?file=fewhome.html

native state thoroughly renovated from the liquor traffic. Gen. Neal Dow testifies that the law has absolutely driven the sale of strong drink out of all rural districts; and in the larger towns, instead of the free, open sale of former years, it is crowded into secret places, kept by the lowest class of foreigners. Ex-Govs. Dingley and Perham and Senator Blaine and Representative Frye declare that it is as well enforced as the law against stealing; and even sensational journalists have not told us that thieves flourish in the Pine Tree State. Mr. Reuter, of Boston, president of the National Brewers' Convention, held in St. Louis four weeks ago, says: "Formerly Maine produced nearly ten thousand barrels of beer annually; but this has fallen to seven barrels, in consequence of the local enforcement of prohibitory law." Surely, this gentleman should be considered as good authority on this subject as a convict is of the strength of his prison-bars!

But you say "Maine is different from any other state." Why so? Are not its citizens of like passions with other men? Turn your glass upon a panorama of Maine as it was in former days. See yonder stalwart workers in the harvest-field paying vigorous addresses to the little brown jug; observe its ubiquitous presence at the logging bee, the "raising," the wedding, and the funeral; see it pass from lip to lip around the fireside circle; observe the Gospel minister refreshing himself from the demijohn of his parishioner and host; and be assured that within the memory of men now living these were every-day events. I have this testimony from the most honored residents of Maine, whose recitals involved the words "all of which I saw and part of which I was." But, as gallant Neal Dow hath it, "Maine was sown knee-deep with temperance literature before we reaped the harvest of prohibition." Let us note the evolution of this seed-planting. Land-owners found that two-thirds of their taxes resulted from the liquor traffic (largely in cost of prosecuting criminals and taking care of lunatics and paupers); so they concluded that legalizing saloons for the sake of the revenue was penny wisdom and pound foolishness. Businessmen discovered that the liquor "traffic is a pirate on the high seas of trade, that the more the grog-shop is patronized the fewer customers there are for flour and fuel, boots, shoes, and clothes; and so, in self-defense, they declared for prohibition. Church people found that fifteen times as much money went to the dram-shop as to the church, and that the teachings of the one more than offset those of the other with the young men of the state; so they perceived they could not conscientiously ally themselves with the liquor traffic by their votes. Those interested in education learned that enough money was swallowed in drinks that deteriorate the brain, to furnish a schoolhouse for every fifty boys and girls, and to set over them teachers of the highest culture; and they saw it was unreasonable to defend the liquor traffic. In short, the majority came to believe that, between the upper and nether mill-stones of starving out saloons, on the one hand, and voting them out, on the other, they could be pounded to death; and they have so pounded them. The question of selling as a beverage the drinks which we know by centuries of demonstration will so craze men that they will commit every crime and show the subtlest cruelty to those they, love the best, is not today in Maine an open question with either party, any more than trial by jury or imprisonment for theft. True, the people had a thirty years' war before the declaration of this blessed peace; but what are thirty-years when crowned at last by the surrender of King Alcohol to King Majority?

"Ah! but," pursues our doubting friend, "Maine is a peculiar state, in this: it has few foreigners, with their traditions of whisky and of beer."

I grant you, there we are at disadvantage. But go with me to the Cunard wharves of Boston and to Castle Garden of New York, and, as the long procession of emigrants steps across the gangway, you will find three times as many men as women. How can we offset their vote for free liquor, on Sundays and all days? Surely, the answer to this question is not far to seek. Strengthen the sinews of old King Majority, by counting in the home vote to offset that of Hamburg and of Cork, and let American customs survive by utilizing (at the point where by the correlation of governmental forces "opinion" passes into "law") the opinion of those gentle "natives" who are the necessary and tender guardians of the home, of tempted manhood and untaught little children.

Hands which have just put aside the beer-mug, the decanter, and the greasy pack of cards are casting ballots which undermine our Sabbaths, license social crimes that shall be nameless, and open 250,000 dram-shops in the shadow of the church and public school. I solemnly call upon my countrymen to release those other hands, familiar with the pages of the Book of God, busied with sacred duties of the home and gracious deeds of charity, that they may drop in those whiter ballots, which, as God lives, alone can save the state!

Kind friends, I am not theorizing. I speak that I do know and testify what I have seen. Out on the Illinois prairies we have resolved to expend on voters the work at first bestowed upon saloon-keepers. We have transferred the scene of our crusade from the dram-shop to the council-room of the municipal authorities, whence the dram-shop derives its guaranties and safeguards. Nay, more. The bitter argument of defeat led us to trace the tawny, seething, foaming tide of beer and whisky to its source; and there we found it surging forth from the stately capitol of Illinois, with its proud dome and flag of stripes and stars. So we have made that capitol the center of

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