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. There were somany such citizens, in fact, that they were eventually organized into aKeeley League, which, in 1895, claimed some 30,000 members in 359chapters all across America, every single one of them a satisfied cus-tomer, none of them a victim of demon rum at any future time.Or so Dr.Keeley would have had people believe.Other physicians,however, claimed that his methods were dangerous and relapses so fre-quent as to cast grave doubt as to the value of the medication. They hada point.When Keeley died in 1900, his sanitarium died with him, albeitmore gradually, and the cure he so boldly touted became even morecontroversial, less popular, and finally obsolete.Today it is known byfew people, and most histories of temperance do not even bother tomention it.Nor do they mention Sylvester Graham, although he attached his lastname to the cracker that is still with us.A nutritionist, by inclination ifnot training, Graham thought a thirst for spirits might be the result ofpoor dietary habits.He recommended that Americans give up meats andfried foods, and eat more slowly and cheerfully.He also recommendedhis cracker and, in fact, since it was made of unbleached flour, it was amore healthful product than most commercially manufactured bakerygoods.But few were the people who found it a satisfactory substitutefor demon rum.It was not that Keeley and Graham the crusaders could not win.Itwas that, human nature being what it is, the victories could not endure. 5The Importance of Being Frankhe Women s Crusade was a series of brush fires, frighteningin intensity but quickly extinguished.The Woman s Chris-tian Temperance Union, on the other hand, was a carefullyorchestrated conflagration and it was the American publicschools that took most of the heat.TWoman s, as the group liked to point out in its early lit-erature, because they felt that if men had an equal place inits councils their greater knowledge of Parliamentary usage,and their more aggressive nature would soon place women inthe background, and deprive them of the power of learningby experience. Christian, despite the occasional reservation that wewould shut out the Jews. Temperance, which meant the moderate use of all thingsgood and total abstinence from all things questionable orharmful. Union, to acknowledge the fact that women extendedtheir hands to grasp any that were held out to them in loyaltyto the Gospel of peace and good-will. The WCTU succeeded the crusaders and shifted their em-phasis.No more would females kneel in front of saloons in alltheir passion and vulnerability and send their prayers wing-ing up to the empyrean.Oh, perhaps a few of them would,in a few isolated places and a few exceptional cases, keepingup the old ways where they seemed to be effective; but forthe most part the WCTU decided to ignore the strategiesof Diocletian Lewis and concentrate on the classroom, on111 112 Chapter 5younger and more impressionable minds than those of barroom habit-ués.The group would teach children to regard alcoholic beverages asSatan s own potables; it would leave the salvation of their elders largelyto other groups, mainly because it doubted whether salvation was evenpossible once a man or woman passed a certain age.Unlike the Women s Crusade, which no sooner got underway than itleaped into the headlines, the WCTU started slowly, spending severalyears on the back pages of newspapers if, that is, it caught the editorsattention at all.It was founded in 1874, the year after the miracle ofHillsboro, and the woman who worked hardest in the group s formativedays was Frances Elizabeth Caroline Willard, whose severity in appear-ance was matched by her severity of manner, at least to those who didnot know her well.She parted her hair in the middle, tugged it downtightly behind her ears, and peered at the world through plain, wire-rimmed spectacles
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Tematy
IndexJoel Fleishman The Foundation, A Great American Secret; How Private Wealth is Changing the World (2009)
Mark A. Noll, Luke E. Harlow Religion and American Politics, From the Colonial Period to the Present (2007)
Jesse Fox Mayshark Post pop cinema; The search for meaning in new America (2007)(1)
William Inboden Religion and American Foreign Policy, 1945 1960, The Soul of Containment (2008)
R. Murray Thomas Manitou and God, North American Indian Religions and Christian Culture (2007
Jane Elliott Popular Feminist Fiction as American Allegory, Representing National Time (2008)
Cathy J. Cohen Democracy Remixed, Black Youth and the Future of American Politics (2010)
Quinn Julia Co słychać w Londynie
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Chledowski Kazimierz Rzym ludzie odrodzenia