Yale University Library

39002002909837

ITS

EGION
. .1  !¦ I I II. I .l"»il J.. II... I l-»"
D FORE-RUNNERS

LOUIS ALBERT BANKS, D.D.

I'^XvjLi-iA^vevvvtjC^a

DRAWN BY ARTHUR 1. KELLER.

A'ow, sonny, you keep that pledge, and it will be the
best act of your life ! "

ABRAHAM LINCOLN PLEDGES CLEOPAS BRKCKENRIDGE TO
TOTAL ABSTINENCE.

THE LINCOLN
LEGION

The Story of
Its Founder and Forerunners
By
Rev. LOUIS ALBERT BANKS, D.D.
AUTHOR OF "THE HALL OF FAME," "THE YOUTH OF
FAMOUS AMERICANS,'' "HERO TALES FROM
SACRED STORY," "THE GREAT
PORTRAITS OF THE BIBLE,"
ETC., ETC.

Illustrated with Drawings by
ARTHUR I. KELLER
And Photographs
NEW YORK
THE MERSHON COMPANY
Presbyterian Building, 1 56 Fifth Ave.

COPYRIGHT, igo3, BY
THE MERSHON COMPANY
All rights reserved.

AUTHOR'S PREFACE
The reader of this volume needs to bear
in mind the necessarily restricted scope of
the book. The volume is intended to
awaken interest in a new pledge-signing
movement, and is, therefore, confined in
its discussions to individuals, societies, and
movements which have been peculiarly
identified with urging total abstinence and
fostering it through the pledge method.
This accounts for many silences, such as
that concerning the Hon. Neal Dow, the
Nestor of Prohibitionists, and the long and
noble list of eloquent and self-sacrificing
orators and workers of the National Pro
hibition Party, and in ether lines of
temperance effort. We have treated at
some length the Anti-Saloon League, be
cause its Superintendent, Dr. Howard
H. Russell, is the author of the new move-

6 AUTHOR'S PREFACE
ment, and it is chiefly through the League, as
representing all the churches, that the " Lin
coln Legion " is to be carried forward.
Louis Albert Banks.
New York City, June 83, 1903.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE
I. The Heroic Young Lincoln as a Total
Abstainer,  13
II. Lincoln at South Fork Schoolhouse, . 29
III. Abraham Lincoln as a Temperance
Orator  51
IV. Father Matthew and His Career, . 79
V. The Wabhlngtonians and Other Total
Abstinence Societies, .... 99
VI. John B. Gough and His Work, . . .121
VII. Frances Willard and the White Ribbon
Movement,  139
VIII. Francis Murphy and His Colleagues, . 157
IX. Howard H. Russell, Organizer of the
Anti-Saloon League, .... 173
X. The Anti-Saloon League, . . . 195
XI. The Lincoln Legion,  225
Index,  249

ILLUSTRATIONS

facdjo
PAGE
Abraham Lincoln Pledges Cleopas Brecken-
ridge to Total Abstinence. ( From, a draw
ing by A. I. Keller), . . . Frontispiece
Lincoln's Appeal for Total Abstinence at
South Fork Schoolhouse. (From a drawing
by A. I. Keller),  36
Abraham Lincoln as He Appeared during the
Washlngtonian Movement. (From an Ambro-
type),  60
Survivors of the Lincoln Meeting at the
South Fork Schoolhouse. (From a photo
graph by Boss, Springfield), .... 84
Preston Breckenridge and Cleopas Brecken-
ridge. (From photograph)), .... 110
Two of the Early Supporters of the Anti-
Saloon League. (From photographs), . . 130
Group from the Early Working Force of the
Anti-Saloon League. (From photographs), . 152
Howard H. Russell. (Photograph by Balcer, Colum
bus, Ohio, 1893)  178
Funeral of a Mother Dead from Drink. (From
a drawing by A. I. Keller)  206
The Old " First Church," Oberlin, Birthplace
of the Ohio Anti-Saloon League. (Photo
graph by Bice, Oberlin),  230

LET US BUILD TO THIS TYPE
. . . Standing like a tower,
Our children shall behold his fame,
The kindly, brave, foreseeing man,
Sagacious, patient, dreading praise, not blame,
New birth of our new soil, the first Ameirican.
— James Russell Lowell.
From the union of the colonists, Puritans
and Cavaliers, from the straightening of
their purposes and the crossing of their
blood, slow perfecting through a century,
came he who stands as the first typical
American, the first who comprehended
within himself all the strength and gentle
ness, all the majesty and grace of this re
public — Abraham Lincoln.
Ee was the sum of Puritan and Cavalier,
for in his ardent nature were fused the
virtues of both, and in the depths of his
great soul the faults of both were lost.
He was greater than Puritan, greater than
Cavalier, in that he was American.
Let us build with reverent hands to the
type of this simple, but sublime life, in
which all types are honored. — Henry W.
Grady, of Georgia. From his speech at the
New England Club, New York, December
21, 1886.

THE HEROIC YOUNG LINCOLN AS
A TOTAL ABSTAINER

Let us have faith that right makes might,
and in that faith as to the end, dare to do
our duty. — Abraham Lincoln.

CHAPTER I
THE HEROIC YOUNG LINCOLN AS A TOTAL
ABSTAINER
A BRAHAM LINCOLN was a child of
-*—*- the backwoods, when the frontiers of
civilization were in Indiana and Illinois.
At ten years of age he could handle an ax
almost equal to a man, drive a team, man
age a shovel-plow, wield the sickle, thresh
wheat with a flail, fan and clean it with a
sheet, and go to mill and take his turn with
the grist. Even at that age, when his
father did not need him, he was sent out to
help the neighbors. His gaunt figure grew
strong as iron, bearing the heavy loads
under which it struggled.
Very early Lincoln got a thirst for read
ing. He had only chance enough at school
to learn to read, and write, and " cipher to
the rule of three." But he read the Bible,
13

14 THE LINCOLN LEGION
iEsop's Fables, " Robinson Crusoe," Bun-
yan's " Pilgrim's Progress," Weems' " Life
of Washington," and the " Statutes of
Indiana." He read these until he almost
knew them by heart, and then he searched
the country around for other books to
conquer, among them Shakespeare and
Weems' "Life of Marion." He once told
Leonard Swett that he had got hold of and
read through every book he ever heard of
in the part of the country where he lived
for a circuit of fifty miles.
It is hard to-day to appreciate the
emptiness and poverty of a life like Abra
ham Lincoln's boyhood, and the heroism
that came off victorious over such condi
tions. After he became President, one day at a
Cabinet Meeting Lincoln said to Mr.
Seward :
" Seward, did you ever hear how I
earned my first dollar?"
" No," said Mr. Seward.
Well," replied he, " I was about

THE LINCOLN LEGION 15
eighteen years of age, and belonged, as
you know, to what they call down South,
the 'scrubs'; people who do not own land
and slaves are nobody there; but we had
succeeded in raising, chiefly by my labor,
sufficient produce, as I thought, to justify
me in taking it down the river to sell.
After much persuasion I had got the con
sent of my mother to go, and had con
structed a flat boat, large enough to take
the few barrels of things we had gathered
to New Orleans. A steamer was going
down the river. We have, you know, no
wharves on the Western sitreams, and the
custom was, if passengers were at any of
the landings, they were to go out in a boat,
the steamer stopping and taking them on
board. I was contemplating my new boat,
and wondering whether I could make it
stronger or improve it in any part, when
two men with trunks came down to the
shore in carriages, and looking at the dif
ferent boats singled out mine, and asked,
1 Who owns this? ' I answered modestly ' I

16 THE LINCOLN LEGION
do.' ' Will you,' said one of them, ' take us
and our trunks out to the steamer? ' ' Cer
tainly,' said I. I was very glad to have the
chance of earning something, and sup
posed that each of them would give me a
couple of bits. The trunks were put in my
boat. The passengers seated themselves
on them, and I sculled them out to the
steamer. They got on board, and I lifted
the trunks and put them on the deck. The
steamer was about to put on steam again,
when I called out, ' You have forgotten to
pay me.' Each of them took from his pocket
a silver half-dollar and threw it on the
bottom of my boat. I could scarcely be
lieve my eyes, as I picked up the money.
You may think it was a very little thing,
and in these days it seems to me like a
trifle, but it was a most important inci
dent in my life. I could scarcely credit
that I, the poor boy, had earned a dollar
in less than a day; that by honest work I
had earned a dollar. I was a more hope
ful and thoughtful boy from that time."

THE LINCOLN LEGION 17
From childhood, Abraham Lincoln had
a gentle and tender nature. His step
mother, who came into the home when he
was ten years of age, said of him after he
was dead:
" Abe was a good boy, and I can say
what scarcely one woman — a mother — can
say in a thousand. Abe never gave me a
cross word or look, and never refused, in
fact or appearance, to do anything I re
quested him. I never gave him a cross
word in all my life. His mind and mine —
what little I had — seemed to run together.
He was here after he was elected President.
He was a dutiful son to me always. I think
he loved me truly. I had a son, John, who
was raised with Abe. Both were good boys,
but I must say, both now being dead, that
Abe was the best boy I ever saw, or expect
to see."
Young Lincoln early developed a spirit of
helpfulness toward the weak, or anyone or
anything that was in trouble. The thought
less cruelty to animals so common to chil-

18 THE LINCOLN LEGION

dren brought up among rude conditions, was
never engaged in or enjoyed by him. While
yet a boy he wrote essays on " Cruelty
to Animals," and never failed to make
his protest on seeing any dumb creature
abused. A striking instance of this kind and help
ful spirit is referred to by several of his
biographers. One evening, while returning
from a " raising " in the neighborhood, with
a number of companions, he discovered a
straying horse, with saddle and bridle upon
liim. The horse was recognized as belong
ing to a man who was accustomed to excess
in drink, and it was suspected at once that
the owner was not far off. A short search
only was necessary to confirm the suspicion
of the young men. The poor drunkard was
found in a perfectly helpless condition,
upon the chilly ground. Abraham's com
panions urged the cowardly policy of leav
ing him to his fate, but young Lincoln would
not listen to the proposition. At his request,
the miserable sot was lifted to his shoulders,

THE LINCOLN LEGION 19
and he actually carried him eighty rods to
the nearest house. Sending word to his
father that he would not be back that night,
with the reason for his absence, he attended
and nursed the man until the morning, and
had the pleasure of believing that he had
saved his life.
When Lincoln was nineteen years of age
he visited New Orleans in charge of a neigh
bor's flatboat, and while there witnessed a
slave auction. Mr. Herndon says that he
often heard Mr. Lincoln refer to this experi
ence: " In New Orleans for the first time," he
writes, " Lincoln beheld the true horrors of
human slavery. He saw negroes in chains?
— whipped, and scourged. Against this in
humanity his sense of right and justice re
belled, and his mind and conscience were-
awakened to a realization of what he had
often heard and read. No doubt, as one of
his companions has said, ' slavery ran the
iron into him then and there.' One morn
ing, in their rambles over the city, the tritf>

20 THE LINCOLN LEGION
passed a slave auction. A vigorous and
comely mulatto girl was being sold. She
underwent a thorough examination at the
hands of the bidders ; they pinched her flesh,
and made her trot up and down the room
like a horse, to show how she moved, and, in
order, as the auctioneer said, that ' bidders
might satisfy themselves whether the article
they were offering to buy was sound or not'
The whole thing was so revolting that Lin
coln moved away from the scene with a
deep feeling of ' unconquerable hate.' Bid
ding his companions follow him, he said:
' Boys, let's get away from this. If I ever
get a chance to hit that thing [meaning
slavery] , I'll hit it hard.' "
It is not possible for us to follow the story
of this young and heroic figure through all
his struggles as clerk in a country store,
and surveyor's helper, always working
against odds, always climbing to something
better, always the manly youth, but con
stantly handicapped by poverty. His life
long friend, Joshua Speed, gives us a most

THE LINCOLN LEGION 21
lifelike portraiture of the beginning of Lin
coln's career as a lawyer. He says :
" He had ridden into town on a borrowed
horse, with no earthly property save a pair
of saddle-bags containing a few clothes. I
was a merchant at Springfield, and kept a
large country store, embracing dry goods,
groceries, hardware, books, medicines, bed
clothes, mattresses — in fact, everything that
the country needed. Lincoln came into the
store with his saddle-bags on his arm. He
said he wanted to buy the furniture for a
single bed. The mattress, blankets, sheets,
coverlid, and pillow, according to the
figures made by me, would cost seventeen
dollars. He said that, perhaps, was cheap
enough ; but, small as the price was, he was
unable to pay it. But if I would credit him
till Christmas, and his experiment as a law
yer was a success, he would pay then ; say
ing in the saddest tone, ' If I fail in this, I
do not know that I can ever pay you.' As
I looked up at him, I thought then, and I
think now, that I never saw a sadder face.

22 THE LINCOLN LEGION
" I said to him : ' You seem to be so much
pained at contracting so small a debt, I
think I can suggest a plan by which you can
avoid the debt, and at the same time attain
your end. I have a large room, with a
double bed, upstairs, which you are very
welcome to share with me.'
" ' Where is your room? ' said he.
" ' Upstairs,' said I, pointing to a pair of
winding stairs which led from the store to
my room.
" He took his saddle-bags on his arm,
went upstairs, set them on the floor, and
came down with the most changed expres
sion of countenance. Beaming with pleas
ure, he exclaimed :
" ' Well, Speed, I am moved.' "
Abraham Lincoln, throughout his life,
boy and man, always stood for temperance.
Far back in his Indiana boyhood, the first
essay he ever wrote, was on the subject of
Temperance. A local Baptist preacher was
so struck with its merit that he secured
it from the boy, and sent it to Ohio,

THE LINCOLN LEGION 25
where it is said to have appeared in a
newspaper. Soon after coming to Springfield to prac
tice law, he joined the Sons of Temperance,
and, as we shall see in the next chapters,
frequently made temperance speeches, of
very effective character.
The story is told by Judge Weldon that
he was once in the room with Stephen A.
Douglas when Lincoln entered. Douglas,
desiring to show his hospitality, in accord
ance with the customs of the times, brought
out a bottle of whisky, and some glasses, and
invited his callers to take a drink with him.
Lincoln respectfully declined on the ground
that he had always been a temperance man,
and felt that he was too old to change.
Leonard Swett tells us that Lincoln told
him not more than a year before he was
elected President that he had never tasted
liquor in his life. " What ! " said Swett,
" do you mean to say that you never tasted
it?" "Yes," replied Lincoln, "I never
tasted it." When we take into considera-

24 THE LINCOLN LEGION
tion the habits of the time, this is a most
remarkable testimony to Lincoln's temper
ance principles, the stability of his charac
ter, and the iron quality of his will-power.
Mr. C. C. Coffin, a most distinguished
journalist of the day, who accompanied the
notification committee from the Chicago
Convention to Springfield, at the time of
Lincoln's first nomination for the Presi
dency of the United States, related in his
newspaper a few days later an incident that
occurred on that occasion. He says that,
after the exchange of formalities, Lincoln
said :
" Mrs. Lincoln will be pleased to see you,
gentlemen. You will find her in the other
room. You must be thirsty after your long
ride. You will find a pitcher of water in the
library." The newspaper man crossed the hall, and
entered the library. There were miscel
laneous books on the shelves, two globes,
celestial and terrestrial, in the corners of the
room, and a plain table, with writing ma-

THE LINCOLN LEGION 25
terials upon it, a pitcher of cold water, and
glasses, and no wines or liquors. There
was humor in the invitation to take a glass
of water, which was explained to Mr. Coffin
by a citizen of Springfield, who said that,
when it was known that the committee was
coming, several citizens called upon Mr.
Lincoln, and informed him that some enter
tainment must be provided.
" Yes, that is so. What ought to be done?
Just let me know, and I will attend to it," he
said. " Oh, we will supply the needful liquors,"
said his friends.
" Gentlemen," said Mr. Lincoln, " I thank
you for your kind attention, but must re
spectfully decline your offer. I have no
liquors in my house, and have never been in
the habit of entertaining my friends in that
way. I cannot permit my friends to do for
me what I will not myself do. I shall pro
vide cold water — nothing else."
The Hon. John Hay, the present Secre
tary of State, and one of Lincoln's secre-

26 THE LINCOLN LEGION
taries and biographers, has declared that
Lincoln was a man of extremely temperate
habits, and that he made no use of either
whisky or tobacco during all the years of
his association with him.
Mr. John G. Nicolay, his private secre
tary, and a joint biographer with Secretary
Hay, says: "During all the five years of
my service as his private secretary, I never
saw him drink a glass of whisky, and I never
knew or heard of his taking one."
From all this it will be seen that Abra
ham Lincoln, in his heroic struggle against
poverty and hard conditions, in his victory
over the vicious habits and customs of the
day in which he lived, in the fidelity to prin
ciple, and in the cleanliness and purity of
his personal habits of life, stands out before
us as an ideal leader of the new army of
total abstainers to which his name has been
given.

LINCOLN AT SOUTH FORK
SCHOOLHOUSE

In Lincoln there was always some quality
that fastened him to the people, and taught
them to keep time to the music of his
heart. — David Swing.

CHAPTER II
LINCOLN AT SOUTH FORK SCHOOLHOUSE
THERE is in Springfield, Illinois, in Mr.
Roland Diller's home, om Seventh
Street, a legislative desk, which is notable
because it is the desk which Abraham Lin
coln used when he was a member of the Leg
islature, between 1830 and 1840. The desk
is an interesting relic, also, because it shows
the primitive furniture of the Illinois State
Capitol of those days. His biographers have
noticed it was Mr. Lincoln's habit to write
his name upon books, papers, and other
belongings, and, following that practice,
Lincoln left his autograph heavily marked
with a lead pencil inside the drawer of this
desk, so that, to this day, any student of
autographs easily recognizes Lincoln's
unique handwriting. This, with abundant
other evidence, identifies beyond question
29

30 THE LINCOLN LEGION

the desk as actually having been the one
used by Mr. Lincoln.
Early in 1900, Dr. Howard Russell, the
Superintendent of the Anti-Saloon League,
visited Diller's drug store in Springfield,
where the desk then stood, to look at this
relic of the great war President. Mr. Diller
gave Russell many interesting facts regard
ing Lincoln. Diller was born in 1822, so he is
now an old man, eighty-one years of age. He
lives on the next corner, a block away from
Mr. Lincoln's home, and has lived there
since 1844. He was not only a neighbor, but
an intimate friend of Mr. Lincoln, and his
drug store was one of Mr. Lincoln's favorite
haunts, where politics were discussed and
stories told. When Dr. Russell told Diller
of the Temperance Reform work in which
he was engaged, the druggist told him that
Mr. Lincoln, from the time Diller first knew
him in 1844, to the time of his death, was
always a most pronounced temperance man ;
that he never used intoxicating liquor in
any form, and that he was most earnest and

THE LINCOLN LEGION 31
active in connection with the various reform
movements of his day.
During this conversation, Mr. Diller in
formed Russell of an incident that left a
very strong impression on Russell's mind.
He said there was living in Sangamon
County a farmer named Cleopas Brecken-
ridge. This Mr. Breckenridge, Diller said,
had a most interesting personal reminis
cence concerning Abraham Lincoln, which
had never been printed, and though he lived
sixteen miles from Springfield, Diller was
sure that Mr. Breckenridge was so enthu
siastic a temperance man that he would be
glad to meet the Superintendent of the Anti-
Saloon League some time in Springfield,
and personally state the facts to him.
A few months later, Dr. Russell, finding
that he was going to be in Springfield on a
certain day, wrote Mr. Diller and asked him
to communicate with Mr. Breckenridge, and
request him, if possible, to meet him there
that day, and to inform him of the purpose
for which he wished to see him. Sure

32 THE LINCOLN LEGION
enough, Breckenridge drove sixteen miles
upon a stormy day, and met Russell as ar
ranged at the Leland Hotel in Springfield,
where he told him the following story,
which now for the first time sees the pub
licity of print :
" When I was a boy," said Breckenridge,
" about ten years of age, in the summer of
1846 or 1847, I lived with my father upon
the same farm which I now own in Cotton
Hill township in this county. We were
very poor. My father was above the average
in intelligence, but he had a large family,
and was in debt, so that while we had
enough to eat, we lived very plainly. My
mother had died a short time before I was
ten years old, and my father in those days
was doing the best he could to be father and
mother both to us children. One day, in
the summer of 1846 or 1847, my father came
home, and told us that there would be a
temperance meeting held at the new school-
house, and that we could all go to the meet
ing if we wished to do so. Most of the

THE LINCOLN LEGION 33
family attended the meeting, though I be
lieve my older brother Alexander was away
from home, and did not go. The school-
house had been recently built, and the
boughs of the trees from which the logs had
been cut to build the house were scattered
about on the ground in front of the house,
and there were also some logs which had not
been used in the building, lying about upon
the ground. Some trees had been left for a
shade, and as the day was warm, the meet
ing was held under the trees instead of in
the schoolhouse. The people sat about on
the boughs of the trees, and upon the logs.
The speaker on the occasion was a young
lawyer from Springfield who already had
gained a reputation as a public speaker,
and the announcement of the fact that he
was to speak, called out a large crowd,
almost all the families in that part of the
county being represented.
" The speaker made a very earnest appeal
for total abstinence from the use of all in
toxicating drinks. He gave reasons why he

34 THE LINCOLN LEGION
was in favor of total abstinence, and why he
thought others should become total ab
stainers. About the time he finished his
address, he took a paper out of his pocket
* This,' said he, ' is what is called the
' Washingtonian Pledge! It is the same
pledge many thousands of people have
signed in connection with the work of the
Washingtonian Society throughout the
country. I have signed this pledge my
self and would be glad to have as many of
my neighbors who are willing to do so, sign
the same pledge with me.' The pledge was
passed from one to another and was signed
by a good many of those present. After a
number had signed, the first thing I knew
the speaker was standing in front of me.
He said to me: ' Sonny, don't you want your
name on this pledge?' I said: 'Yes, sir.'
He said : ' You know what it means, that you
are not to drink intoxicating liquor? ' I
said : ' Yes, sir.' He asked me my name
and I told him, Cleopas Breckenridge. He
wrote my name upon the paper, then he

THE LINCOLN LEGION 35
transferred the pencil to his left hand, and
holding the paper and pencil in his left
hand, he leaned over and laid his right hand
upon my head and said : ' Now, Sonny, you
keep that pledge, and it will be the best act
of your life.' The speaker who addressed
THAT MEETING, AND WHO WROTE MY NAME
UPON THE PLEDGE, WAS ABRAHAM LIN
COLN." Dr. Russell asked Breckenridge what
made him sure that the speaker was Abra
ham Lincoln. He replied that from time to
time afterwards, he often saw Mr. Lincoln
at Springfield, and at other places in Sanga
mon County, that he frequently heard him
speak, and that on several occasions he was
present when Mr. Lincoln entertained a
crowd about him by conversation and
stories. He said also that Mr. Lincoln on
numerous occasions attended to law busi
ness for his father, Preston Breckenridge,
and that it was his father's influence and
invitation together with the request of other
neighbors, that caused Mr. Lincoln to come

36 THE LINCOLN LEGION
and address the meeting at the schoolhouse
that day. Russell asked Mr. Breckenridge
Why Lincoln signed the pledge for him. He
said he could not write his name at that
time. Mr. Lincoln did not ask him whether
he could write his name or not, but knowing
that boys of his age were usually unable to
write at that period, Lincoln signed his
name for him. Mr. Breckenridge then con
tinued his story as follows:
" I felt that I was under solemn obliga
tion to keep the pledge which Mr. Lincoln
had signed for me, and I did keep it and
have kept it up to the present time. In the
year 1857, when I was twenty-one years of
age, I went to Colorado and kept a tavern
there for two years upon the trail across the
plains at a point about fifty miles east of
Denver. Friends advised me to buy a bar
rel of whisky and mix with it a barrel of
river water and sell the liquor and make
some money, but I said : ' No, I never drink
it and I will not sell it,' and mine was the
only temperance tavern that I ever heard of

DRAWN BY ART

ABRAHAM LINCOLN S APPEAL FOR TOTAL ABSTINENCE
At South Fork Schoolhouse, Sangamon County, Illinois, in

1847-

THE LINCOLN LEGION 37

on the route across the plains. I returned
in about two years to Illinois, and when the
Civil War broke out enlisted in Company
D of the 33d Illinois Volunteer Infantry,
and one other man in the company, William
George, and I, were the only men I knew of
who did not drink, more or less. George
and I had extra guard duty and other ser
vices to perform because the other members
of the company were disabled and sick to a
large extent as the result of their drinking
habits. Several times when we were in
swampy or malarious territory in the South,
rations of whisky were served to the men,
but I always abstained from drinking it. I
was dangerously wounded at the siege of
Vicksburg, and while I was sick, my cap
tain, thinking to do me a service, at con
siderable trouble and a good deal of expense,
procured a bottle of brandy and brought it
to me at the hospital. I was sorry to hurt
his feelings, but was so determined not to
touch liquor, that in as kind a way as I
could, I explained the matter and refused

38 THE LINCOLN LEGION
the brandy. He said : ' Why, this is simply
for medicine, this will not violate your
pledge ' ; but I told him I thought I would
be as well off without it, and I would rather
not drink any of it After nearly four
years' service I returned home and went to
work on the farm, paid off the indebtedness
and added more land to the original farm.
My children are married and are living near
me and I am spending a very happy life
among my children and grandchildren. I
believe the pledge which I made when I was
a boy, as I have stated, and the fact that I
have faithfully observed it, has been one of
the essential elements in the success of my
life." Dr. Russell was so impressed with the re
markable story told by Mr. Breckenridge
that in May, 1903, having business in that
part of Illinois, he resolved that while there
he would call at the home of Breckenridge,
and on May 8th went out on the train from
Springfield to Breckenridge Station. Both
the station and the post office in the com-

THE LINCOLN LEGION 39
munity were named after Preston Brecken
ridge, the father of Cleopas Breckenridge.
From there he drove two and one-half miles
to the Breckenridge farm, and was hos
pitably received and entertained over night.
Mr. Breckenridge has a very thriving farm,
with a large two-story house upon it,
with well-equipped barns and all the com
forts and conveniences of a modern well-to-
do farmer. Among other things Dr. Rus
sell saw, was the old log-house, still pre
served, and used as a granary, in which Mr.
Breckenridge was born, and in which he
lived at the time he signed the pledge. Rus
sell asked Breckenridge during this visit if
he could tell him the names of any other per
sons still living who were present at the
Lincoln temperance meeting at the South
Fork Schoolhouse. He could not at first
give him any names. He said all of the old
neighbors had either died or moved away,
and much of the land of the neighborhood
was now being rented to new tenants. The
next morning, however, before Russell left,

40 THE LINCOLN LEGION
the old farmer recalled two men living at
Edinburg, twelve miles away, in the next
county, named Moses Martin and R. E.
Berry. He said these men lived in the
neighborhood at that time, and it was possi
ble, and even probable, that they were pres
ent at the meeting.
Russell was now hot on the scent, and did
not let the trail grow cold. Saturday, May
9, 1903, he went to Edinburg. He had the
good fortune to find both the men that day,
and when he told them his errand, each
stated at once that he remembered the meet
ing, that he was present, and signed the
pledge at that meeting, and each has kept it
ever since. Russell asked if they were will
ing to make affidavit to the fact, and they
cheerfully assented. Mr. Cleopas Brecken
ridge also made affidavit to the story herein
related, but as the substance of it is already
told,' it is omitted. But I am sure that
every reader will be interested in the affi
davits of R. E. Berry and Moses Martin
which follow:

THE LINCOLN LEGION 41

AFFIDAVIT OF R. E. BERRY.
State of Illinois
Christian County
ss:
I, R. E. Berry, being duly sworn on oath,
depose and say, that I am 79 years old and
a resident of Edinburg, Christian County,
Illinois. That in 1841, at the age of 18, I worked
for a time on the farm of Timothy Driscollin
Cotton Hill Township, Sangamon County,
Illinois, which joined the farm of Preston
Breckenridge on the east. That about 1851
I bought the said Driscoll farm and lived
there until 1857, and then bought another
farm upon which the present post office and
railway station of Berry is situated. The
post office was established while I owned
the farm and I was postmaster until I left
the farm in 1881.
In the years 1846 and 1847 I was making
my home one and one-half miles east of the
South Fork log schoolhouse. This school-
house was located on the west side of the
road, across from the South Fork Christian
Church, still in use as a church. I remem-

42 THE LINCOLN LEGION
ber the Washingtonian Movement and the
fact that pledge-signing meetings were held
in various localities addressed by different
speakers from Springfield and elsewhere.
Among others who took part as speakers
were John Webber and Preston Brecken
ridge, and among others Abraham Lin
coln spoke at various places, from time to
time. I well remember the meeting that was
held, and which I attended, one summer
afternoon at the South Fork Schoolhouse.
It was soon after the schoolhouse was built,
and the tops of the trees from which the logs
for the house were cut were lying about near
the door of the house. The meeting was
held out of doors; quite a congregation of
men, women, and children were present, and
they sat about on the limbs of the trees and
logs which strewed the ground. The
speaker was Abraham Lincoln, and after a
very earnest speech in which he explained
the Washingtonian Movement, and in which
he advocated that all should sign and keep
the pledge of total abstinence from in
toxicating liquors, he presented the pledge
and asked for signers. I signed the pledge
in that meeting and have kept the same to

THE LINCOLN LEGION 43
this day, and I have never regretted that I
did so. R. E. Berry.
Subscribed and sworn to before
me this 9th day of May, A. D.,
1903, at Edinburg, Christian Co.,
Illinois.
B. A. Turner,
Notary Public.

AFFIDAVIT OF MOSES MARTIN.
State of Illinois
Christian County
ss:
Moses Martin, of Edinburg, Christian
County, Illinois, being duly sworn, on oath
deposes and says, that he was seventy-five
years old February 28, 1903. That he was
born in Lawrence County, Indiana, and
came with his father to Sangamon County,
Illinois, late in the year 1830, and settled on
a farm one mile south of what is now
Breckenridge post office and station, and
about three miles east of what is now known
as the South Fork Christian Church. The
South Fork Schoolhouse was built about

44 THE LINCOLN LEGION
1846, across the road from the South Fork
Church aforesaid. I lived on the above-
mentioned farm from 1830 to 1867, and am
familiar with what transpired in the neigh
borhood during that period. In 1867 I went
to near Butler, Missouri, and in 1883 to
near Howard, South Dakota, and in 1893 I
returned to Sangamon County, Illinois, and
settled on the same farm formerly owned by
my father south of Breckenridge, as above
stated, which farm I still own, and I have
lived there until about one year ago, when
I removed to Edinburg.
I became interested in the Washingtonian
Temperance Movement in 1846. The first
meeting of the kind I ever heard of was
announced to be held at the new school-
house — the South Fork Schoolhouse — in the
summer or fall of that year. The meeting
was held in the open air near the school-
house, the people sitting upon the boughs of
trees and logs which had been cut when the
house was built. It had been announced
that Abraham Lincoln would speak and a
large crowd attended the meeting. Mr.
Lincoln made a very plain, earnest speech in
favor of total abstinence from all intoxicat
ing liquors as beverages, and after his

THE LINCOLN LEGION 45
speech he took a paper from his pocket and
read a pledge which I afterward committed
to memory from a copy made from the
pledge read by Mr. Lincoln. It was as
follows :

a

THE WASHINGTONIAN PLEDGE.

" Whereas, the use of alcoholic liquors as
a beverage is productive of pauperism, de
gradation, and crime and believing it is our
duty to discourage that which produces
more evil than good, we therefore pledge
ourselves to abstain from the use of in
toxicating liquors as a beverage."
Among those who signed the pledge in
that meeting were George, William, and
Uriah Hughes and their mother; Preston
Breckenridge and his children, and R. E.
Berry, now of Edinburg, Ills. I myself
signed then and there — my first pledge —
and I have kept it until now.
I further remember and state that after
Mr. Lincoln had spoken and the pledge had
been signed, Mr. Lincoln asked if anyone
had anything to say for or against the move
ment, and Mr. Preston Breckenridge rose
up and spoke of the importance of parents

46 THE LINCOLN LEGION
taking an interest in the matter. The wife
of the said Breckenridge had recently died,
and he pointed to his motherless children
and spoke of his anxiety for them, and as he
spoke the tears ran down his face.
Afterward at various times and places the
said Preston Breckenridge held Washing
tonian meetings and I went with him and
acted as secretary and helped enroll the
signers to the pledge.
The meeting above referred to conducted
and addressed by Abraham Lincoln was the
beginning of a series of Washingtonian
meetings which did great and lasting good
in this section of the country. Moses Martin.
Subscribed in my presence and
sworn to before me by Moses Mar
tin of this village of Edinburg, this
11th day of May, A. D., 1903.
B. A. Turner,
Notary Public.
Since these interesting testimonies were
given, and since Superintendent Russell's
return to New York, a letter has come from
Mr. Cleopas Breckenridge stating that he

THE LINCOLN LEGION 47
has seen Mrs. Almarinda Bell Galloway, an
old lady who lived in that neighborhood in
her childhood, and she, too, states that she
was present at the Lincoln meeting, and
remembers it well.
Mr. Breckenridge also promised to invite
the others to meet him at Springfield for a
"reunion" of the survivors of the South
Fork Lincoln meeting, and to have a photo
graph taken for this volume, and the picture
has been received just in time for insertion
opposite page 21.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN AS A TEMPER
ANCE ORATOR

In relation to the principle that all men
are created equal let it be as nearly reached
as we can. If we cannot give freedom to
every creature, let us do nothing that will
impose slavery upon any other creature. —
Abraham Lincoln.

CHAPTER III
ABRAHAM LINCOLN AS A TEMPERANCE
ORATOR
ON Washington's Birthday, February
22, 1842, Abraham Lincoln delivered
in Springfield, Illinois, before the Washing
tonian Temperance Society a very remarka
ble address. This address, with the head
ing as given below, was printed on the first
page of the Sangamon Weekly Journal in
the issue of March 26, 1842. It is in the
bound copy of the files of that journal. The
copy for this chapter was made for this
volume directly from the Sangamon Weekly
Journal files, and afterward compared with
the original. The italics used here are the
very words which were underscored by
Abraham Lincoln himself in preparing his
manuscript for the occasion. The address
in full is as follows : 61

52 THE LINCOLN LEGION
AN ADDRESS,
Delivered before the Springfield Washing
tonian Temperance Society, on the
22nd February, 1842,—
By Abraham Lincoln, Esq.,
And published by direction of the Society.
Although the temperance cause has been
in progress for near twenty years, it is ap
parent to all, that it is, just now, being
crowned with a degree of success hitherto
unparalleled. The list of its friends is daily swelled by
the additions of fifties, of hundreds, and of
thousands. The cause itself seems suddenly
transformed from a cold abstract theory, to
a living, breathing, active, and powerful
chieftain, going forth " conquering and to
conquer." The citadels of his great adver
sary are daily being stormed and dis
mantled; his temples and his altars, where
the rites of his idolatrous worship have long
been performed, and where human sacrifices

THE LINCOLN LEGION 53
 — ¦ — — ^^— ¦
have long been wont to be made, are daily
desecrated and deserted. The trump of the
conqueror's fame is sounding from hill to
hill, from sea to sea, and from land to land,
and calling millions to his standard at a
blast. For this new and splendid success, we
heartily rejoice. That that success is so
much greater now than heretofore, is doubt
less owing to rational causes; and if we
would have it to continue, we shall do well
to inquire what those causes are. The war
fare heretofore waged against the demon of
intemperance, has, somehow or other, been
erroneous. Either the champions engaged,
or the tactics they adopted, have not been
the most proper. These champions for the
most part, have been preachers, lawyers,
and hired agents. Between these and the
mass of mankind, there is a want of ap-
proachability , if the term be admissible,
partially, at least, fatal to their success.
They are supposed to have no sympathy of
feeling or interest, with those very persons

54 THE LINCOLN LEGION
whom it is their object to convince and
persuade. And again, it is so easy and so common to
ascribe motives to men of these classes,
other than those they profess to act upon.
The preacher, it is said, advocates temper
ance because he is a fanatic, and desires a
union of Church and State; the lawyer,
from his pride and vanity of hearing him
self speak; and the hired agent, for his
salary. But when one, who has long been
known as a victim of intemperance, bursts
the fetters that have bound him, and appears
before his neighbors "clothed, and in his
right mind," a redeemed specimen of long
lost humanity, and stands up with tears of
joy trembling in his eyes, to tell of themiser-
ies once endured,»ott? to be endured no more
forever; of his once naked and starving
children, now clad and fed comfortably; of a
wife, long weighed down with woe, weeping,
and a broken heart, now restored to health,
happiness, and renewed affection ; and how
easily it all is done, once it is resolved to be

 THE LINCOLN LEGION 55
done; however simple his language, there is
a logic, and an eloquence in it, that few,
with human feelings, can resist. They can
not say that he desires a union of Church
and State, for he is not a church member;
they cannot say that he is vain of hearing
himself speak, for his whole demeanor
shows, he would gladly avoid speaking at
all ; they cannot say he speaks for pay, for
he receives none, and asks for none. Nor
can his sincerity in any way be doubted ; or
his sympathy for those he would persuade
to imitate his example, be denied.
In my judgment, it is to the battles of this
new class of champions that our late suc
cess is greatly, perhaps chiefly, owing. —
But, had the old school champions them
selves been of the most wise selecting, was
their system of tactics, the most judicious?
It seems to me, it was not. Too much
denunciation against dram sellers and dram
drinkers was indulged in. This, I think,
was both impolitic and unjust. It was
impolitic, because, it is not much in the

56 THE LINCOLN LEGION
nature of man to be driven to anything;
still less to be driven about that which is
exclusively his own business; and least of
all, where such driving is to be submitted to,
at the expense of pecuniary interest, or
burning appetite. When the dram seller
and the drinker, were incessantly told, not
in the accents of entreaty and persuasion,
diffidently addressed by erring men to an
erring brother; but in the thundering tones
of anathema and denunciation, with which
the lordly judge often groups together all
the crimes of the felon's life and thrusts
them in his face just ere he passes sentence
of death upon him, that they were the
authors of all the vice, and misery and
crime in the land ; that they were the manu
facturers and material of all the thieves and
robbers and murderers that infested the
earth ; that their houses were the workshops
of the devil ; and that their persons should
be shunned by all the good and virtuous, as
moral pestilences, — I say, when they were
told all this, and in this way, it is not won-

THE LINCOLN LEGION 57
derful that they were slow, very slow, to
acknowledge the truth of such denuncia
tions, and to join the ranks of their de
nouncers, in a hue and cry against them
selves. To have expected them to do otherwise
than as they did — to have expected them not
to meet denunciation with denunciation,
crimination with crimination, anathema
with anathema, was to expect a reversal of
human nature, which is God's decree, and
never can be reversed. When the conduct
of men is designed to be influenced, per
suasion, kind, unassuming persuasion,
should ever be adopted. It is an old and a
true maxim, that a " drop of honey catches
more flies than a gallon of gall." — So with
men. If you would win a man to your
cause, first convince him that you are his
sincere friend. Therein is a drop of honey
that catches his heart, which, say what he
will, is the great high road to his reason,
and which, when once gained, you will find
but little trouble in convincing his judg-

58 THE LINCOLN LEGION
ment of the justice of your cause, if indeed
that cause really be a just one. On the
contrary, assume to dictate to his judgment,
or to command his action, or to mark him
as one to be shunned and despised, and he
will retreat within himself, close all the
avenues to his head and heart; and though
your cause be naked truth itself, trans
formed to the heaviest lance, harder than
steel, and sharper than steel can be made,
and though you throw it with more than
Herculean force and precision, you shall no
more be able to pierce him, than to pene
trate the hard shell of a tortoise with a rye
straw. Such is man, and so must he be under
stood by those who would lead him, even to
his own best interest.
On this point, the Washingtonians
greatly excel the temperance advocates of
former times. Those whom they desire to
convince and persuade, are their old friends
and companions. They know they are not
demons, nor even the worst of men. They

THE LINCOLN LEGION 59
know that generally, they are kind, generous
and charitable, even beyond the example of
their more staid and sober neighbors.
They are practical philanthropists; and
they glow with a generous and brotherly
zeal, that mere theorizers are incapable of
feeling. — Benevolence and charity possess
their hearts entirely ; and out of the abund
ance of their hearts, their tongues give utter
ance. " Love through all their actions runs,
and all their words are mild." In this
spirit they speak and act, and in the same,
they are heard and regarded. And when
such is the temper of the advocate, and such
of the audience, no good cause can be un
successful. But I have said that denunciations
against dram sellers and dram drinkers, are
unjust as well as impolitic. Let us see.
I have not inquired at what period of
time the use of intoxicating drinks com
menced ; nor is it important to know. It is
sufficient that to all of us who now inhabit
the world, the practice of drinking them, is

60 THE LINCOLN LEGION
just as old as the world itself, — that is, we
have seen the one, jnst as long as we have
seen the other. When all such of us, as
have now reached the years of maturity,
first opened our eyes upon the stage of
existence, we found intoxicating liquor,
recognized by everybody, used by everybody,
and repudiated by nobody. It commonly
entered into the first draught of the infant,
and the last draught of the dying man.
From the sideboard of the parson, down to
the ragged pocket of the houseless loafer, it
was constantly found. Physicians pre
scribed it in this, that, and the other disease.
Government provided it for its soldiers and
sailors; and to have a rolling or raising, a
husking or hoe-down, anywhere without it,
was positively insufferable.
So too, it was everywhere a respectable
article of manufacture and of merchandise.
The making of it was regarded as an honor
able livelihood; and he who could make
most, was the most enterprising and respect
able. Large and small manufactories of it

FROM AN AMBROTYPE TAKEN ABOUT 1852. ABRAHAM LINCOLN

As he appeared at the time of the Washingtonian Movement.

THE LINCOLN LEGION 61
were everywhere erected, in which all the
earthly goods of their owners were invested.
Wagons drew it from town to town — boats
bore it from clime to clime, and the winds
wafted it from nation to nation; and mer
chants bought and sold it, by wholesale and
by retail, with precisely the same feelings,
on the part of seller, buyer, and bystander,
as are felt at the selling and buying of flour,
beef, bacon, or any other of the real neces
saries of life. Universal public opinion not
only tolerated, but recognized and adopted
its use.
It is true, that even then, it was known
and acknowledged that many were greatly
injured by it; but none seemed to think that
the injury arose from the use of a bad thing,
but from the abuse of a very good thing. —
The victims to it were pitied, and compas
sionated, just as now are, heirs of consump
tions, and other hereditary diseases. Their
failing was treated as a misfortune, and not
as a crime, or even as a disgrace.
If, theni what I have been saying be true,

62 THE LINCOLN LEGION
is it wonderful that some should think and
act now, as all thought and acted twenty
years ago? And is it just to assail, con
demn, or despise them, for doing so? The
universal sense of mankind on any subject,
is an argument, or at least an influence, not
easily overcome. The success of the argu
ment in favor of the existence of an overrul
ing Providence, mainly depends upon that
sense; and men ought not, in justice, to be
denounced for yielding to it, in any case, or
for giving it up slowly, especially, where
they are backed by interest, fixed habits, or
burning appetites.
Another error, it seems to me, into which
the old reformers fell, was, the position that
all habitual drunkards were utterly incor
rigible, and therefore, must be turned adrift,
and damned without remedy, in order that
the grace of temperance might abound to
the temperate then, and to all mankind
some hundred years thereafter. — There is in
this something so repugnant to humanity,
so uncharitable, so cold-blooded and feel-

THE LINCOLN LEGION 63
ingless, that it never did, nor ever can enlist
the enthusiasm of a popular cause. We
could not love the man who taught it — we
could not hear him with patience. The
heart could not throw open its portals to it.
The generous man could not adopt it. It
could not mix with his blood. It looked so
fiendly selfish, so like throwing fathers and
brothers overboard, to lighten the boat for
our security — that the noble-minded shrank
from the manifest meanness of the thing.
And besides this, the benefits of a ref
ormation to be affected by such a system,
were too remote in point of time, to warmly
engage many in its behalf. Few can be
induced to labor exclusively for posterity;
and none will do it enthusiastically. Pos
terity has done nothing for us ; and theorize
on it as we may, practically we shall do
very little for it, unless we are made to
think, we are> at the same time, doing some
thing for ourselves. What an ignorance of
human nature does it exhibit, to ask or
expect a whole community to rise up and

64 THE LINCOLN LEGION
labor for the temporal happiness of others
after themselves shall be consigned to the
dust, a majority of which community take
no pains whatever to secure their own
eternal welfare, at a no greater distant day?
Great distance, in either time or space, has
wonderful power to lull and render quies
cent the human mind. Pleasures to be en
joyed, or pains to be endured, after we shall
be dead and gone, are but little regarded,
even in our own cases, and much less in the
case of others.
Still, in addition to this there is some
thing so ludicrous in promises of good, or
threats of evil, a great way off, as to render
the whole subject with which they are con
nected, easily turned into ridicule. " Better
lay down that spade you're stealing, Paddy,
— if you don't you will pay for it at the day
of judgment." " By the powers, if you'll
credit me so long, I'll take another, jist."
By the Washingtonians, this system of
consigning the habitual drunkard to hope
less ruin, is repudiated. They adopt a more

THE LINCOLN LEGION 6ff-
enlarged philanthropy. They go for present
as well as future good. They labor for all
now living, as well as all hereafter to live. —
They teach hope to all — despair to none.
As applied to their cause, they deny the doc
trine of unpardonable sin. As in Chris
tianity it is taught, so in this they teach,
that
" While the lamp holds out to burn,
The vilest sinner may return."
And, what is a matter of the most pro
found gratulation, they, by experiment upon
experiment, and example upon example,
prove the maxim to be no less true in the
one case than in the other. On every hand
we behold those, who but yesterday, were
the chief of sinners, now the chief apostles
of the cause. Drunken devils are cast out
by ones, by sevens, and by legions. And*
their unfortunate victims, like the poor
possessed, who was redeemed from his long
and lonely wanderings in the tombs, are
publishing to the ends of the earth, how
great things have been done for them.

66 THE LINCOLN LEGION
To those new champions and this new
system of tactics, our late success is mainly
owing ; and to them we must chiefly look for
the final consummation. The ball is now
rolling gloriously on, and none are so able
as they to increase its speed and its bulk —
to add to its momentum, and its magnitude.
— Even though unlearned in letters, for
this task, none others are so well educated.
To fit them for this work, they have been
taught in the true school. They have been
in that gulf, from which they would teach
others the means of escape. They have
passed that prison wall, which others have
long declared impassable; and who that has
not, shall dare to weigh opinions with them,
as to the mode of passing.
But if it be true, as I have insisted, that
those who have suffered by intemperance,
personally, and have reformed, are the most
powerful and efficient instruments to push
the reformation to ultimate success, it does
not follow, that those who have not suffered,
have no part left them to perform. Whether

THE LINCOLN LEGION 67
or not the world would be vastly benefited
by a total and final banishment from it of
all intoxicating drinks, seems to me not now
to be an open question. Three-fourths of
mankind confess the affirmative with their
tongues, and, I believe, all the rest acknowl
edge it in their hearts.
Ought any, then, to refuse their aid in
doing what the good of the whole demands?
— Shall he, who cannot do much, be, for that
reason, excused if he do nothing? " But,"
says one, " what good can I do by signing
the pledge? I never drink even without
signing." This question has already been
asked and answered more than a million
times. Let it be answered once more. For
the man to suddenly, or in any other way,
to break off from the use of drams, who has
indulged in them for a long course of years,
and until his appetite for them has become
ten or a hundred-fold stronger, and more
craving, than any natural appetite can be,
requires a most powerful moral effort. In
such an undertaking, he needs every moral

68 THE LINCOLN LEGION
support and influence, that can possibly be
brought to his aid, and thrown around him.
And not only so; but every moral prop
should be taken from whatever argument
might rise in his mind to lure him to his
back-sliding. When he casts his eyes
around him, he should be able to see all that
he respects, all that he admires, and all that
he loves, kindly and anxiously pointing him
onward; and none beckoning him back, to
his former miserable " wallowing in the
mire." But it is said by some, that men will
think and act for themselves ; that none will
disuse spirits or anything else, merely
because his neighbors do; and that moral
influence is not that powerful engine con
tended for. Let us examine this. Let me
ask the man who would maintain this posi
tion most stiffly, what compensation he will
accept to go to church some Sunday and sit
during the sermon with his wife's bonnet
on his head? Not a trifle, I'll venture
And why not? There would be nothing

THE LINCOLN LEGION 69
irreligious in it; nothing immoral, nothing
uncomfortable. — Then why not? Is it not
because there would be something egre-
giously unfashionable in it? Then it is the
influence of fashion; and what is the influ
ence of fashion, but the influence that other
people's actions have upon our own actions;
the strong inclination each of us feels to do
as we see all our neghbors do? Nor is the
influence of fashion confined to any partic
ular thing or class of things. It is just as
strong on one subject as another. Let us
make it as unfashionable to withhold our
names from the temperance pledge as for
husbands to wear their wives' bonnets to
church, and instances will be just as rare in
the one case as in the other.
" But," say some, " we are no drunkards ;
and we shall not acknowledge ourselves
such by joining a reformed drunkards'
society, whatever our influence might be."
Surely no Christian will adhere to this ob
jection. — If they believe, as they profess,
that Omnipotence condescended to take on

70 THE LINCOLN LEGION
himself the form of sinful man, as such, to
die an ignominous death for their sakes,
surely they will not refuse submission to the
infinitely lesser condescension, for the tem
poral, and perhaps eternal salvation, of a
large, erring, and unfortunate class of their
own fellow creatures. Nor is the conde
scension very great.
In my judgment, such of us as have never
fallen victims, have been spared more from
the absence of appetite, than from any men
tal or moral superiority over those who
have. Indeed, I believe, if we take habitual
drunkards as a class, their heads and hearts
will bear an advantageous comparison with
those of any other class. There seems ever
to have been a proneness in the brilliant,
and the warm-blooded, to fall into this vice.
— The demon of intemperance ever seems to
have delighted in sucking the blood of
genius and of generosity. What one of us
but can call to mind some dear relative,
more promising in youth than all of hia
fellows, who has fallen a sacrifice to his

THE LINCOLN LEGION 71
rapacity? He ever seems to have gone
forth, like the Egyptian angel of death, com
missioned to slay if not the first, the fairest
born of every family. Shall he now be
arrested in his desolating career? In that
arrest, all can give aid that will; and who
shall be excused that can and will not?
Far around as human breath has ever
blown, he keeps our fathers, our brothers,
our sons, and our friends, prostrate in the
chains of moral death. To all the living
everywhere, we cry, "Come, sound the moral
resurrection trump, that these may rise
and stand up, an exceeding great army " —
" Come from the four winds, O breath ! and
breathe upon these slain, that they may
live." If the relative grandeur of revolutions
shall be estimated by the great amount of
human misery they alleviate, and the small
amount they inflict, then, indeed, will this
be the grandest the world shall ever have
seen. — Of our political revolution of '76, we
all are justly proud. It has given us a de-

72 THE LINCOLN LEGION
gree of political freedom, far exceeding that
of any other of the nations of the earth. In
it the world has found a solution of that
long-mooted problem, as to the capability of
man to govern himself. In it was the germ
which has vegetated, and still is to grow
and expand, into the universal liberty of
mankind. But with all these glorious results, past,
present, and to came, it had its evils too. — It
breathed forth famine, swam in blood and
rode on fire; and long, long after, the
orphan's cry, and widow's wail, continue to
break the sad silence that ensued. These
were the price, the inevitable price, paid for
the blessings it bought.
Turn now, to the temperance revolution.
In it, we shall find a stronger bondage
broken; a viler slavery manumitted; a
greater tyrant deposed. In it, more of
want supplied, more disease healed, more
sorrow assuaged. By it, no orphans starv
ing, no widows weeping. By it, none
wounded in feeling, none injured in in-

THE LINCOLN LEGION 73
terest. Even the dram maker, and the
dram seller, will have glided into other oc
cupations so gradually, as never to have felt
the shock of change; and will stand ready to
join all others in the universal song of glad
ness. And what a noble ally this, to the cause of
political freedom. With such an aid, its
march cannot fail to be on and on, until
every son on earth shall drink in rich
fruition the sorrow-quenching draughts of
perfect liberty. Happy day, when all appe
tites controlled, all passions subdued, all
manners subjected, mind, all-conquering
mind, shall live and move the monarch of
the world. Glorious consummation ! Hail,
fall of Fury ! Reign of Reason, all hail !
And when the victory shall be complete —
when there shall be neither a slave nor a
drunkard on earth — how proud the title of
that Land, which may truly claim to be the
birthplace and the cradle of both those
revolutions, that shall have ended in that
victory. How nobly distinguished that

74 THE LINCOLN LEGION
people, who shall have planted, and nur
tured to maturity, both the political and
moral freedom of their species.
This is the one hundred and tenth anni
versary of the birthday of Washington. —
We are met to celebrate this day. Wash
ington is the mightiest name of earth — long
since mightiest in the cause of civil liberty ;
still mightiest in moral reformation. On
that name, a eulogy is expected. It cannot
be. To add brightness to the sun, or glory
to the name of Washington, is alike impossi
ble. Let none attempt it. In solemn awe
pronounce the name, and in its naked death
less splendor, leave it shining on.
If we take into consideration the day in
which it was spoken, this is one of the most
remarkable addresses "ever delivered. It
may be doubted if there was ever a grander
temperance address delivered in the history
of the world. It is remarkable for its
breadth of vision and its sanity.
It is worth while to note the remark that

THE LINCOLN LEGION 75
the cause in Lincoln's day had been harmed
by the harsh methods and overbearing and
unkind words of some speakers. The same
is true to-day. It is as true now as in
Lincoln's time that not abuse and hard
names, but kindness and sympathy are
essential if we would win men and women to
our standard. The new movement — the
Lincoln Legion — is pledged to the Lincoln
spirit. Its work will be begun and fostered
in harmony with the sentiment of him whose
immortal name it bears upon its banner,
" with malice toward none, with charity
for all." Its motto enjoins three of the
Great Master's qualities, which were found
in a marked degree in Abraham Lincoln,
" Love, Sacrifice, Service! "

FATHER MATTHEW AND HIS
CAREER

There is no gratification worthy of a
Christian that cannot be enjoyed without
tasting intoxicating liquors.
The pledge which I ask you and others to
take does not enslave, it makes free — free
from vice, free from passion, free from an
enslaving habit. — Father Matthew.

CHAPTER IV
FATHER MATTHEW AND HIS CAREER
FATHER MATTHEW had been for
some years one of the Governors of the
House of Industry, the Cork Workhouse of
those days — in which the poor waifs and
strays of society, the wretched and the
broken-down, the victims of their own folly,
or of the calamities, accidents, and vicissi
tudes of life, found a miserable home.
Father Matthew was a big-hearted, sincerely
Christian man, and he saw so much of the
ruin wrought by strong drink that it made
of him a total abstainer.
On the Board of Governors, with Father
Matthew, was one who, himself a convert to
the doctrine of total abstinence, never failed
to direct his attention to any case more
remarkable in its distressing features than
another, with the observation — " Strong
79

80 THE LINCOLN LEGION
drink is the cause of this." And having
excited the compassionate sympathy of his
associate, he would add, "Oh, Theobald
Matthew ! If thou would only give thy aid,
much good could be done in this city."
This friend, William Martin, by name,
was a persistent soul, and did not easily give
up when once he had put his hand to the
plow. He had made up his mind that
Father Matthew, who was the most popular
and influential priest in that portion of
Ireland, was the man above all others to
lead in a great movement against the habit
of strong drink, and so, again and again, he
rang the words in his friend's ears, " Oh,
Theobald Matthew, if thou would but take
the cause in hand." Father Matthew was
now in his forty-seventh year, and had had
large experience both among the rich and
among the poor. In every class of society
he had witnessed the devastation wrought
by this monster iniquity. Although for a
long time he gave no sign, Martin's cease
less reiteration at last made itself felt, and

THE LINCOLN LEGION 81
seemed to be to him the call of God. On a
day early in April, 1838, William Martin
received a message from Father Matthew
asking him to call on him that evening.
Father Matthew met him at the door, say
ing, " Welcome, Mr. Martin, welcome, my
dear friend. It is very kind of you to come
to me at so short a notice, and so punctually,
too." " I was right glad to come to thee, Theo
bald Matthew, for I expected that thou had
good news for me."
" Well, Mr. Martin, I have sent for you
to assist me in forming a temperance society
in this neighborhood."
" I knew it ! " exclaimed Martin ; " some
thing seemed to tell me that thou would'st
do it at last."
The meeting was called, and not a very
large crowd came together. Father Mat
thew took the chair, and made an address,
in the course of which he said :
" These gentlemen are good enough to say
that I could be useful in promoting the great

82 THE LINCOLN LEGION
virtue of temperance, and arresting the
spread of drunkenness. I am quite alive to
the evils which this vice brings with it,
especially to the humbler classes, who are
naturally most exposed to its temptation,
and liable to yield to its seductive influences.
I have always endeavored, as a minister of
religion, to discourage drunkenness, not
with the success I desired, it is true; but I
yielded to no one in my wish to see our work
ing classes sober and self-respecting. I
could not refuse to listen to the many appeals
made to me. Your respected friend, Mr.
Martin, has often asked me to do what I am
about to do this night. . . My dear friends,
I much fear that your kind partiality has
made you overlook my many defects, and
attribute to me merits which I am very far
from possessing ; but if, through any humble
instrumentality of mine, I can do good to
my fellow creatures, and give glory to God,
I feel I am bound, as a minister of the Gos
pel, to throw all personal considerations
aside, and try and give a helping hand to

THE LINCOLN LEGION 83

gentlemen who have afforded me so excellent
an example. Indeed, if only one poor soul
could be rescued from destruction by what
we are now attempting, it would be giving
glory to God, and well worth all the trouble
we could take. No person in health has
any need of intoxicating drinks. My dear
friends, you don't require them, nor do I
require them — neither do I take them.
Many of you here have proved that they can
be done without, for you are strong in health
and in the possession of your faculties.
After much reflection on the subject, I have
come to the conviction that there is no neces
sity for them, for anyone in good health;
and I advise you all to follow my example.
I will be the first to sign my name in the
book which is on the table, and I hope we
shall soon have it full."
Father Matthew then approached the
table, and, taking the pen, said, in a voice
heard by all, and remembered by those pres
ent for many years — " Here goes, in the
name of God ! " and signed his name in

84 THE LINCOLN LEGION
full. Some sixty others followed him that
evening. The work was successful from the first.
The Society was formed in April, 1838, and
by January, 1839, over two hundred thou
sand members had signed its roll in Cork
and the adjoining counties.
In December, 1839, Father Matthew made
his first missionary visitation as the apostle
of total abstinence. This visit was made to
the city of Limerick, and wrought that
ancient city to great excitement. The peo
ple came in from the country round about
and packed the streets. Father Matthew's
reception was an ovation such as few men
ever received; indeed still fewer had ever
excited in the people the same blended feel
ings of love, and reverence, and enthusiasm.
For four days Father Matthew preached and
exhorted so long as the least remnant of a
voice was left him. His mission was mar-
velously successful. In those four days
one hundred and fifty thousand men and
women signed the total abstinence pledge,

PHOTO BY ROSS, SPRINGFIELD, ILL.
Almarinda Bell Galloway.

Moses Martin.

Cleopas Breckenridge,

R. E. Berry.
SURVIVORS OF THE LINCOLN MEETING AT SOUTH FORK SCHOOLHOUSE, 1S47.
A reunion of the pledge-signers, June, 1903.

THE LINCOLN LEGION 85
and joined the growing total-abstinence
ranks. Many amusing things occurred illustrat
ing the humor and peculiar characteristics
of the Irish temperament. During his mis
sion in Waterford, as Father Matthew was
about to mark the sign of the cross on the
forehead of a native who showed every in
dication of close acquaintance with the
drink, the man clutched Father Matthew by
the skirts of his coat with such a grasp as a
drunken man can take, and, in a voice much
broken by hiccoughs, cried out, — " Father
Matthew, darlin', you m-m-ust k-k-iss
me ! " " My dear, do let me go. God bless
you, my dear child; be a good boy for the
future. There — do let me go," said Father
Matthew. " No, Father Matthew, darlin',
I won't 1-1-ave go my hoult till I get wan
k-k-iss ! " " Oh, my dear, do let me go ! "
" No ; wan is all I ax, an' I m-m-ust have it.
Don't r-r-efuse a poor fellow craychure wan
kiss — only wan ! " persisted the tender soul.
A number of gentlemen and clergymen tried

86 THE LINCOLN LEGION
to induce the man to quit his hold on Father
Matthew's coat; but all in vain. Jim was
determined to have his " wan kiss." " Jim,
avick, aren't you ashamed of yourself — the
holy priest! — an' in the chapel, too!" re
monstrated an old woman near him. " Jim,
you bosthoon, you ! Quit yer hould of his
reverence this moment ! " insisted a sturdy
friend at the other side. " No, not till I get
wan k-k-iss; no, af I died for it, I won't lave
go." Father Matthew, seeing that unpleasant
consequences were likely to ensue if Jim's
rather inconvenient request was not at once
complied with, resolved to make him happy,
and accordingly kissed Jim on both cheeks,
saying, "Now, James, my dear, go home
and remain quiet, and be a sensible boy for
the future." The " boy " was not much
short of forty years of age. Jim re
linquished his grasp of the skirt of the coat,
and retired proud of his achievement.
The fame of Father Matthew rapidly
spread abroad throughout the island. It

THE LINCOLN LEGION 87
may be doubted if there has ever been such
enthusiasm manifested in any reform move
ment as was shown by the followers of
Father Matthew. Father Matthew was
once on his way by coach from Dublin to
Cork. The coach stopped at the town of
Athy, long enough to permit the passengers
to have breakfast at the hotel. One of the
group waiting before the hotel recognized
Father Matthew, and shouted the news in
the street, " Father Matthew is at the
hotel ! " The people began to gather, and
by the time breakfast was over, thousands
were wedged about the coach, so that it
could not start. They demanded to receive
the pledge from his hand. He had them
kneel down in great long rows, and pledged
them one after another. But as fast
as he got rid of one large batch, another
much larger took its place — and all this
time the crowd becoming more dense, in
consequence of frequent accessions from the
surrounding country; so that it was not
until after a delay of five hours, during

88 THE LINCOLN LEGION
which Father Matthew worked as he never
worked before in his life, that the Royal
Mail Coach was well out of the town of
Athy. In 1844 Father Matthew paid a visit to
England, where he was received with the
greatest kindness and enthusiasm on all
sides, and in the course of a campaign of a
few weeks six hundred thousand persons
took the pledge of total abstinence, and even
this could not estimate the good which he
did, for an eye-witness writing of it at the
time said : " It is a matter of little difficulty
to compute the numbers who knelt before
Father Matthew and received the pledge at
his hands; but it would be a difficult task,
indeed, to tell the good which he accom
plished, the fallen whom he raised, the
erring whom he brought back to virtue, the
despairing whom he comforted, the hungry
and the naked whom he fed and clad."
Dr. Theodore L. Cuyler has given a most
interesting account in his " Recollections
of a Long Life," of meeting Father Matthew

THE LINCOLN LEGION 89
in Scotland, and of making his first youthful
temperance address in his presence. Dr.
Cuyler says :
" When I made my first visit to Edinburgh
in 1842, 1 learned that a temperance society
of that city was about to go over to Glas
gow to meet the celebrated Father Theobald
Matthew, who was making his first visit to
Scotland. I joined my Edinburgh friends,
and on arriving in Glasgow we found a mul
titude of over fifty thousand people as
sembled on the green. In an open barouche,
drawn by four horses, stood a short, stout
Irishman, with a handsome benevolent
countenance, and attired in a long black
coat, with a silver medal hanging upon his
breast. After the procession, headed by his
carriage, had forced its way through the
densely thronged street, it halted in a small
open square. Father Matthew dismounted,
and began to administer the pledge of ab
stinence to those who were willing to re
ceive it. They kneeled on the ground in
platoons; the pledge was read aloud to

90 THE LINCOLN LEGION
them ; Father Matthew laid his hands upon
them, and pronounced a benediction. From
the necks of many a small medal attached to
a cord was suspended. In this rapid man
ner, the pledge was administered to many
hundreds of persons within an hour, and
fresh crowds continually came forward.
" When I was introduced to the good man
as an American, he spoke a few kind words,
and gave me an " apostolic kiss " upon my
cheek. As I was about to make the first
public speech of my life, I suppose that I
may regard that act of the great Irish
apostle as a sort of ordination to the min
istry of preaching the Gospel of Total Ab
stinence. The administration of the pledge
was followed by a grand meeting of wel
come in the City Hall. Father Matthew
spoke with modest simplicity and deep emo
tion, attributing all his wonderful success
to the direct blessings of God upon his
efforts to persuade his fellow-men to throw
off the despotism of the bottle. After de
livering my maiden speech, I hastened back

THE LINCOLN LEGION 91
to Edinburgh with the deputation from
' Auld Reekie,' and I never saw Father
Matthew again. He was, unquestionably,
the most remarkable temperance reformer
who has yet appeared."
In 1849, Father Matthew paid a long-con
templated visit to America, and on the
second day of July of that year the City of
New York bade him a most remarkable
welcome. The Municipal Council, accom
panied by deputations from various public
bodies and societies, met him at Staten
Island on a steamer to conduct him to
Castle Garden, where his arrival was
awaited by an immense assembly. The
ships in the harbor were covered with flags,
strains of music floated in the air, and
cheers were heard from many a vessel as the
steamer bearing Father Matthew proceeded
up the harbor. Of course, the wild ringing
cheers of the Irish could be heard above all,
as they occupied every vantage ground
that enabled them to catch a glimpse of
their beloved countryman, from whose hands

92 THE LINCOLN LEGION
many thousands among them had received
the pledge in the old country.
Mayor Woodhull, in his speech of wel
come to Father Matthew, said:
" On this spot we have been accustomed
to receive the most distinguished men of our
own and other lands. The statesman, bear
ing the highest honors of his much loved
country, and the victor, fresh from the field
of his proud triumphs, have here been greeted
with the salutations of the most elevated in
authority, and with the general welcome of
the citizens of this metropolis. But you,
sir, come among us with a highly different
and peculiar distinction. The honors which
you wear have been accorded to you by those
who revere you for your deeds of love and
benevolence. Your titles are written on the
hearts of the uncounted masses whom your
heroic perseverance in the humble acts of
mercy and good will have saved from a fate
even more dreadful than the grave. Your
victories are not made up of the dead and
dying left behind in your path, but of living

THE LINCOLN LEGION 93
thousands whom you have rescued from a
fate more remorseless than the conqueror's
march. Your trophies are seen in the smil
ing faces and happy homes of the countless
multitudes whom you have won from the
deepest abyss of wretchedness and despair.
The enemy with whom you have grappled is
one of the direst to the human race. Fright
ful are the ravages of plague, and vast the
preparations to stay its desolating curse;
but the destroying angel of Intemperance
has entombed more victims than any pesti
lence which has ever afflicted the human
family. All seasons are its own, and no
physician can baffle its downward progress.
Quarantines and sanitary precautions can
not check its career. Yet there is one
human power that can subdue the enemy of
man. It is the moral power of a persuasive,
earnest, and benevolent heart, that sum
mons all its affections, and with heroic sub-
blimity, concentrates all its energies to the
single work to be accomplished. It is this
power which you have so successfully exer-

94 THE LINCOLN LEGION
cised, and by which you have attained such
astonishing results."
In the evening of the day of the reception,
the Common Council of New York City en
tertained Father Matthew at a public din
ner, at which all healths were drunk, and
all toasts honored, in glasses of pure
" Croton." " There is as much sincerity,"
said the great temperance reformer, " in
water as in wine; and I beg to give, in a full
bumper of this pure liquid, the health and
prosperity of the Mayor and citizens of New
York." For the two weeks following his wonder
ful welcome to New York City, Father Mat
thew held levees in City Hall, which was
daily thronged with visitors of every class
and condition, and representing every sect
and nationality in the United States. So
great was the inconvenience from crowding
on the first two days that it became neces
sary to have one day set apart for the recep
tion of ladies, and the next for the reception
of gentlemen.

THE LINCOLN LEGION 95
Father Matthew's visit to America gave
an immense impulse to the temperance
movement, which was felt not only where
he spoke, and by those who came under the
magic of his presence, but by multitudes in
far-distant sections of the country who were
never permitted to look upon his face. It
is, of course, impossible to tell how much
influence the movement led by Father Mat
thew had on the mind of Abraham Lincoln,
and his decision, both by example and pre
cept, to stand for total abstinence. It is an
interesting fact, however, to note that the
same Sangamon Weekly Journal, a paper
which Lincoln constantly read, and which
published Lincoln's temperance address,
given in a previous chapter, contained at
length, frequent references to Father Mat
thew's work, and quotations from his ad
dresses.

THE WASHINGTONIANS AND OTHER
TOTAL ABSTINENCE SOCIETIES

When I compare the past with the present,
my days of intemperance with my present
peace and sobriety, my past degradation
with my present position in this hall — the
Cradle of Liberty — I am overwhelmed. It
seems to me holy ground.
I never expected to see this hall. I heard
of it in my boyhood. 'Twas here that Otis
and the elder Adams argued the principles
of independence, and we now meet here to
make a second declaration of independence,
not quite so lengthy as the old one, but it
promises life, liberty, and the pursuit of
happiness. Our forefathers pledged their
lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor;
we, too, will pledge our honor and our lives,
but our fortunes — they have gone for
rum! — John Hawkins, the Leader of the
Washingtonian^, in a speech at Faneuil
Sail, Boston.

CHAPTER V
THE WASHINGTONIANS AND OTHER TOTAL
ABSTINENCE SOCIETIES
T)ERHAPS no reform movement in the
J- world ever had so unique a beginning
as the Washingtonian movement. It had
its origin in the city of Baltimore, in the
year 1840, in a liquor saloon. Half a dozen
men who were hard topers had organized
themselves into a club, and they used to
meet and have their sprees in Chase's Tav
ern. One night a distinguished temperance
lecturer, the Rev. Matthew Hale Smith, was
billed to speak in one of the churches, and
this drunkards' club, in some freak spirit,
appointed two of their number a committee
to go and hear him. The committee were
very much impressed with the arguments
and appeals which they heard, and when
they came back with a favorable report,

100 THE LINCOLN LEGION
there was a very heated discussion in the
club. The saloon-keeper overheard their
talk, and at once burst forth in a tirade of
abuse against all temperance lecturers, de
nouncing them as fools and hypocrites.
In reply to the saloon-keeper, one man
was sober enough to respond, " Of course it
is for your interest to cry them down " ;
whereupon the discussion waxed hotter and
hotter, and the marvelous result of the de
bate was that the six men formed them
selves into a temperance club, which they
styled the " Washingtonian Total Absti
nence Society," and adopted a pledge requir
ing total abstinence from the use of all in
toxicating drinks.
The names of these six individuals were
William K. Mitchell, John F. Hoss, David
Anderson, George Stears, James McCurley,
and Archibald Campbell. John Hawkins
early became a member, and was the most
important figure during the early and grow
ing development of the movement, but was
not one of the original six. They voted to

THE LINCOLN LEGION 101
meet the next night in a carpenter shop, and
each agreed to bring a new member. For a
long time they met nearly every night, and,
naturally, before a great while, their meet
ings attracted public attention.
These reformed men soon received invita
tions to other cities and towns; the move
ment spread from city to city, and from
town to town, until there was scarcely a
thickly inhabited community in the United
States that did not have its Washingtonian
Total Abstinence Society. Men who had
been drunkards for years burst the bonds
that had so long bound them, and became
temperance reformers. Indeed, the entire
movement was unique in that it had begun
among the drinkers themselves, and as such
it immediately became famous. It was
largely carried on through many men tell
ing their own experience, and many drunk
ards that could not have been reached by
the oratory of the most eloquent speaker,
were reached through the stumbling story
of another man who had himself been in the

102 THE LINCOLN LEGION
toils of strong drink and knew its tempta
tions and its sorrows.
The most striking figure in the early days
of the Washingtonian movement was John
Hawkins. He was born in Baltimore, on
the 28th of September, 1797. After some
years at the school of the Rev. Mr. Coxe, at
the age of fourteen he was apprenticed for
eight years to learn the trade of a hatter
with a master whose place of business was
a regular den of drunkenness. Of the sixty
men who were working there at the time he
entered, every man died a drunkard.
When the British made a landing at Balti
more during the War of 1812, young Haw
kins borrowed a musket and joined the
ranks of the volunteers, exposing himself
with all the rashness and abandon of South
ern youth, in the very front of the battle,
from which, however, he escaped unhurt.
Afterwards he went West, where he became
not only a drunkard, but a vagabond. He
says of himself :
" For six months I had no shoes, and

THE LINCOLN LEGION 103
only one shirt and one pair of pantaloons.
Then I was a vagabond, indeed, but I re
turned, ragged and bloated, to my mother's
home. " When I got to the edge of my native
town I was so ashamed that I waited till the
dusk of the evening, and then I crept along
to the house of my mother. She dressed me
up decently, did not upbraid me, but only
said, ' John, I am afraid you are bloated ! ' "
Young Hawkins, having temporarily re
formed, was married on Christmas Day,
1822, to Miss Rachel Thompson, of Balti
more, of which marriage two children were
born, Elizabeth and Hannah. He did bet
ter for a good while, but then grew worse
until he became a confirmed sot. He writes
of his condition :
" During the first two weeks of June,
1840, I drank dreadfully, bought liquor by
the gallon, and drank and drank. I cannot
tell how I suffered ; in body everything, but
in mind more!
" By the 14th of the month — drunk all

104 THE LINCOLN LEGION
the time — I was a wonder to myself, aston
ished that I had any mind left; and yet it
seemed, in the goodness of God, uncom
monly clear. My conscience drove me to
madness. I hated the darkness of the night,
and when morning came, I hated the light;
I hated myself, hated existence; was about
taking my own life. I asked myself, ' Can I
restrain? Is it possible? ' But there was
no one to take me by the hand, and say
you can. I had a pint of whisky in my
room, where I lay in bed, and thought I
would drink it, but this seemed to be a
turning point with me. I know it was life
or death, as I decided to drink it or not.
" My wife came up, knowing how I was
suffering, and asked me to come down to
breakfast. I said I would come presently.
Then my daughter Hannah came up — my
only friend, I always loved her the most —
and she said :
" ' Father, don't send me after whisky to
day!' " I was tormented before; this was agony.

THE LINCOLN LEGION 105
I could not stand it, so I told her to leave,
and she went downstairs crying, and saying,
' Father is angry with me.' My wife came
up again, and asked me to take some coffee.
I told her I did not want anything of her,
and covered myself up in bed. Pretty soon
I heard someone in the room, and, peeping
out, I saw it was my daughter.
" ' Hannah,' said I, ' I'm not angry with
you — and — I shall not drink any more.'
Then we wept together.
" I got up, went to the cupboard and
looked on my enemy, the whisky bottle, and
thought, ' Is it possible I can be restored? '
Several times while dressing I looked at the
bottle, but I thought, ' I shall be lost if I
yield.' " Well, I went to the society of reformed
drunkards, where I found all my old bottle
companions. I did not tell anyone, not
even my wife, that I was going. I had got
out of difficulty, but did not know how long
I could keep out.
" The six founders of the Society were

106 THE LINCOLN LEGION
there. We had worked together, got drunk
together, we stuck together like brothers.
" One of them said, ' Here's Hawkins, the
regulator, the old bruiser,' and they clapped
and laughed, but there was no laugh in me,
I was too solemn and sober for that. Then
they read the pledge:
" 'We, whose names are annexed, desirous
of forming a Society for our mutual benefit
and to guard against a pernicious practice
which is injurious to our health, standing,
and families, do pledge ourselves as gentle
men, that we will not drink any spirituous
or malt liquors, wine, or cider.'
" They all looked over my shoulder to see
me write my name. It was a great battle.
I never had such feelings before.
" At eleven o'clock I went home. Before
when I stayed out late I always went home
drunk. My yard was covered with brick,
and my wife could easily tell as I walked
over it whether I was drunk or sober. She
could even tell whether the gate opened
drunk or sober.

THE LINCOLN LEGION 107
" Well, this time it opened sober, and
when I entered she was astonished. I
smiled, and she smiled ; and then I told her
quick — I could not keep it back :
" ' I have put my name to the temperance
pledge, never to drink as long as I live.'
" It was a happy time. I cried and she
cried — we couldn't help it — the crying woke
up my daughter, and she cried too for joy.
I slept none that night; my thoughts were
better than sleep. Next morning I went to
see my mother. She had been praying
twenty years for her drunken son. When
she heard the good news she said, ' It is
enough. Now I am ready to die.' "
The Washingtonian meetings might have
been called temperance class meetings. Re
formed men went about telling their experi
ence, and that encouraged others. In one
of his meetings in Faneuil Hall, Boston,
John Hawkins said :
" Drunkard ! come up here ! You can re
form. I met a gentleman this morning who
reformed four weeks ago, rejoicing in his ref-

108 THE LINCOLN LEGION
ormation ; he brought a man with him who
took the pledge, and this man brought two
others. This is the way we do the business
Hp in Baltimore. We reformed drunkards
are a Committee of the Whole on the State
of the Union. We are all missionaries.
We don't slight the drunkard ; we love him,
we nurse him, as a mother does her infant
learning to walk."
During its days of popularity the Wash
ingtonian meetings were often enthusiastic
and excited to the last degree; the experi
ences of men who had been notorious for
their drunkenness and debauchery now
actually reformed, presented an argument
that nothing could resist, and when they
appeared on a platform at a meeting, it
seemed like a miracle to the people. In the
back part of the audience poor drunken
creatures would rise up, and, with a look of
desperation on their whisky-bloated faces,
would cry out :
" Do you think I could reform? Do you
think there is any hope for me? "

THE LINCOLN LEGION 109
"Yes, brother. Sign the pledge, and it
will make a sober man of you," would be the
reply. Then, amid the sobs and " God
bless you's " of his family and friends, as
well as scores of those who had but lately
escaped from the enemy, the poor drunkard
would find his way trembling to the plat
form and write his name, while the whole
audience seemed to hold its breath, and
tears were on every face.
That the Washingtonian movement did
great good is beyond all cavil. The good
done by it was so great that the temperance
question has been on a higher level ever
since. For a time it produced a revolution
in the drinking habits of the country. The
weak spot in the Washingtonian movement
seems to have been in the fact that many of
the leaders of the movement, instead of feel
ing the need of religion to strengthen and
sustain the human will, declared that
religious exercises were out of place in
temperance meetings, and would not con
sent for the meeting to be opened with

110 THE LINCOLN LEGION
prayer. By leaders of this type the move
ment as divorced from the churches, to its
infinite loss. Of course, this was not always
the case, and oftentimes where pastors were
wise, great revivals of religion followed a
Washingtonian campaign, and Christian
ministers as a rule were naturally earnest
supporters of the movement.
The Washingtonian movement was
thought by some of the earnest leaders of the
day to lack the element of permanency. In
every city thousands of people united with
the Society and took the total abstinence
pledge who had been victims of strong
drink. Indeed, John Hawkins declared
that under the influence of the Washing
tonian meetings four-fifths of all the drunk
ards in Boston had signed the temperance
pledge. It was felt that these men who
had been so under the power of the drinking
habit, needed more care and fraternal fel
lowship than could be given by so informal
a society as the Washingtonians. With this
thought in mind, there sprang up after a few

PRESTON BRECKENRIDGE,
The father of Cleopas Breckenridge, who induced
Lincoln to hold the meeting at South Fork
Schoolhouse, 1847.

CLEOPAS BRECKENRIDGE,
Who signed the pledge when 10 years old at the
Lincoln meeting at South Fork Schoolhouse,
1847-

THE LINCOLN LEGION 111
years many fraternal organizations having
for their base-work of purpose the total ab
stinence pledge.
One of the first, and perhaps the most im
portant in its time, was known as the Sons
of Temperance. Abraham Lincoln was a
member of this organization. It had its
birth in New York City in 1842, at Teeto
taler's Hall, which stood at 71 Division
Street. This Society gave four dollars a
week to members during sickness and in case
of death thirty dollars was appropriated for
funeral expenses. The pledge was as fol
lows: " I will neither make, buy, sell, nor use as
a beverage, any spirituous or malt liquors,
wine, or cider." This Society had a tremen
dous vogue. Its pledge was administered
to three millions of men and women, and its
influence for good covered the whole land.
Next in importance, perhaps, in wide
spread influence, is the Independent Order
of Good Templars. Its platform is as fol
lows:

112 THE LINCOLN LEGION
First: Total abstinence from all intoxi
cating liquors as a beverage.
Second : No license, in any form or under
any circumstances, for the sale of such
liquors to be used as a beverage.
Third : Absolute prohibition of the manu
facture, importation, and sale of intoxicat
ing liquors for such purposes — prohibition
by the will of the people, expressed in due
form of law, with the penalties deserved for
a crime of such enormity.
Fourth : The creation of a healthy public
opinion upon the subject by the dissemina
tion of the truth.
Fifth: The election of good and honest
men to administer the laws.
Sixth : Persistence in efforts toward ulti
mate and universal success.
In the Sons of Temperance, the pledge is
only binding during a membership in the
order. But the Good Templar total ab
stinence pledge is for life. It is estimated
that during the history of the order more
than three millions of people have been

THE LINCOLN LEGION 113
initiated, and at one time nearly seven hun
dred thousand names were upon its rolls.
Space does not permit me to tell the story of
" The Temple of Honor," " The Independent
Order of Rechabites," " The Independent
Order of Good Samaritans and Daughters
of Samaria," "The Friends of Temperance,"
" The United Friends of Temperance,"
" The Cadets of Temperance," " The Band-
of Hope," and many others.
The National Temperance Society and
Publication House was organized in 1865,
for the special work of creating and circulat
ing a sound temperance literature to pro
mote the cause of total abstinence from all
intoxicants, and to unify and concentrate
the Temperance and Christian sentiments
against the drink habit and the drink traffic.
The Society is genuinely non-partisan, and
non-sectarian, and on its Board of Managers
are representatives of all the great leading
religious denominations and temperance
organizations of the country. The Hon.
William E. Dodge, the Rev. Dr. Mark Hop-

114 THE LINCOLN LEGION

kins, the Rev. Dr. Theodore L. Cuyler,
General O. O. Howard, Mr. Joshua L. Baily,
and the Rev. Dr. D. Stuart Dodge, the
present president, have in turn stood at the
head of this useful organization. During
the years since its foundation it has issued
over twenty-two hundred different publica
tions, printed and circulated two billion
pages of temperance literature, and in this,
and other missionary work, has disbursed
over one and a half millions of dollars.
The Society publishes The National Tem
perance Advocate, a sixteen-page monthly
for adults, The Youth's Temperance Ban
ner, a four-page illustrated paper for chil
dren, and The Water Lily, designed for the
kindergarten age. Many of the most
earnest and faithful temperance workers of
the past and present generation have
wrought heroically, and often with great
personal sacrifice, through this Society.
Among the names of its most faithful
workers is that of the late Mr. James N.
Stearns, a life-long warrior for temperance,

THE LINCOLN LEGION 115
and the present editor of the Society's
publications, the Rev. Dr. James B. Dunn.
It is interesting as an illustration of a
fact often commented upon.that at the birth
of any great movement for reform, as at the
perfection of any great invention, it is
always found that men in different parts of
the world are thinking about the same
things, and working toward the same ends.
It is certainly an encouraging indication
that the times are ripe for a new and world
wide movement for total abstinence through
the temperance pledge method, that the
National Temperance Society in the autumn
of 1902, sought to inaugurate a revival of
total abstinence preaching, securing by cor
respondence and personal appeal sermons
in thousands of churches, and special ser
vices in Sabbath schools where the temper
ance pledge was circulated. Already the
Society has sent out two and a half millions
of pledges.
The Catholic Total Abstinence Union of
America, the first Catholic Convention on

116 THE LINCOLN LEGION

this continent for the promotion of total
abstinence, was held in the city of Baltimore
in the year 1872.
When Father Matthew was in this coun
try in 1849, he organized a number of soci
eties which kept up their existence, and
which served to form a link between the old
and the new epoch in Catholic total absti
nence work; but in 1860 only about twelve
of these societies were in existence.
In 1860 a young priest, the Rev. Patrick
Byrne, became an assistant to one of the
pastors in Jersey City. He asked per
mission of his superior to attempt the es
tablishment of a religious total abstinence
society, which was given, and the Parochial
Total Abstinence Society was founded.
The founder says of it himself :
" I felt from the first the frightful nature
of this vice, and I determined to combat it
to the last limit allowed me by the Church ;
but I soon found that an occasional sermon,
however powerful and scathing, or the ad
ministration of the pledge now and then,

THE LINCOLN LEGION 117
either within or without the tribunal of
penance, was of little avail against a vice
which had interlaced itself with all the
social customs of our people. I therefore
began to establish society against society."
These societies have spread throughout
the union, and many distinguished Catholic
clergymen, notably Archbishop Ireland,
have given great and powerful support to
the temperance movement. There is per
haps nothing more hopeful for the future of
the temperance cause in America, than the
utterances already made and the promise
of advancement to more pronounced atti
tude in favor of total abstinence, and the
destruction of the saloon, by the Catholic
Church.

JOHN B. GOUGH AND HIS WORK

Let us reverently ask God to bless us for
Ms great name's sake, and we with those we
have worked for shall stand saved, not by
our own efforts alone but by our own efforts
blessed and acknowledged by Him in whose
hands are the destinies of all men. — John
B. GOUGH.

CHAPTER VI
JOHN B. GOUGH AND HIS WORK
ON the last Sunday afternoon in Octo
ber, 1842, a drunkard stumbled out
from a humble house in the city of Worces
ter, Massachusetts. He was about half
drunk at the time, and the flush of the
liquor was on his face. He had a great
sense of disgust and hatred for the drink,
and yet was so under the power of it that he
started to go down the street to the nearest
saloon to get more liquor.
Just then he felt a kind touch on the
shoulder. He turned his head to look into
the eyes of a stranger.
" Mr. Gough, I believe," said the man who
had touched him.
" Yes," was the answer, " but you have
the advantage of me."
"My name is Stratton — Joel Stratton.
121

122 THE LINCOLN LEGION
I'm a waiter yonder, in the Temperance
Hotel. You've been drinking to-day."
Stratton's manner was so considerate and
friendly that Gough could not take offense.
" Yes," he said, " I have."
" Why don't you sign the pledge? "
" I have no will, no hope, no future —
nothing. The drink has eaten out my soul.
Alcohol, which preserves snakes, destroys
men. I couldn't keep the pledge if I took it.
My dreadful condition is that I at once hate
rum and crave it."
Stratton put his arm through that of the
young man, and walked slowly on with him.
" You were once respectable," he said ;
" wouldn't you like to be so again? To have
friends, to be a useful member of society? "
" I should like it first rate," retorted
Gough ; " but I have no expectation that
such a thing will ever happen."
" Only sign our pledge," urged Stratton,
" and I will warrant that it shall be so.
Sign it, and I will myself introduce you to
good friends who will feel an interest in

THE LINCOLN LEGION 123
your welfare and take pleasure in helping
you to keep your good resolutions. Only
sign the pledge, Mr. Gough, and all will be
as I have said ; aye, and more, too."
So kind, so earnest, and so hopeful was
Mr. Stratton that it aroused buried hopes
and ambitions in the poor drunkard, and
with some decision of voice he said :
" I will sign the pledge."
" When? " asked his new friend. Gough'
hesitated a moment, and then said : " I can't
do it to-night. I must have some more
drink presently, but I certainly will to
morrow." " We have a temperance meeting in the
town hall to-morrow evening," said Strat
ton. " Will you take the pledge then? "
" I will ! "
" That is right," was the hearty response.
" I will be there to see you."
"You shall," said Gough. And they
parted. Sure enough, the next night
Gough, trembling and despairing, was in
the hall at the temperance meeting. He

124 THE LINCOLN LEGION
was ragged, and looked the disreputable
being he felt himself to be. A call was
made for the relation of experiences.
Acting under sudden impulse, Gough rose
and told his wretched story. That was his
first temperance speech.
Joel Stratton was there on the lookout
for him, and when Gough got through with
his terrible story he brought him the pledge
and gave him the pen, and Gough signed it
in rambling, crooked characters.
The meeting was held once a week in the
temperance hall, and the next Monday
night, when the time for the experiences
came around, Gough rose and said :
" I am getting on very well, and feel a
good deal better than I did a week ago."
This was Gough's second temperance ad
dress. He was to be the most famous
orator which the nineteenth century pro
duced in the defense of sobriety and total
abstinence, and indeed, his eloquence and
oratorical power in after years amounted to
no less than genius. But all these had been

THE LINCOLN LEGION 125
wasted by the drink, and would never have
been dreamed of except for his reformation.
His ability to speak came to be manifest by
degrees. At the weekly temperance meet
ings he usually uttered a few sentences.
Gradually, he enlarged upon the theme, his
passion kindled, his humor gained freedom,
and his pathos self-respect. It was not long
before he was invited to repeat the story of
his experience in other towns within the
reach of Worcester. Thus he felt his way
into wider notice and usefulness as a
speaker. At this time nothing was farther
from his thoughts than that he would ever
make temperance lecturing a business.
This went on for a long time. His oratory
grew through months of practice in country
schoolhouses; countless verbal repetitions
of his biography, aided in the development
of his powers. He worked in a book-
binder's-shop all day, and then walked or
rode in the evening to his appointment in
some near-by town.
Gough's meetings were usually held in

126 THE LINCOLN LEGION
schoolhouses, and often other speakers took
part. At a gathering in West Boylston,
Massachusetts, Gough first occupied the
whole evening, and earned his first lecture-
fee, which amounted to two dollars, so that
the occasion was always memorable to him.
Finally the local demands for his services
so increased that he took off his apron, left
the book-bindery, and began his career as a
temperance orator.
For years John B. Gough had hard work
and poor pay. Of the first year he says:
" In 365 days I gave 383 addresses, and re
ceived for them $1059 — out of which I
paid my traveling expenses; traveled 6840
miles ; and obtained 15,218 signatures to the
pledge." He could have earned a great deal
more money at bookbinding, but his heart
was set now upon something better than
making money. Sometimes, however, the
meanness or lack of thought on the part of
his audience, put him in trying circum
stances. One year his average pay for a
lecture was $2.77 ! He tells a story of one

THE LINCOLN LEGION 127
case as follows: "Once, after I had been
speaking for nearly two hours, and had
taken my seat, the chairman rose, and pro
posed a vote of thanks, which was passed
unanimously. As the audience were being
dismissed, I asked if that vote of thanks
' could be given me in writing? as perhaps
the conductor on the train would take it for
my fare.' The hint was sufficient, and a
collection was taken up, amounting to four
dollars." No sketch of John B. Gough is adequate
that does not refer to the noble fidelity of
Mary Whitcomb Gough, the young Yankee
school-ma'am, to whom the orator was
married November 24, 1843. Gough says of
her : " She took me on trust, with $3.50 in
my pocket; but Mary was willing to risk it
with me."
No wife was ever a greater blessing to a
husband than Mary Gough was to hers.
For a great many years she accompanied
him wherever he went. Her care prolonged
his life, and made it doubly useful.

128 THE LINCOLN LEGION
Gough's manner of speaking was so ex
hausting to him, that when he closed a lec
ture he was dripping with perspiration ; his
clothes were often wringing wet; his vitality
was spent; he was in a state of collapse.
Hours of skillful attention were necessary
in order to soothe him into quietude. He
had to be recuperated with bath and food;
nor did sleep come until long past midnight.
His wife was his constant companion, and
his skillful loving nurse. No wonder
Gough's common phrase about her was,
" My brave, faithful Mary ! "
After their marriage Gough and his wife
went to Boston; where the proud husband
introduced his bride to his good friend and
supporter, Deacon Grant. The good dea
con was much interested in Gough, and had
been afraid he would make a poor choice of
a wife. He looked the young wife over
most carefully for a few moments, and then
said: "John, she'll do!"
And Gough, recalling the incident a

THE LINCOLN LEGION 129
quarter of a century later, said : " Nobly she
has done."
No one can understand the career of John
B. Gough who leaves out of consideration
the great fact that it was a service rendered
with most devout and unselfish desire to
serve God and his fellow-men. On one oc
casion when the terms offered him for his
work were such that they could barely live,
he remarked to his wife that they were not
likely to get rich on such terms. But Mary
Gough bravely answered :
" No matter, John. We are doing the
Lord's work."
It is interesting to note that though
Gough's power as a speaker developed very
slowly at first, that after he began to speak
every day, it was not long before he became
conspicious for true eloquence. In 1844 he
spoke at a great temperance convention in
Faneuil Hall, Boston. It was on this oc
casion that he is believed first to have in
troduced his apostrophe to water, which
soon became famous across the continent.

130 THE LINCOLN LEGION
Holding in his hand a glass filled with it, he
said: "Is not this beautiful? Talk of ruby
wine. Here is our beverage — water, pure
water; we drink it to quench our thirst.
There is no occasion to drink except to
quench one's thirst; and here is the beverage
our Father has provided for his children.
When Moses smote the rock the people were
thirsty, and it was water that came forth,
not wine, or rum, or ale. Were you ever
thirsty, with lips dry and feverish, and
throat parched? Did you ever lift the gob
let of pure water to your lips and feel it
trickling over the tongue and gurgling down
the throat? Was it not luxury? Give to
the traveler on the burning desert, as he lies
perishing with thirst, a goblet of cold water,
and he will return the goblet heaping with
gold; give him wine, rum, or ale, and he
turns away in feverish disgust to die. Our
beverage is beautiful and pure, for God
brewed it — not in the distillery, but out of
the earth."

The late E. W. Metcalf,
of Elyria, Ohio.

Mr. A. I. Root,
of Medina, Ohio.

TWO OF THE EARLY SUPPORTERS OF THE ANTI-SALOON LEAGUE.

THE LINCOLN LEGION 131
Little by little Gough's fame grew as a
lecturer until it was no longer confined to
America. He made several trips to Europe,
and became as popular in England and Ire
land and Scotland as in this country. He
never forgot the pit from which he was dug,
nor the power of kindness to reach a de
spairing heart, nor the benefit of signing
a pledge to abstain from intoxicating
drink. Hundreds of thousands of men and women
and children signed the pledge under the in
fluence of his impassioned appeals. He did
untold good. Here is a story which may
stand as a typical one, fairly represent
ing thousands of instances of a similar
character. On one occasion Mr. Gough was in Covent
Garden, London, when a man came to him,
and said :
" Mr. Gough, I want you to come into my
place of business."
" I'm in a little hurry now," Gough re
plied.

132 THE LINCOLN LEGION
" You must come into my place of busi
ness." Mr. Gough yielded to his entreaties, and
followed him into a large fruit store, where
he was doing business to the amount of
fifteen hundred dollars a week. As soon as
they were safe in the store from the street,
the man turned and caught Gough by the
hand, and said :
" God bless you, sir ! "
" What for? "
" I heard you in Exeter Hall a year and a
half ago, and signed the pledge. I was a
brute." " No, you were not."
" Well, I was worse."
" No, you were not"
" Well, I was as bad as I could be. Look
at that cellar! I spent a whole Sunday in
that cellar on a heap of rotten vegetables,
with a rope to hang myself by ! Now, sir, I
lease that cellar and clear a hundred pounds
a year, God bless you, sir! See what a
business I am doing. Look here ! See that

THE LINCOLN LEGION 133
woman in the corner? She's my wife. La!
How I have knocked her about. Would you
go and shake hands with her? "
" I have no objection."
" Do, sir."
Gough went up to her, and offered his
hand. She held back, and said, " My
fingers are so sticky with the fruit, sir."
" La ! " said the husband. " Mr. Gough
don't mind sticky fingers."
Gough shook hands with her, heartily,
and says, " Our fingers stuck together !
They were stickier than I expected." At
the sight the man exclaimed :
" God bless you, sir ! I wish to give you
something. Do you like oranges? "
" Sometimes."
He went to a shelf that was full of them
and began to fill a great bag.
After he had put in a dozen or so Gough
said, " That's enough."
But the man paid no attention, and went
on filling the bag. Then he put it in
Gough's arms, and said :

134 THE LINCOLN LEGION
" There! don't say a word; but go along.
God bless you ! "
Gough, in telling the story, said, " I
had positively to hire a cab to take me
home." The later years of Mr. Gough were happy
and prosperous. They did not make him
proud, or rob him of his kindness of heart
When Joel Stratton, the man whose touch
on the arm that October Sunday afternoon
had meant salvation to him, died, leaving his
family in financial straits, Gough counted it
a privilege to settle an annuity of three
hundred dollars upon his widow, which he
paid as regularly as the date recurred dur
ing her life.
John B. Gough left in the world a rare
fragrance of loving service rendered the
poor and the despairing, to whom he had
been as the angel of God. There were
thousands of others in the world, who felt
about him as the English woman did, who
brought a faded handkerchief to Mrs.
Gough, and said :

THE LINCOLN LEGION 135
" I am very poor. I would give your hus
band a thousand pounds if I had it — I can
only give him this (presenting the hand
kerchief). I married with the fairest
prospects before me, but my husband took
to drinking, and everything went, until; at
last, I found myself in one miserable room.
My husband lay drunk in the corner, and
my sick child lay moaning on my knee. I
wet this handkerchief with my tears. My
husband met yours. He spoke a few words,
and gave a grasp of the hand ; and now for
six years my husband has been all to me
that a husband can be to a wife. I have
brought your husband the very handker
chief I wet that night with my tears, and I
want him to remember that he has wiped
away those tears from my eyes, I trust for
ever." Years afterward speaking of that
handkerchief Gough said :
" You do not think it worth three cents,
but you have not money enough to buy it
from me. These are the things that make
men glad." Few men have had so much

136 THE LINCOLN LEGION
of that gladness as did John B. Gough. Oh
God ! give us an army of earnest-souled and
loving-hearted men and women, who shall
seek their gladness in thus wiping away the
tears of the sorrowing!

FRANCES WILLARD AND THE
WHITE RIBBON MOVEMENT

When God lets loose an idea upon this
planet we vainly set limits to its progress;
and I believe that Gospel Temperance shall
yet transform that inmost circle, the human
heart, and in its widening sweep the circle
of the home, and then society, and then
pushing its argument to the extreme con
clusion, it shall permeate the widest circle
of them all, and that is, government. —
Frances E. Willard.

CHAPTER VII
FRANCES WILLARD AND THE WHITE RIBBON
MOVEMENT
ONE evening in the week before Christ
mas, 1873, Dr. Dio Lewis, a distin
guished physician, and a popular lyceum
lecturer of the time, delivered a lecture in
Hillsboro, Ohio, on " Our Girls." He had
come to the town under an engagement by
the Lecture Association to fill only a single
evening in the winter lecture course for the
entertainment of the people; but as he
happened to have no engagement for the
next evening, some earnest spirits persuaded
him to remain over in Hillsboro and deliver
a free lecture on the subject of temperance.
Dr. Lewis was entertained in the home of
Judge Thompson; but Mrs. Thompson had
been unable to attend the lecture that even
ing because of the pressing nature of her
139

140 THE LINCOLN LEGION
household duties. Her son, a youth of six
teen, was present, however, and after the
lecture, greatly excited about what had
transpired, he related to his mother that
Dr. Lewis had said that his own mother,
and several of her good Christian friends,
had united in prayer with and for the liquor
sellers of his native town, until they had
given up their soul-destroying business, and
then had said, " Ladies, you might do the
same thing in Hillsboro if you had the same
faith " ; and, turning to the ministers and
temperance men who were upon the plat
form, added, " Suppose I ask the ladies of
this audience to signify their opinions upon
the subject?" As they all seemed pleased
with the idea, he called on the women who
were in favor of such action to rise, and
fifty or more women had stood up in token
of approval. He then asked the men how
many of them would stand to back up the
women if they should undertake the work;
and some sixty or seventy had arisen. " And
now, mother," said the enthusiastic boy,

THE LINCOLN LEGION 141
" they have got you into business, for you
are on a committee to do some work at the
Presbyterian church in the morning at nine
o'clock, and then the ladies want you to go
out with them to the saloons."
Judge Thompson had that evening re
turned from court in another county, and,
being very tired, was resting on the sofa,
and the mother and her son, supposing that
he was asleep, had been speaking in an
undertone; but as the boy spoke about his
mother going to the saloons, the Judge sud
denly roused up, and exclaimed, " What
tomfoolery is all that? " The boy slipped
out of the room, and went to bed, while Mrs.
Thompson assured her husband that she
would not be led into any foolish act by Dr.
Dio Lewis or anybody else. After he had
relaxed into a milder mood, though con
tinuing to scoff at the whole plan as " tom
foolery," the good woman ventured to re
mind him that the men had been in the
" tomfoolery " business a long time, and
suggested that it might be " God's will "

142 THE LINCOLN LEGION
that the women should now take their
part. The next morning, after breakfast, when
they were gathered in the sitting-room, her
son came up, and laying his hand on his
mother's shoulder, inquired, " Mother, are
you not going over to the church this morn
ing? " As she hesitated, and doubtless
showed in her countenance that she was
greatly perplexed, the boy said, " But, my
dear mother, you know you have to go."
Then her daughter, who was sitting on a
stool at her side, leaned over in a most ten
der manner, and looking up in her face,
said, " Don't you think you will go? "
While this conversation had been going
on, Judge Thompson had been walking the
floor in silence. Suddenly he stopped, and
placing his hand upon the family Bible that
lay upon his wife's work-table, he said,
" Children, you know where your mother
goes to settle all vexed questions. Let us
leave her alone." As he ceased speaking he
walked out of the room, and the children

THE LINCOLN LEGION 143
followed. Mrs. Thompson turned the key
in the lock, and was in the act of kneel
ing down to pray when she heard a gentle
tap at the door. Upon opening it, she found
her daughter with her Bible open, and the
tears coursing down her cheeks as she said,
" I opened to this, mother ; it must be for
you." She immediately left the room, and
her mother sat down to read with new in
sight the wonderful message of promise in
the One Hundred and Forty-sixth Psalm.
It seemed a new psalm to her as she read :
" Put not your trust in princes, nor in the
son of man, in whom there is no help. . .
Happy is he that hath the God of Jacob for
his help, whose hope is in the Lord his God :
which made heaven, and earth, the sea, and
all that therein is : which keepeth truth for
ever : which executeth judgment for the op
pressed : which giveth food to the hungry.
The Lord looseth the prisoners: the Lord
openeth the eyes of the blind: the Lord
raiseth them that are bowed down : the Lord
loveth the righteous: the Lord preserveth

144 THE LINCOLN LEGION
the strangers; he relieveth the fatherless
and the widow : but the way of the wicked he
turneth upside down."
Doubting no longer what her duty was,
she at once went to the Presbyterian church,
where quite a large congregation had
already gathered. She was at once unan
imously chosen as the President; Mrs. Gen
eral McDowell, Vice-president; and Mrs. D.
K. Finner, Secretary, of the unique work
which they were to perform.
They drew up appeals to druggists,
saloon-keepers, and hotel proprietors. Then
Dr. McSurely, the Presbyterian minister,
who had up to this time occupied the chair,
called upon the new president to come for
ward and take her place. She tried to get
up ; but, having never done any public work,
her limbs refused to act, and she sat still.
Wise Dr. McSurely looked around at the
men and said, " Brethren, I see that the
ladies will do nothing while we remain ; let
us adjourn, leaving this new work with God
and the women."

THE LINCOLN LEGION 145
After the men had filed out, and the door
was closed behind them, new strength
seemed to come to Mrs. Thompson ; and she
walked forward to the minister's table, took
the large Bible, and, opening it, told the
story of the morning's conversation and
experiences in her own home. After she
had read the psalm brought to her notice
by her daughter, and had tearfully com
mented on it, she called upon Mrs. McDowell
to lead in prayer. Now, Mrs. McDowell,
though a good Christian woman for many
years, had never in all her life heard her
own voice in prayer; but she prayed that
morning as though Isaiah's " coal of fire "
had unsealed her lips.
As they rose from their knees, the Presi
dent asked Mrs. Cowden, the wife of the
Methodist minister, to lead in the singing of
the old hymn "Give to the winds thy
fears" ; and turning to the rest of the women
she said, "As we all join in singing this
hymn, let us form in line, two and two, the
small women in front, leaving the tall ones

146 THE LINCOLN LEGION
to bring up in the rear, and let us at once
proceed to our sacred mission, trusting
alone in the God of Jacob." As they
marched out through the door of the church
into the street, they were singing these
prophetic words :

" Far, far above thy thought,
His counsels shall appear,
When fully he the work hath wrought
That caused thy needless fear."

They went to drug stores and saloons and
hotels; they pleaded and sung and prayed,
until saloon after saloon was closed at their
entreaties. It was a divine contagion that
spread throughout the land. In hundreds
of towns and villages, from one ocean to the
other, Christian women followed their ex
ample. Sometimes they were abused and
mobbed; in some places they were arrested
and thrown into jail; but it was a divine
work; God was in it, and great good was
accomplished. Out of this wonderful upheaval, known as

THE LINCOLN LEGION 147
the " Woman's Crusade," the Woman's
Christian Temperance Union came into
being, with its pledges and its bows of white
ribbon. For years there had been growing
in Illinois a farmer's girl, clean and whole
some and strong. She had been educated,
not only in college, but by travel and hard
work as a teacher, for the very purpose of
this providential hour. So at the birth of
the great woman's movement, stood Frances
Willard, destined to become " the best loved
woman " of the nineteenth century in
America. The spirit with which Frances Willard
came to the leadership of the Woman's
Christian Temperance Union is clearly il
lustrated in her first great " Home Protec
tion" address. In the course of that elo
quent discussion, she said :
" The strong-hold of the rum power lies in
the fact that i+ -as upon its side two deeply
rooted appetites, namely : in the dealer, the
appetite for gain, and in the drinker, the
appetite for stimulants. We have dolor-

148 THE LINCOLN LEGION
ously said in times gone by that on the
human plane we have nothing adequate to
match against this frightful pair. But let
us think more carefully, and we shall find
that, as in nature God has given us an
antidote to every poison, and in grace a
compensation for every loss; so in human
society, he has prepared against alcohol,
that worst foe of the social state, an enemy
under whose weapons it is to bite the dust.
" Think of it ! There is a class in every
one of our communities — in many of them
far the most numerous class — which (I
speak not vauntingly, but name it as a fact)
has not, in all the centuries of wine, beer, and
brandy drinking, developed, as a class, an
appetite for alcohol, but whose instincts, on
the contrary, set so strongly against intoxi
cants that if the liquor traffic were depend
ent on their patronage alone, it would
collapse this night as if all the nitro-gly
cerine of Hell Gate reef had exploded under
it. " There is a class whose instinct of self-

THE LINCOLN LEGION 149
preservation must forever be opposed to a
stimulant which nerves with dangerous
strength arms already so much stronger
than their own, and so maddens the brain
God meant to guide those arms that they
strike down the wives men love, and the
little children for whom, when sober, they
would die. The wife, largely dependent
for the support of herself and little ones
upon the brain which strong-drink par
alyzes, the arm it masters, and the skill it
renders futile, will, in the nature of the case,
prove herself unfriendly to the actual or
potential source of so much misery. But
besides this primal instinct of self-preserva
tion, we have in the same class of which I
speak, another far more high and sacred —
I mean the instinct of a mother's love, a
wife's devotion, a sister's faithfulness, a
daughter's loyalty. And now I ask you to
consider earnestly the fact that none of
these blessed rays of light and power from
woman's heart are as yet brought to bear
upon the rum shop at the focus of power.

150 THE LINCOLN LEGION
They are, I know, the sweet and pleasant
sunshine of our homes ; they are the beams
which light the larger home of social life,
and send their gentle radiance out even into
the great and busy world.
" But I know, and as the knowledge has
grown clearer, my heart has thrilled with
gratitude and hope too deep for words, that
in a republic all these now divergent beams
of light can, through that magic lens, that
powerful sun-glass which we name the
ballot, be made to converge upon the rum
shop in a blaze of light that shall reveal its
full abominations, and a white flame of heat
which, like a pitiless moxa, shall burn this
cancerous excrescence from America's fair
form. Yes, for there is nothing in the uni
verse so sure, so strong, as love; and love
shall do all this — the love of maid for sweet
heart, wife for husband, of a sister for her
brother, of a mother for her son."
Frances Willard was one of the greatest
and most persuasive orators that has ever
appeared among women. The Rev. Dr.

THE LINCOLN LEGION 151
Frank W. Gunsaulus, himself an orator of
world-wide repute, pays a very beautiful
tribute to her marvelous power on the plat
form. He comments on the fact that Miss
Willard did not possess the splendid physi
cal presence which in Mrs. Livermore — a
speaker she never ceased to admire — has
bent the bow of Ulysses with a superb and
queenly ease. But when the bow-string
twanged, which her fingers had touched, an
arrow sped, as sharply tipped, as finely
feathered, as sure to hit the object aimed at,
as though the speaker had been of enormous
frame, and breathed through a pair of
organ-like lungs. " Indeed," says Gunsau
lus, " students of oratory will agree that the
wonder of Miss Willard's physical constitu
tion, as compared with the amount of work
which she performed, and the achievements
she wrought as a public speaker, passed
strangely out of sight when she exercised
upon her audience the charm of her mellow
and finely cadenced voice, attuned to the
strenuous rhythm of her thought and feel-

152 THE LINCOLN LEGION
ing. When asked if she were a very large
woman, an old toper, who was also a great
lawyer, said, in describing her speech of the
night before: 'I should think her about eight
feet high, and weighing about four hundred
pounds avoirdupois; but when she was
wooing my heart to a better life, I thought
then, and think now, that she was the
sweetest little being in the world.' When
an audience of six thousand had assembled
together, and Miss Willard had serious
arguments to plead, and something of a
prejudice to overcome by battling for a
position to which even the majority of her
sisters had not assented, one wished she
had more of brawny stoutness. When the
harp trembled and shook with emotion, as
she spoke of what she meant to do by the
grace of God and by the force of strength
that night, we feared that the strings might
be worn away, and the echoing harmony
be heard vanishingly; but as the eye lit up
with hitherto unseen fire, the finely mobile
lips moved with great messages so easily,

Wayne B. Wheeler, Esq.
Rev. J. C. Jackson.

Rev. P. A. Baker.
Rev. E. C. Dinwiddie.

GROUP FROM THE EARLY WORKING FORCE OF THE
ANTI-SALOON LEAGUE.

THE LINCOLN LEGION 153
the chest expanded from slightness to large
ness and strength proportionate to the rich
ness of the outpouring truth, the most af
fectionate and anxious friend felt supreme
confidence in the strength of her nerves and
the boundlessness of her vital energy, and
nothing seemed able to tire or to vanquish
that combination of powers which was il
luminated by the vast reserve of spiritual
power attending her progress. To hear her,
after the massive speech of even a more
ponderous brain to whom auditors gave
shouts of approval, was like listening to
Wendell Phillips, calm, yet fiery, alert, yet
serenely sure of the truth, while yet the
magnificent excitement and stalwart glory
of Daniel Webster made the air tremble and
burn." Henry Ward Beecher declared that
no woman of her day more truly illustrated
the fact that forcefulness and influence for
good can be obtained only by the alliance of
a clear head and a warm heart in public
than did Frances Willard. " I always feel,"
said he, " that she might inundate the whole

154 THE LINCOLN LEGION
assembly with tears if she were not so wise,
and that she might take us to heights of
reasoning where we would all freeze to
death, if she were not so kind."
John Greenleaf Whittier once said of
Miss Willard what was perhaps as splendid
a characterization as was ever uttered : " I
always want to tell her ' Thee must know
thee is great only as thy cause makes thee
great. Thee might be only a lot of good
qualities if they had not been fused.' " But
by the fiat of God they were fused to
white heat, and they burned their way into
the hearts of the world. Under her leader
ship the Woman's Christian Temperance
Union bound its bows of ribbon white
around the world, printed its pledges in all
the tongues spoken by civilized peoples, and
presented to mankind the spectacle of the
largest organization formed by women since
the world began, consecrated to total
abstinence and to conflict with the liquor
traffic.

FRANCIS MURPHY AND HIS
COLLEAGUES

The reclaiming power of love is great;
aye, it is powerful; yea, it is most potent. I
Know this, for I have seen the most de
graded taken from the very gutter. It pays
to be kind, it pays to be merciful. Speak
the kind word; perform the kind act. It
may be your passport to eternal bliss. —
Francis Murphy.

CHAPTER VIII
FRANCIS MURPHY AND HIS COLLEAGUES
T^RANCIS MURPHY in 1873 was in jail
-*- for illegal liquor selling in Portland,
Maine. While there Captain Cyrus Sturdi-
vant, a man of faith, asked the sheriff for
permission to come and talk with the pris
oners. Murphy thus writes of their first
meeting :
" To Captain Sturdivant, if I have been of
any use in the world, under God, I owe all
of it. He commenced his work on the Sab
bath day. The great, dark entrance door
was opened to the Christian people. Quite
a number had collected together, and they
came in singing, ' All hail the power of
Jesus' name ' ; I was sitting on the little iron
bedstead in my cell, when the keeper came
to the door, and looking at me, said :
" ' Mr. Murphy, we would like to have
157

158 THE LINCOLN LEGION
you come out and attend religious serv
ices.' " ' Please excuse me; I will remain here,
and not disturb your people,' was my
prompt reply.
"'Come out; these people are your
friends ; they will not injure you,' persisted
the keeper.
" There was something so kind and agree
able in the face of the man, that it produced
a disposition of assent within me, and
touched my heart. Yet my answer was :
" ' I would sooner stay here.'
" ' Come on, Mr. Murphy,' he continued.
"At this, I concluded I would go. Oh,
how my heart had ached for a kind word;
for someone to say, ' Can I do anything for
you?' I then responded:
" ' I will go out with you, I believe.'
" I rose from my seat, stepped out of the
little open door, walked about ten paces,
and sat down with the rest of the prisoners.
There was Captain Cyrus Sturdivant. His
back was turned toward me as I walked

THE LINCOLN LEGION 159
along the corridor. When he turned about,
he was weeping as a mother sometimes
weeps for her child. As I looked at his
face, I asked myself, ' Who is he weeping
for ; has he lost a son? ' No, it was evident
that he had a heart for others. He was
telling of God's goodness. His words were
very sweet to me. He spoke to us of hungry
wives and children. And, at that moment,
it seemed I could see my poor wife and
children before me. As he continued to
talk, it semed to me that my imagination
never realized so powerfully as it did at
that time, the presence of the objects of my
affections. My children seemed to be about
me; and my dear wife was standing in my
presence, as calm and patient as ever, say
ing not one word. I queried, ' Does anyone
care for me? I wonder if there is a
friendly hand here to be extended to me? '
And I said to myself, ' Oh, what would I
not give to sit down with that man and tell
him the sorrow of my heart! ' "
Captain Sturdivant followed the matter

160 THE LINCOLN LEGION
up until Murphy was happily converted to
Christ, and with it, of course, came his
determination to cease to have anything to
do with intoxicating drinks. He remained
a prisoner for some time afterwards, and his
work as a reformer began during his prison
days. One day he conceived a project of carry
ing the work begun in his own soul, among
the unconverted men around him. He sent
a petition to the sheriff, asking his per
mission to hold a prayer-meeting. The
meeting was held, and was one of powerful
influence for good. In the course of a little
time, he saw the seventy-five men in the jail
brought securely from the evil of their lives.
God gave him every man in the jail. Mur
phy took this as a sign from God that hence
forth he was to give himself to the work of
rescuing and reforming his fellow-men.
The result was so wonderful in the conduct
of the men that the sheriff discontinued the
practice of locking them up. They were
put upon their honor. Contrary to the pre-

THE LINCOLN LEGION 161
vious custom of the place, they were permit
ted to go out into the yard, and not one of
them ever violated his word to the keeper.
Francis Murphy delivered his first lec
ture in the City Hall, Portland, Maine,
April 3, 1873. The success was remarkable.
A great crowd was present, and the humor
and pathos of the discourse captivated the
audience. That very evening he received
over sixty applications for lectures in other
cities. He was already launched upon his
career. From Maine he went to New
Hampshire, and then to Iowa and Illinois,
and then to all the world.
Francis Murphy was very remarkable for
the number of drinking men of great prom
inence and influence whom he won to sobri
ety through personal and individual work,
in addition to the multitudes who were per
suaded to take the pledge at his public meet
ings. This cannot be better illustrated
than to give a condensed quotation from
one of Murphy's speeches, delivered in Co
lumbus, Ohio. He said :

162 THE LINCOLN LEGION
"Allow me to use an illustration that I
may enforce this truth, and may God help
me. I will speak of a man you have had in
your midst speaking for you — Marshall
Swartewalder. He was a victim of this
habit for a number of years. He is a per
fect gentleman when he is sober, a kingly
man, and has justly been called the patriarch
of the Pittsburg Bar, and the Demosthenes
of the profession. Perhaps no man who
has been upon the platform in the cause of
human reform has been equal to him. When
I first came to the city of Pittsburg, I was
told about Marshall Swartzwalder that he
had been a drunkard a great many years —
for thirty years at least — and they said
there was no hope for him. I said I would
like to see him. ' Well,' said they, ' you can
see him,' but said that he had been on a tre
mendous spree. I got the number of his
office — for at this time he stayed in his of
fice, and ate his meals there, and had a nice
back room handsomely furnished where he
slept — I rapped at his door; there was a

THE LINCOLN LEGION 163
young boy, a son of his, a beardless boy,
about sixteen years of age, that always
stayed with his father and never left him;
he called him Dick. Dick came to the door
— I wish you could have seen the poor boy ;
he looked so depressed and sad. Said I, ' Is
Mr. Swartzwalder in?' He replied, 'Yes;
do you wish to see him? ' He sent in my
card. He had asked what my name was, and
stepped in and told him that Mr. Murphy
was in the office and would like to see him.
Said he, ' Send him in ; I would like to see
him.' So I went to his room, and he rose
from his large chair, which he had for his
own comfort. He extended his hand, and
said, ' You're the man that has been talking
temperance here? ' ' Yes,' said I. ' Well,
said he, ' we never have much good from you
temperance people; you come here and sing
your songs, and present your bills, and go
away. That is the way they do, and I sup
pose you are like all the rest of them.' I
said, ' I don't know how that is.' He said,
' Mr. Murphy, I want to talk to you. I have

164 THE LINCOLN LEGION
been a victim of intemperance for more than
thirty years. I have no power to control my
self.' He asked me to be seated in a chair,
and I sat down by his side. He looked
strangely in my face, and said, ' Is there any
hope for me? ' Said I, ' There is hope for
you.' ' There is? ' he exclaimed. ' Yes.'
' How so? ' Said I, ' With God's help you
can be saved.' With a shake of his head, he
said, ' Why, for more than twenty years I
have been seeking for the truth, and have
read the Bible through and through. And,'
said he, ' Mr. Murphy, there is no help for
me.' I commenced talkingto him in my hum
ble way, the best I could. He turned around
to Colonel Hetherington, and said : ' Go and
tell Dick to come in.' The dear boy, when
he came in, stepped up to his father's left
side, and the father put his arms around
the boy. The poor boy was so much over
come that he sat down and put his arms
around his father's neck. The child could
not control his feelings, and commenced to
weep. The father said : ' Dear Dick, you

THE LINCOLN LEGION 165
never left me.' Turning to me, he said:
' Mr. Murphy, here is a boy that stays with
his father ; here is a boy that has walked the
streets night after night for his father, and
stays with him; I wish I could tell you how
good he has been, how much I love him.'
Before we got through talking to each other,
Mr. Swartzwalder said : ' Mr. Murphy, I
feel a very strange impression on my heart, I
feel as though God had touched me, so to
speak.' I said to him, with all the power of
encouragement that God had possessed me
with, ' Mr. Swartzwalder, by the grace of
God, you shall conquer this evil ; I know it
in my heart.' I left him ; I knew the work
was done ; I knew it was a question of time
when the man should come out redeemed."
And indeed he was wonderfully redeemed,
and Murphy tells us that twenty thousand
men signed the pledge under the influence
of that one man. That story is typical of a
great many that might be told of Francis
Murphy. The Murphy movement was distinguished

166 THE LINCOLN LEGION
on the part of its followers by the wearing
of a bit of blue ribbon in the button
hole of the coat, and so rapidly did the
movement spread that the blue ribbon be
came a well-known badge from one ocean to
the other. The work in some cities was
phenomenal. Eighty thousand signed the
Murphy pledge in Pittsburg. One hundred
and twenty thousand signed the pledge in
Philadelphia within two months, and in
the State of Pennsylvania alone four hun
dred thousand wore the blue ribbon.
Dr. Henry A. Reynolds was in the city of
Bangor, Maine, on the verge of delirium
tremens. In his despair of human aid he
knelt in his office, and yielded himself to
God as his servant, and swore a solemn and
sacred oath that he would sign the pledge
publicly on the first opportunity. Two
days later the opportunity came. The
Woman's Crusade, of Bangor, was con
ducting a public meeting in the City Hall,
and he went in to observe it.
The large audience was much amazed to

THE LINCOLN LEGION 167
see him come in, for he was notorious for
his intemperate habits. The people were
more amazed when he pressed his way
through the mass, and reached the pledge
table, where he deliberately signed his
name. The audience burst forth into en
thusiastic cheers.
A little later he published notices in the
different daily newspapers, cordially invit
ing all drinking men to meet at a certain
time and place. Eleven came forward at
the call, and the Bangor Reform Club, the
very first of the kind, was organized Sep
tember 10, 1874, adopting as its motto,
" Dare to do right." Dr. Reynolds was
elected President. Meetings were fre
quently held, and as each member sought.
after others, in the course of a few weeks,
the club numbered hundreds, and the city
was shaken and aroused for God and hu
manity as never before. The movement
went over the country like a flash, creating
great surprise and great interest. During
the first year, reform clubs of this kind were

168 THE LINCOLN LEGION
organized throughout the entire State of
Maine. In three years the number of re
formed men was given as forty-six thou
sand. The origin of the red ribbon took place
some months after Dr. Reynolds' conver
sion. He had called a convention of re
formed men to meet in Bangor, Maine, and
while he was seated in his office, he fancied
that it would be a good idea if the men had
some sign or badge by which they could
recognize each other. He thought for a long
time, and finally sent his office boy across
the street to a dry-goods store for several
yards of red ribbon. Having obtained this,
the doctor cut it up into six-inch lengths,
tied one in the lapel of his coat, and did
likewise by all the delegates. Dr. Reynolds
was soon invited to other States, and it was
not long before it spread over many States,
doing a large amount of good. Space
fails us to tell of P. A. Burdick, Thomas
Doutney,Lou Beauchamp, and a vast host of
others who have sought through the temper-

THE LINCOLN LEGION 169
ance pledge to rouse the hope in the drunk
ard's heart of a possible rescue, and to
strengthen the purpose, and give solidity to
the will of the young and innocent, so as to
give them strength to resist the temptations
of the insidious foe.

HOWARD H. RUSSELL, ORGANIZER
OF THE ANTI-SALOON LEAGUE

With public sentiment nothing can fail,
without it nothing can succeed. Conse
quently he who molds public sentiment goes
deeper than he who enacts statutes or pro
nounces decisions. Ee makes statutes or
decisions possible or impossible to be exe
cuted. — Abraham Lincoln.

CHAPTER IX
HOWARD H. RUSSELL, ORGANIZER OF THE
ANTI-SALOON LEAGUE
HOWARD H. RUSSELL, the founder
of the Ohio Anti- Saloon League, and
superintendent from the beginning, of both
State and National Leagues, and in whose
fertile brain was conceived the idea of The
Lincoln Legion, is of English ancestry.
His grandfather, James Russell, a skilled
iron-worker at Wednesbury, in Stafford
shire, England, brought his family to Phila
delphia in 1820, and Russell's father was
born there in 1822. The grandfather, for
forty years, was a foreman of Government
gun-makers at Harper's Ferry, Virginia,
and Springfield, Massachusetts. Howard's
father, Joseph A. Russell, sought an
education, worked his own way, was
graduated at the Wesleyan Academy, at
173

174 THE LINCOLN LEGION
Wilbraham, Massachusetts, and the Episco
pal Theological Seminary of Alexandria,
Virginia. Howard's mother was Sarah E.
Parker, a Dalton, Massachusetts, girl, a
daughter of the Revolution. The father
was a Home Missionary under Bishop
Kemper at Stillwater, Minnesota, when
Howard Russell was born there on Sunday
morning, October 21, 1855. The father's life
work was that of teacher as well as clergy
man. He was principal of the Glens Falls,
New York, Academy, in the sixties, and had
charge of public and church schools in
Illinois and Iowa for nearly forty years.
After a very useful career, he still lives as
Rector Emeritus of the Episcopal Church at
Chariton, Iowa.
Howard Russell's boyhood was spent at
Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania, where his
mother died when he was six years of age,
and at Glens Falls, New York, where the
father was married a second time to a noble
woman who proved to be, to Howard and his
two brothers, a faithful and beloved second

THE LINCOLN LEGION 175
mother, who still lives to bless the father in
his old age. Young Russell studied at
Galva, Illinois, and at Davenport, Iowa,
where he finished preparatory school at
Griswold College in 1872. Four summers
of this time were spent working upon the
farm. At seventeen years of age he was for
a time clerk in the Commanding Officer's
office at Rock Island Arsenal, then his
friend Lieutenant Wright placed him in
charge of the construction work at the
Government waterpower dam at Moline.
In 1874, before Russell was nineteen, he
crossed the plains in the saddle, with a cat
tle herd, secured a teacher's certificate in
Colorado, and taught a few months near
Hughes' Station, now Brighton, Colorado,
then returning to his father's home at
Corning, Iowa, where he took charge of
a country paper for a year. Then at
the age of twenty-one he began the study
of law at Corning with the Hon. Frank M.
Davis, teaching school the while at Noda-
away, Iowa, to pay expenses. Later he

176 THE LINCOLN LEGION
worked his way through a year at the Des
Moines Law School, and in June, 1878, was
admitted to the Bar before the Supreme
Court of Iowa. In 1880, Howard H. Rus
sell married Lillian Davis, the daughter of
his preceptor and partner. She had al
ready been for several years an inspiration
to his life.
Russell's six years as a lawyer were
very active ones. Mr. Davis received him
as a partner as soon as he was admitted
to the bar, and, as Davis was one of the
ablest lawyers in the State, and had already
the largest practice of any attorney in the
county, the young man did not lack for
work. He took part, not only in the civil,
but in the criminal practice. Early in his
experience as a lawyer he was employed to
defend a Corning druggist named William
Kline, who was charged with a murder
which had been committed a hundred miles
away, near Des Moines. Detectives had
conspired for the sake of a large reward to
fasten the crime upon Russell's client, who

THE LINCOLN LEGION 177
was an innocent man. Three different per
sons swore that Kline had confessed the
murder. Others testified that he was near
the scene of the murder when he claimed to
have been far away. Several citizens of
Corning, with book entries of business
transactions with the defendant, established
a conclusive alibi. It was an exciting case.
As it was tried at the State Capital, it at
tracted wide attention, and, as Russell won
the victory single-handed against lawyers
of large experience, it opened the way to
rapid business success. He also won many
important civil cases while he was in the
practice. His last lawsuit was a civil dam
age suit against a liquor dealer on behalf of
a wife who had been injured by the sale of
liquor to her husband, and the jury gave a
large verdict. There is no doubt that had
Russell remained at the law, he would have
won honor and large financial return.
In 1882, through the prayers and influ
ence of his devoted wife, he experienced a
thorough change of heart motives, and un-

178 THE LINCOLN LEGION
der the new impulses then potent with him,
was impelled toward the Christian ministry.
This step was hastened by a political defeat.
It had been the practice for years in Adams
County, Iowa, to elect a young lawyer as
County Superintendent of Schools. He was
expected only to devote a part of his time to
that work. In 1881, Russell was elected to
that position, and served two years. In the
summer of 1883 he was renominated by the
Republican County Convention, but a
fusion of the Democrats and " Greenback-
ers" defeated the whole Republican ticket
that year, and though he received more
votes than any other candidate of his party,
he was still defeated by a narrow margin.
Russell has since recognized that this de
feat was a blessing in disguise, for it speeded
his career into Christian and reform work.
In the autumn of 1883 he closed up his busi
ness, and, with his wife and little daughter,
Julia, two years of age, went to Oberlin,
Ohio, and began his college and seminary
studies January 1, 1884. In 1886 he won the

PHOTO BY BAKER, COLUMQUS, OHIO, 1893.
HOWARD H. RUSSELL,
Organizer of the Anti-Saloon League.

THE LINCOLN LEGION 179
oratorical contest at Oberlin on the subject
of " Mob and Law," and represented Ober
lin at the State contest, winning the first
place there. At the Interstate Contest at
Lawrence, Kansas, he represented Ohio, and
was awarded the second prize. In June,
1888, he had nearly finished his college
course, had completed his seminary course,
and was graduated from the theological de
partment. In 1894 he was honored with the
degree of Master of Arts by Oberlin College,
and in 1897 the degree of Doctor of Divinity
was conferred upon him by the Ohio Wes
leyan University.
During his student days at Oberlin, Rus
sell had been preaching all the while, and
had been successful in bringing about re
vivals in religion in North and South Am
herst. On his graduation he moved at once
to Kansas City, Missouri, to take up work
under the Congregational City Missionary
Society. Russell began his ministry in Kansas
City in a huge tent, which he set up upon

180 THE LINCOLN LEGION
vacant lots in the southwest part of the city.
He published a paper, The Southwest Work
man, and distributed large editions among
the homes. By thorough advertising and
private canvass from house to house and
heart-winning sermons, he gathered great
congregations which he took into a large
hall nearby when the cold weather came.
The Sunday-school grew until it enrolled
five hundred. A temperance society and
young people's society, a boys' battalion
of two companies, were organized, and then
a church. A commodious building wa3
erected, and in two and a half years the
church came to be self-supporting. A re
vival added over one hundred members
one winter.
During the summer months each year
Russell supplied the pulpit of the First
Congregational Church, of which the Rev.
Dr. Henry Hopkins was pastor. The
second summer he preached a series of dis
courses upon the general topic of " A Law
yer's Examination of the Bible." A special

THE LINCOLN LEGION 181
invitation was sent by the officers of the
church to lawyers and their families. There
was a large attendance of men of that pro
fession, and a high degree of interest mani
fested. Lengthy reports of the addresses
were printed in the Kansas City papers, and
he received letters from five lawyers residing
in towns of Kansas and Missouri who were
led to unite with the Church from reading
those reports. One hundred business men
in Kansas City, Kansas, signed a request for
the delivery of these addresses, and pre
sented Russell with a generous purse at the
closing service. This series of discourses
was printed in a handsome volume by the
Fleming H. Revell Company, and has
reached a fourth edition. While in Kansas
City, in 1889, Ernest Clement, a son, was
born to the Russells.
In November, 1890, Philip Armour sent
a committee to visit the Southwest Taber
nacle, and soon a call came to Russell to the
pastorate of the Armour Mission in Chicago,
and as that promised a wider opportunity

182 THE LINCOLN LEGION
for effective work, he began service there in
February, 1891. Here was room for work,
indeed! The Sunday-school enrolled over
two thousand members, and the Mission,
through its kindergarten, free dispensary,
and other helpful agencies, touched in vari
ous ways a parish of four or five thousand
people. Russell's pastoral work there, while
burdensome, was very delightful. He or
ganized, while there, a brotherhood for the
young men, a sisterhood for the young
women, and a battalion for the boys. There
were five companies of boys, over two hun
dred and fifty in line, and, with their blue
uniforms and guns, they presented a fine ap
pearance. Best of all, they were induced,
most of them, to become soldiers of Christ.
More than a hundred and fifty of them in a
single winter intelligently enlisted in Chris
tian service. W. C. Johnson, a faithful
Christian worker, who had drilled Russell's
boy battalion in Kansas City, came at his
call, to Chicago, and was his stenographer
and assistant pastor. The remarkable fea-

THE LINCOLN LEGION 183
ture of the case was, that these boys them
selves cheerfully paid the assistant's salary.
During Russell's pastorate at the Armour
Mission, his sorrow and indignation were
constantly stirred by the evils of the liquor
habit and traffic, and it was here that the
National Anti-Saloon League gained its
great reserve of power.
In the granite hills of New Hampshire,
looking down upon beautiful " Grafton
Water," where Russell and the writer of this
volume are summer neighbors and friends,
I inquired of him how he came to take up the
An ti- Saloon League work at so large a cost
in personal sacrifice, both for himself and
for his family, also expressing wonder that
I had never seen anything in print concern
ing it. Thus urged, he told me this story :
" While convalescing from a long illness
at the Armour Mission, in the fall of 1892, it
came to me vividly that I ought to take up
the marshaling of the church forces of the
country to do active and permanent service
against the saloon. I had long believed it

184 THE LINCOLN LEGION
ought to be done, and I had tried to induce
others to take it up. I had even offered to
contribute f 100 per year out of my salary, if
a friend would take the lead in the work.
Mary Lyon once said : ' If there is work
which needs the doing, and no one else will
do it, and I can do it, that is my work.' Now,
it seemed to come to me that this work
which so much needed the doing, and which I
had several times sought to lay upon others,
was the very work I ought to set in upon. I
shrank from it still. I had been blessed in
my pastoral work. It would break up the
home life. Would the people of the churches
support the many workers needed to do an
effective work, and the other necessary ex
penses? As at other times in my life, God
at last made it clear that I was no longer to
hesitate or shrink from it. Happily the
path of duty seemed plain to Mrs. Russell
also, and then I set about finding where I
was to begin the task. It was reported that
citizens of Indiana were looking for a man
to lead their temperance work, and I went

THE LINCOLN LEGION 185
to Indianapolis, but found that they were
not ready to take up the lines of work I had
in mind, so I turned again to my Oberlin
friends. They were at first reluctant to as
sume responsibility in the matter, but after
deliberation and prayer, and several con
ferences with the pastors and other leaders,
in the spring of 1893, they consented to
adopt my ideas and plans, and to help as
much as they could to start the work and to
give it their permanent assistance. The pub
lic beginning was made at a Union Meeting
at the First Congregational Church at Ober
lin, on Sunday evening, June 4, 1893.
" My life the past ten years has been
entirely absorbed with the life and growth
of the Anti-Saloon League. In September,
1893, my family came from Chicago, and we
rented a small house at $10 per month in
the northern part of Columbus. Knowing
the financial difficulties sure to be encoun
tered, Mrs. Russell dismissed her maid and
bravely did all the housework herself. The
home sacrifices and burdens connected with

186 THE LINCOLN LEGION
the initiation of this League work were more
than will ever be known. When anyone
gives me flowers because of my work as a
temperance leader, I present them all to my
dear wife, who, no less surely because out
of public view, has furnished the inspira
tion and put up the prayers, and given the
personal sacrifices and toil which supplied
our partnership in service its best essentials
for success. Let us never forget the costly
part womanhood pays in the advancement of
this reform. As the lady bravely buckled on
the armor of her knight and cheered him on
to the battle even when her heart was break
ing, so the heroic comrade of my home has
cheered me forth to the conflicts of the last
decade, and has never wavered in her faith
and loyalty to the duties which attended or
grew out of the commission. Several hun
dred dollars of her patrimony were freely
spent in the early years of our struggle to
hold a footing for the League, during the
hard times the whole nation saw, from 1893
to 1896. The children, too, have had their

THE LINCOLN LEGION 187
part in the sacrifices of this reform work.
How often the tears of parting have fallen
as the father went forth for his long ab
sences. When Ernest was six years old,
he said to me sadly one day, at Columbus :
' Papa, why do you go away so far to fight
saloons? There are some right up here on
the street. You can stay home with us and
fight them ! ' "
Three years the Russells lived in Colum
bus, and nearly six in Delaware, Ohio, and
then, for the sake of the daughter's post
graduate study, their residence was for
nearly two years in Boston, and they re
moved to New York City in June, 1903.
Professor W. F. Whitlock, D. D., of Dela
ware, Ohio, an old neighbor and friend of
Howard Russell's, in a keen analysis of his
character and personality, in connection
with the great work which he has done for
the temperance movement, gives it as his
judgment that as a reformer he is particu
larly gifted in the following elements :
" First, in organizing ability. Given a

188 THE LINCOLN LEGION
problem to solve his mind readily suggests a
solution. When a campaign is to be made,
he quickly conceives the plan. He is apt in
collecting and combining the forces. He
knows at once the point of attack, and con
centrates everything upon it. The two
things the temperance reform has lacked,
organization and concentration, he happily
commands. System, compactness, combina
tion, concentration, are not sacrificed by him
to mere sentiment or theory. He grasps not
only the end, but the means that will reach
it. His unfaltering faith is not a substitute
for work, but is revealed and realized in his
works. " A second element is contained in his
practical and workable methods. They are
such as commend themselves to reason and
sound judgment by the manifest adaptation
of means to ends. He is never without a
theory, but he is not a mere theorist. He is
broad enough to face conditions as they are,
without growing impatient because they are
not as they ought to be. His methods are

THE LINCOLN LEGION 189
determined upon in the light of two consid
erations : they must be honorable, authorized
by worthy features only, and then adapted
to the work attempted. His own self-reliant
convictions happily harmonize with sug
gestions resulting from deliberations and
counsels. The inherent force of his proposed
plans and methods assures the friends and
alarms the foes of the cause he advocates.
" A third element is his faith in ultimate
success. He is a continual inspiration to
those associated in effort with him. He is
sure that his work is one that ought to be
done, and therefore can be. He never meas
ures the promise of success or failure by the
number and force of the foe, but by the faith
and aggressive effort of professed friends.
He spends no time in complaining of the
past, but is eager to realize the possibilities
of the present. He is not a critic, much less
a faultfinder. He gladly recognizes the good
that has been done, and makes it the basis of
greater achievements. He is not a pessimist,
refusing to see the service others have ren-

190 THE LINCOLN LEGION
dered ; not a visionary optimist, anticipating
success without a struggle, but a knight of
cool judgment and steady nerve, ready for
the fray, and confident of the outcome.
" A fourth element is the moral and re
ligious power put into the reform. He is
fully conscious that the work is of the Mas
ter, and must be done in His name. The
churches, the Sunday-schools, the young peo
ple's organizations, and all Christian asso
ciations and leagues are enlisted. The Bible
is the guidebook, and Christians are the dis
ciplined forces that must bring light and vic
tory. His own earnest and eloquent appeals
are first of all to religious people. His belief
that his mission is divinely given, and the
burdensome yearning of his spirit pleading
in behalf of the wayward and unfortunate,
give a strange sacredness to the cause he rep
resents. He is a man of one work, and his
consecration seems complete. The man, the
Christian, the lawyer, the minister, the
author, his talents and acquisitions, his
voice and pen, all that he is and has, are ab-

THE LINCOLN LEGION 191
sorbed in his divinely appointed work. May
the mightiness of his mission, his giant ef
forts, fervent faith, unflagging zeal, and
earnest supplications be crowned with the
' unity, persistency, and victory ' of the hosts
he leads ! "
In addition to this excellent analysis by
Dr. Whitlock, to which I am ready heartily
to subscribe, I wish to call attention to
another characteristic, not always found in
the reformer, but of the greatest possible
value as a factor for practical work, and,
that is, a well-balanced, sunny spirit, a sweet
ness of temper, a genuine loveableness of
character which not only inspires respect
and admiration, but which draws men to
him in the bonds of sympathy and love. This
is Howard H. Russell, whose name will be
forever associated with the birth and devel
opment of the Anti-Saloon League move
ment, and whose head and heart are respon
sible for The Lincoln Legion. He is of his
own age and time, a Reformer of the Twen
tieth Century. The same old enthusiasm,

192 THE LINCOLN LEGION
and fire, and spirit of self-sacrifice, but with
characteristics modified to fit him to the new
age in which his work is to be done. A well-
balanced, thoroughly consecrated, devoted
man, frank, genuine, whole-hearted, rever
encing God, loving humanity, this is How
ard H. Russell. God give strength to his
arm, eloquence to his tongue, and patience
to his heart for still mightier triumphs.

THE ANTI-SALOON LEAGUE

The temperance reform is not a weary
journey to reach a destination. It is world
wide conflict against woe-ioorking sin, and
many splendid triumphs are already won.
Let no man be discouraged. Trust thou in
God, for we shall join yet more and more in
jubilant praise, for Eis mighty salvation
from the Satanic power of strong drink. —
Howard H. Russell.

CHAPTER X
THE ANTI-SALOON LEAGUE
ALL great movements have gathered
- about some distinct and typical per
sonality. Emerson tells us that every great
institution is but the lengthening shadow of
a man. Mahomet stands for Mohammed-
ism, Martin Luther for the Reformation,
George Washington for the American Revo
lution, John Wesley for Methodism. When
a great task is to be wrought out, God lays
the burden of it upon some man's heart, and
by inheritance and environment, as well as
by discipline and culture, fits him for his
work, and drives him forward by a divine
impulse until it is accomplished.
The Anti-Saloon League, like every other
institution that has been a force for good in
the world, has been a growth, and has re
ceived into its life great personal sacrifice
195

196 THE LINCOLN LEGION
and service upon the part of many devoted
people. While others deserve credit for
valuable assistance and unselfish service,
without which the results would have been
impossible, it still remains true that one
man conceived the plan of the organization,
as it has finally crystallized into a working
engine, without material change from the
" pattern in the Mount." He saw the
visions and dreamed the dreams. By faith
he foresaw the coming constituency, the
methods of work, and the sure victories of
the movement. He was the first missionary
in the new crusade utterly to put himself,
and all he had, into it. He aroused the
needed faith in others, raised the sinews of
war, enlisted other leaders, mobilized the
army, and conducted such victorious cam
paigns as have already won the respect of
political powers, the fear of saloon-keepers
and their allies, the rapidly growing sup
port of all moral agencies, and made the
organization a permanent factor in this
" noblest conflict of the New Century."

THE LINCOLN LEGION 197
Howard H. Russell, from early boyhood
had distinct impressions of the evil of the
drink habit and traffic. While yet a lad
he saw near and dear relatives brought
to a premature death through strong drink.
It became evident to him that for several
generations this habit had been a family
weakness. When visiting recently in Staf
fordshire, England, Russell found that at
least fourteen relatives not far removed,
bright young men, several of them trained
in the English universities, had all died
before reaching forty years of age, and that
the drink habit was the assassin in every
case. It is no wonder that the subject was
always in his mind as of pressing impor
tance. When a young lawyer in Iowa, his firm
were employed by a local temperance or
ganization to prosecute lawless saloon
keepers, and to Russell was assigned the
prosecution of the cases. He thus learned
the perjury and anarchy characterizing
such traffickers. He was often called upon

198 THE LINCOLN LEGION
for temperance addresses, and in 1883 he
devoted a month to the State Campaign for
a Prohibitory Amendment to the Iowa Con
stitution. During his collegiate course at Oberlin
from 1884 to 1888, he was repeatedly
sent as a delegate to represent the
college at temperance conferences and
conventions. While a student, in 1885,
he led in the Murphy movement at
North Amherst and South Amherst, Ohio,
and again while still a seminarian at Ober
lin, but residing at Berea, Ohio, and pastor
of the Berea Congregational Church, ne
organized a local movement which closed
eight saloons, and they have remained
closed ever since. A vicious physical as
sault upon him on the street, by a saloon
keeper, helped to carry the election by six
majority. When the saloon-keepers, thus legally
forced out of trade by the village ordinance,
continued to sell liquor in violation of law,
he secured abundance of evidence and began

THE LINCOLN LEGION 199
the prosecutions, conducted the trials him
self in the Mayor's Court, and secured such1
heavy penalties against the law-breakers
that they were compelled to obey the law.
When he left Berea to go to Kansas City in
1888, the citizens generally gave a Fare
well Reception and a written testimonial
with numerous signatures in recognition of
his services in the temperance cause while
a citizen of Berea.
In December, 1887, the Oberlin Temper
ance Alliance requested Mr. Russell to
take charge of a movement to secure a
needed law from the legislature. They
offered to furnish $300 in money toward
expenses, and to supply his Berea pulpit
when it was necessary to be absent there
from. He opened a headquarters at Colum
bus. By working through the pastors and
churches a temporary " Local Option
League," as it was called, was formed
throughout the State and petitions were cir
culated in every county for the passage of
the Township Local Option Bill. Pre

200 THE LINCOLN LEGION
viously, in 1886, the legislature in the enact
ment of the Dow Law had given the councils
of the various municipalities in the State
the power to regulate or prohibit the sale of
liquors as beverages. It was under that
provision that the Berea saloons were closed.
In many localities when the village council
closed the saloons they opened again for
business in the township just outside the
line. The enactment of the township local
option law was planned so as to enable the
farmers to protect the township from the
saloon and incidentally to protect the vil
lage or city voting out the saloons. Under
the pressure of the people stirred up by the
Local Option League, the bill was pushed
through the house by a small majority and
went over to the senate. Here a poll of the
senate made by Senator Park Alexander of
Akron, who was an earnest friend of the
bill, showed a bare majority of one in its
favor. On a certain Wednesday morning
the bill was to come to a vote. On Monday
morning, two days before, Senator Crook of

THE LINCOLN LEGION 201
Dayton went to Senator Alexander and said
that three committees of the brewers, dis
tillers, and saloon-keepers of Dayton had
called upon him the previous day and he felt
that he must withdraw his promise to vote
for the bill. Monday afternoon Mr. Russell
went to Dayton, and through friends of the
measure, secured the writing on Tuesday of
many personal letters to Senator Crook. On
Wednesday morning several telegrams were
sent him and when the bill came up he voted
for it and it was passed by a majority of one
vote. Senator Alexander remarked after
ward to Mr. Russell that the old prophecy of
Isaiah had now been fulfilled : " The rough
places shall be made plain, and the crooked
places shall be made straight " ! This town
ship law, still an effective temperance
measure in Ohio, was the entering wedge for
local option laws in that State. By its use
over 300 townships are kept free from
saloons. This four-months' legislative ex
perience led Mr. Russell to believe that a
permanent organization of the temperance

202 THE LINCOLN LEGION
forces of the churches might make gradual
and more rapid headway than hitherto in
obtaining anti-saloon legislation. In mak
ing his final report to the Oberlin Temper
ance Alliance in April, 1888, Mr. Russell
urged that the temporary organization be
made permanent and that a salaried superin
tendent be employed to take charge of the
work. A county organization was after
ward formed in Lorain County and there
the matter rested.
While pastor of the Southwest Tabernacle
in Kansas City in 1890, Mr. Russell sent
circular letters to the pastors throughout
Missouri asking their opinion upon the sub
ject, and as the result a largely attended
convention was called, and held at Pertle
Springs, Missouri, in July, 1890, and a con
stitution was adopted providing for work
in the lines of agitation, law enforcement,
and legislation by a State organization
named the Missouri Anti-Liquor League.
Mr. Russell was elected the President for
the first year, and he gave his whole two

THE LINCOLN LEGION 203
months' vacation without charge to the
League, presenting the work at various
points in the State. The first fifty dollars ex
pended in printing and postage in working
up the State convention in Missouri were
furnished by members of the Oberlin Tem
perance Alliance. Mr. W. J. Reese was ap
pointed organizer, and with a stereopticon
which Mr. Russell furnished him, he went
out and organized leagues, some of which
still continue their work. The State League
temporarily ceased its work when Mr. Rus
sell was called early in 1891 to take pastoral
charge of the Armour Mission in Chicago.
In 1892 Mr. Russell was invited to deliver
a temperance address at Oberlin, and he
again advocated the forming of a per
manent State organization in Ohio, and
tried to induce certain men to take charge
of the work, but nothing was done. His
pastoral work in Chicago brought before
him many tragedies resulting from the
drink. Standing upon a box at an under
taker's door, he conducted the funeral of a

204 THE LINCOLN LEGION
suicide through drink ; the drunkard's home
had gone and his weeping family sat within
the door. Again it was the " only son of his
mother, and she a widow," who had been
wounded in a saloon brawl on Sunday and
afterward died in the hospital. In another
case it was the mother with seven sorrowing
children who had died in childbirth after
being brutally struck by her drunken hus
band. The doctor gave the man money to
buy medicine for the wife and he bought
whisky for himself, and on the day of the
funeral lay drunk on the floor of the back
room. Again it was a child driven forth by
a drunken father to freeze to death.
In the fall of 1892, Mr. Russell talked
privately with some of the Oberlin citizens
again about the need of State organization
in Ohio. They said, " If you will take charge
of it, it might be made a success." There
was a natural hesitation upon his part to
leave the regular line of church work in
which he was blessed, to be absent most of
the time from his family. The question of

THE LINCOLN LEGION 205
support was utterly untried and uncertain.
At the time of indecision a new tragedy
stirred his heart. He was called as minister
to a home where a drunken mother lay dead.
The father was intoxicated, as were also the
undertaker's driver and some neighbor
women. The little boy of eight years and his
little sister of three — worse than orphans
— were the only unpolluted objects in the
desolate room. " Do you know what caused
your mother's death? " he asked. " I do.
It was drink," said the weeping boy. " Are
you going to drink? " " I'll never touch
it ! " He pledged the boy, whose clinched
hand he raised, never to drink that which
took his mother's life, and to teach his sister
to do likewise. The next morning when he
called, the house was vacant, and that home
like so many others was broken up by rum !
It was there and then he settled the ques
tion of his future work as a reformer. He
said to himself, " I will go out to my
brethren of the churches and demand that
they become responsible for an organized

206 THE LINCOLN LEGION
activity that shall hasten the day when that
kind of tragedies shall be done away."
There were two or three conferences at
Oberlin between January and May, 1893,
and at Mr. Russell's request the Oberlin
Temperance Alliance, at a meeting held in
the College Library on May 24, 1893, for
mally voted to initiate and to stand
officially behind the movement until it
should be thought best to expand the work
into a State organization. It was voted at
that meeting that accounts should be
kept and money received and paid by the
Oberlin organization for the present,
and Mr. Russell was employed as Superin
tendent upon a definite salary to introduce
the movement to the people of the State,
and as rapidly as possible to organize and
federate the churches into a league against
the saloons according to plans he had out
lined to the Alliance.
As had been voted at the Alliance meet
ing on May 24, the formal public begin
ning of the Anti-Saloon League was made

DRAWN BY ARTHUS I. KELLER.

"77/ never touch it .' "
FUNERAL OF A MOTHER DEAD FROM DRINK.
Little'Jamie Kent makes a pledge, and Howard Russell decides his life-work.

THE LINCOLN LEGION 207
the first Sunday evening in June — June 4,
1893 — at a Union meeting of all the
churches in the old First Church, Oberlin.
Rev. Dr. James Brand, the pastor, at the
opening of the service said among other
things that he believed this would
prove to be one of the great historic
meetings in that church. He spoke of two
such meetings already held. One, the In
dignation Meeting with reference to the
fugitive slave held by his captors in Well
ington, which resulted in the rescuing party
being sent from Oberlin to take him from
them. Another when the two companies
were recruited from faculty and students
for the Civil War.
Dr. Brand said he believed a move
ment was to be advocated, and begun
that night, which would be far-reaching in
its influence against a most stupendous and
satanic evil in the State and nation. He
believed, he said, that in Mr. Russell they
saw and were to hear "a man sent from
God " for a definite work, who was now

208 THE LINCOLN LEGION
about to set in upon his Heaven-ordained
task. He called upon all to both hear and
then act with reference to the important
plans to be presented. Professor G. W.
Shurtleff introduced Mr. Russell. He re
ferred to the important work Mr. Russell
had already done for the people of Ohio in
managing the campaign in 1888, which had
secured the enactment of the Township
Local Option Law. He expressed his con
fident belief that with the wise and timely
plans which Mr. Russell had presented to
the Alliance and was now about to advocate
to the people, it would be possible under his
leadership to develop a permanent and
powerful organization aganst the liquor
traffic in Ohio. It was a wonderful meet
ing. The church was filled to overflowing;
students in the great galleries and earnest
and attentive listeners in all parts of the
house. Mr. Russell, in his speech that night
called attention to the fact that the saloons
were increasing three times as fast as the

THE LINCOLN LEGION 209
population, and showed the need of a more
powerful organization than then existed in
Ohio to antagonize the liquor traffic. He
insisted that the churches ought to become
responsible for a vigorous and permanent
anti-liquor league. He advocated an omni-
partisan and interdenominational federa
tion, which should overcome the apathy,
cowardice, and discord then existing among
temperance people, and under the leader
ship of at least ten competent men,
employed as experts, to devote their whole
time to the work should carry forward
a permanent campaign on four distinct
lines: first, Agitation; second, Legislation,
third, Law Enforcement; and, fourth, An
Organization of the Boys. At the close of
his speech he appealed for liberal subscrip
tions to support the movement. Printed
three-year pledges were circulated and the
aggregate sum pledged was over $600 per
year for three years or nearly two thousand
dollars. A private canvass soon increased
the subscription to three thousand dollars,

210 THE LINCOLN LEGION
and it is an interesting fact that Oberlin,
that grand old reform center, with no
saloons, and the law well enforced, has
given about one thousand dollars per year
during the past ten years through the
treasury of the Anti-Saloon League, to do
missionary work for Ohio and the country
in the cause of temperance.
The Ohio Anti-Saloon League was born
that Sunday night in the church in Oberlin.
It soon spread over the State and the bold
prediction of its founder, that the people of
the churches would form a mighty league
against the saloons, was soon fulfilled.
Russell was tireless in service and abundant
in success. He soon interested men who had
both conscience and capital to devote to the
cause. Two of them deserve special men
tion. They are the late E. W. Metcalf of
Elyria, and Mr. A. I. Root of Medina, Ohio.
These men by their counsel and gener
osity helped give the new venture a
rapid start. The League was soon felt in
legislation; bad legislation was stopped,

THE LINCOLN LEGION 211
and advance measures were taken; laws
long disused and disobeyed were brought to
light and enforced, until the eyes of tem
perance people all over the nation were at
tracted to the Ohio idea of aggressive con
centration against the saloon.
In 1894 and 1895 Russell began to have
many calls from the outside for information
about the Ohio Anti-Saloon League and its
work. Neighboring States began to organize
along the same lines. A call for an Inter
state Convention for four or five of the
interior States, with a view to forming an
Inter-State Anti-Saloon League, had been
prepared, and was about to be issued, when
a letter came from the Anti-Saloon League
of the District of Columbia inviting the
Ohio Anti-Saloon League to join in a call
for a convention to organize a National
Anti-Saloon League. The Ohio Anti-
Saloon League joined in that call and the
American Anti-Saloon League was formed
at Washington in December, 1895.

212 THE LINCOLN LEGION
The immediate origin of the National
Anti-Saloon League may be properly said
to have come from four distinct sources. In
the first place there had been non-partisan
State temperance organizations at work for
several years previous to the organization
of the Anti-Saloon League. These were the
Total Abstinence Society in Massachusetts,
the Connecticut Temperance Union in Con
necticut, the Kansas Temperance Union in
Kansas, and the Maryland State Temper
ance Alliance in Maryland. At least three
of these old State organizations took part in
the convention at Washington in 1895
which organized the American Anti-Saloon
League, and they have all since as bodies,
federated with the National organization.
In the second place a movement had been
planned and carried forward by the Rev.
Dr. A. J. Kynett in connection with his
regular work as Secretary of the Church
Extension Society of the Methodist Epis
copal Church. Dr. Kynett called the
organization which he furthered the Inter-

THE LINCOLN LEGION 213
denominational Christian Temperance Al
liance. He printed a monthly magazine
in connection with his Church Extension
Society work, and this magazine contained
a department relating to saloon suppres
sion, in which he advocated the organization
of branch Alliances in the different locali
ties throughout the country, and as far as
such branches were organized he reported
their work in that department of the
magazine. He advocated the forming of
organizations in each local Methodist church
and urged that the churches of other denom
inations should form like organizations and
seek alliance with each other in the various
localities and States. To some extent he
had succeeded in securing such church and
local organizations, and in three States,
Pennsylvania, Illinois and Ohio, conven
tions had been held and officers elected to
inaugurate State organizations along the
same lines. Not a great deal of work had
been done through these organizations, as
Dr. Kynett himself stated, for lack of a

214 THE LINCOLN LEGION
Superintendent who could devote his whole
time to the organization and direction of
the movement. Dr. Kynett was glad to
join forces with the new movement planned
at the Washington Convention, and he was,
during the early years of the American
Anti-Saloon League, one of its most wise
and faithful counselors and leaders. The
third source of the Anti-Saloon League
movement was found in the federation of
the churches and temperance societies in
the District of Columbia which was formed
June 23, 1893, under the name of the Dis
trict of Columbia Anti-Saloon League, and
which had already at the time of the con
vention in 1895, done very useful service
for the temperance cause at the Capital.
Among those who were influential in the
District of Columbia League when the Na
tional League was formed, may be men
tioned Mr. A. N. Canfield, who had called
the first conference looking toward the fed
eration of the Churches and Temperance
Societies of the District of Columbia

THE LINCOLN LEGION 215
in an Anti-Saloon League, and Mr. James
L. Ewin, who was the first secretary
of the National Organization, and is its
present corresponding secretary, and who
has devoted much time and self-sacrificing
service in connection with the calling and
management of the various conventions of
the League at Washington, and in the fur
therance of the League's growth. Rev.
Luther B. Wilson, D. D., a presiding elder
of the M. E. Church at Washington, was
more than any other man influential in
causing the call for a National Organization
to be issued. He was at that time President
of the District of Columbia League, and was
elected First Vice-President of the National
League. After the death of the Hon. Hiram
Price, who was the first President of the
National League, Dr. Wilson was elected
to succeed him as the League's President,
and he has been a most able presiding
officer. The fourth source of influence in
the forming of the National League is
found in the Ohio Anti-Saloon League

216 THE LINCOLN LEGION
with its successful history of organiza
tion and achievement prior to the Con
vention at Washington in December, 1895,
to which it sent its delegates to take
part in the forming of the National organi
zation. Back of or contemporaneous with
all these four lines of influence which have
been named, were the organized efforts made
by temperance workers in all parts of the
United States, which had resulted in the
agitation of the temperance question and
the concreting of the public sentiment thus
engendered into statute law, and the obtain
ing of the enforcement of the law in the
various localities throughout the country.
The organizing Convention adopted a Con
stitution providing for a federation of all
organizations pledging co-operation in the
suppression of the saloon.
The object of the League as stated in
Article Third is as follows : " The object of
this League is the suppression of the
saloon. To this end we invite the alliance
of all who are in harmony with this object,

THE LINCOLN LEGION 217
and the League pledges itself to avoid af
filiation with any political party as such,
and to maintain an attitude of neutrality
upon questions of public policy not directly
and immediately concerned with the traffic
in strong drink."
An Executive Committee was elected in
harmony with the Constitution, and pro
vision was made for future annual con
ventions of the National League. These
Conventions have been held with an in
creasing attendance and a growing federa
tion of organizations to promote the objects
of the League. The National Organization
now federates about 250 church, temper
ance, and other bodies in all parts of the
country. The Ohio Anti-Saloon League was
recognized as the " model " for other State
Leagues to be formed throughout the coun
try, and the Superintendent of the Ohio
League was elected the first Superintendent
of the National Organization. Gradually
the beginning of work has been promoted in
the various States since 1895; in some cases

218 THE LINCOLN LEGION
by correspondence, but with greater satis
faction and success, by a visit to the new
State by the National Superintendent. In
1897 Superintendent Russell spent three
months introducing the work in California
and other States in the Far West. For two
years after the National League was formed
Superintendent Russell served as Superin
tendent both of the Ohio League and of the
National League, and during the years 1902
and 1903 he was Superintendent both of the
National League and of the New York
State Anti- Saloon League. During two of
the years of his superintendency he traveled
over 50,000 miles each year in connection
with the work of organization in new States
and the fostering of the work in the States
where the League had already been formed.
A bright judge of men and great human
movements says : " Successful leadership de
pends entirely upon one's ability to multiply
himself through others. Great leaders
must not only lay plans which are practical
but must also be able to call around them

THE LINCOLN LEGION 219
those who can carry out their orders effi
ciently and vigorously." This is one of
Howard Russell's personal qualities, and
has contributed greatly to his success as
Superintendent of the American Anti-
Saloon League.
Among many others whom he has chosen
and enlisted to co-operate in the expansion
of the League, a few names may be men
tioned of those who have been longest
associated with the work. The Rev. E. C.
Dinwiddie, of Springfield, Ohio, was one of
the first men called. He was given special
charge of the legislative department of the
Ohio League, for which work he showed
great aptitude. After four years in Ohio
he took entire charge for two years of the
Pennsylvania League, and now for three
years has been at the National Headquarters
of the League in Washington, D. O, where
he is National Legislative Superintendent.
He is a man rarely qualified for such tasks,
and his work has met with gratifying suc
cess. The Rev. P. A. Baker, of Columbus,

220 THE LINCOLN LEGION
Ohio, was first employed as a District Super
intendent of the Ohio League, and was
elected State Superintendent when Dr.
Russell resigned to assume the duties of the
Superintendency of the National League in
1897. Baker has carried forward and de
veloped the League in that State with
masterly ability and success. He is as
brave as a lion, as wise as a serpent, and a
man of remarkable adaptation to his posi
tion. In the expansion of both the State
and National Leagues, Baker and Russell
have been true yoke-fellows. They are the
Cobden and Bright of this mighty move
ment for reform. Mr. Wayne B. Wheeler
was one of the bright men of the class
of 1895 in Oberlin College. Upon his
graduation from college he began as a
field secretary in the Ohio League, and
later was admitted to the Ohio Bar, and
has since made a brilliant record as at
torney for the Ohio Anti- Saloon League.
The Rev. Dr. J. C. Jackson was called
from an important Columbus pastorate

THE LINCOLN LEGION 221
to the League work in 1896, and after
assisting Superintendent Russell, both in
the State League work, and in organizing
new Leagues in other States, he was ap
pointed editor of The American Issue, the
organ of the Ohio League, and soon to be
that of the National Organization. By his
voice on Sunday, and his pen during the
week, Dr. Jackson is exerting a mighty in
fluence for the cause.
Time would fail to mention other names
as worthy of record. One after another,
strong men have been sought out and
placed at the head of the various State
Organizations, and in charge of the equally
important district work in many of the
States. A particular reference to these
leaders and organizers must be omitted for
lack of space, but they are exerting a power
ful influence in molding public sentiment
against the liquor traffic. Nor will it be
possible further to recite the wonderful
growth and spread, of this marvelous move
ment Suffice it to say that a little over ten

222 THE LINCOLN LEGION
years ago Dr. Russell, first privately, then
publicly, at the great Oberlin meeting,
proposed the League system of State-wide
Anti- Saloon work as it has since been de
veloped throughout'the land. At that time,
to quote Professor Whitlock, " he was the
only salaried officer. Its headquarters
were in his valise. Its stock in trade were
his faith and heroism, and the sympathy
and prayers of a few friends and advisers " ;
while to-day, according to Dr. Russell's last
annual report, there are thirty-nine States
and Territories in which organization has
been started, wherein over two hundred and
fifty persons are devoting their entire time
to the work, and the financial support for
the year in the various States and in the
National League will approximate a quarter
of a million dollars,

THE LINCOLN LEGION

Whereas, the use of alcoholic liquors as a
beverage is productive of pauperism, deg
radation and crime, and believing it is our
duty to discourage that which produces
more evil than good, we therefore pledge
ourselves to abstain from the use of in
toxicating liquors as a beverage. — The
pledge signed and advocated by Abraham
Lincoln.

CHAPTER XI
THE LINCOLN LEGION
THE history of the Temperance Refor
mation will show very clearly that the
great cause of sobriety, as well as the enact
ment and enforcement of laws prohibiting
or restricting the liquor traffic, has made the
most rapid progress at such times as there
have been general movements toward what
is known as " moral suasion " methods. In
the very nature of things, agitation, persua
sion, appeal, arouse public sentiment
against the liquor habit and the liquor traf
fic, and these, after all, must be depended
upon as the great sources of prohibitory law
and enforcement.
What an awakening of conscience, and
what a change in the views and habits of the
people of the whole country during the
Father Matthew, the Washingtonian, and
225

226 THE LINCOLN LEGION
the Murphy campaigns! The fact that a
drinking man was battling against his appe
tite and inducing others to likewise enter
the conflict, made John B. Gough an influ
ential leader of thought, and by his life and
words the liquor traffic was greatly weak
ened throughout the land. The open doors
of immigration have admitted millions of
people whose past habits have included the
use of alcoholic beverages. The turning of
attention by the leaders of the temperance
reform in recent years to an almost exclu
sive contest against the place of sale of
liquor, and the general neglect of the popu
lar appeal for personal abstinence has, in
many localities, pressed the reform dispro
portionately upon the legal side. It is a
fact that in those localities where a large
enough ratio of the people are abstainers
from the habit, there is no difficulty in ob
taining the legal abolition of the traffic in
alcoholic drinks. There are many hopeful
signs that from a business standpoint social
liquor drinking is becoming unpopular.

NOTE
WITH REFERENCE TO THE PLEDGE.
Since the sheets were printed for this volume,
conclusive proof has been found that the pledge on
page 224 was not only signed and advocated, but
actually composed by Abraham Lincoln. It will,
therefore be adopted as the most fitting pledge to be
signed by the members enlisting in the
Lincoln Legion.

THE LINCOLN LEGION 227
The railways and many other industries are
discouraging and prohibiting the use of
alcoholics by employees. To be in the habit
of drinking is a detriment to any man seek
ing any kind of employment — even that of a
bartender. This hopeful sign in the business world
does not, however, obtain in modern society.
There the aspect is alarming, and, not only
in what is known as the " Four Hundred,"
but among the great middle-classes of well-
to-do people in the large towns and cities of
America, there is in many circles an alarm
ing increase in social drinking. The writer
has conversed with man,y distinguished
clergymen of the leading denominations,
during the last two or three years, on this
subject, and he is assured by pastors of
great churches that at weddings, and social
receptions held in the homes of the wealthy
members, in families that for a generation,
have been practicing total abstinence, the
punch-bowl is now coming in, and alongside
the bowl of lemonade, there is the one of

228 THE LINCOLN LEGION
wine, and that the wine is patronized by
the church people to an alarming extent.
But, to my mind, the most serious phase of
the situation to-day is the undoubted in
crease in the drinking habit of respectable
well-to-do women. The writer frequently
meets it in his pastoral work, and every
pastor in the great cities is constantly com
ing in contact with the ruin that is being
wrought through the drunken woman.
Women order " cocktails " in the public
restaurants without question in some of our
large cities, and these are not lewd women,
but are frequently women who are members
of leading Protestant churches. Surely it
is high time to call a halt It is time that
the trumpet is sounded for a new move
ment for total abstinence and safety. The
great danger belt in the temperance move
ment lies in the army of moderate drinkers.
While the greatest tolerance and the kindli
est spirit should ever be used in dealing with
those whose past training and environment
have made them in favor of the so-called

THE LINCOLN LEGION 229
moderate use of liquor, it is undoubtedly the
supreme duty of the churches and all moral
people who see the peril of the habit, to cry
out in warning.
A subtle sophistry, which is very wide
spread, more widely than the casual ob
server knows, needs to be overthrown. This
is the belief among laboring people that an
alcoholic stimulant is necessary to the work
ing man. If it is not thought essential, it
is at least believed to be very strengthening
and helpful. It is of great importance that
the truth to the contrary be attractively and
persistently taught upon this question.
Why is it that Gospel temperance and
pledgesigning urges forward so effectively
the whole reform? The reason is this:
Pledge-signing meetings arouse attention to
the perils and waste of the drink habit.
They put the whole community on inquiry
and compel personal decisions ; they awaken
judgment and conscience, both as to habit
and traffic. If alcohol is harmful as a bev
erage, and causes crime, poverty, and dis-

230 THE LINCOLN LEGION
ease, then the abolition of its retail sale in
the community is logically in order. So a
gospel temperance campaign is a flank
movement against the saloon. As an im
petus to real revivals of religion, the tem
perance campaigns have been a marked
blessing. It needs no analysis to see the
reason for this. The moral sense of the
whole citizenship is awakened by a series of
gospel temperance services, and it is easy to
go forward with the preaching of the pure
gospel of salvation from all sin by the power
of a personal Saviour. Many a minister liv
ing to-day can testify to the good agency of a
temperance campaign as leading to a re
ligious revival. Do we not need to-day such
a moral awakening as we should have just
reason to expect from a general movement
for total abstinence?
Personally, I do not believe that there
will be any great general revival of religion
in the United States until the church gener
ally becomes aggressive on the subject of the
liquor traffic. We may issue all the mani-

PHOTOGRAPH BY RICE, OEERLIN.

First public meeting of the Ohio Anti-Saloon
League held, here, June 4, 1803.

Chapel where State League was
formed, September 5, 1893.

THE OLD " FIRST CHURCH, OBERLIN.
Birthplace of the Ohio Anti-Saloon League.

THE LINCOLN LEGION 231
festos we please, and declare that this or
that year is to see a great revival. But it
will not come to pass until the church re
pents of its indifference towards the hun
dreds of thousands of God's weak children,
who are being ruined and destroyed through
the oppressions of the liquor traffic. It is
because I believe, with all my heart, that the
best way to arouse the church to adequate
activity on this momentous question is to
return to first principles, and awaken the
conscience of the people anew to the sin of
drunkenness, to the duty of brotherly in
fluence, and to a keen sense of brotherly
obligation, as well as to the enormity of the
crime of selling liquor, that the author, a
Christian minister, and a Prohibitionist,
urges with hopeful and devoted enthusiasm
this new pledge movement, the Lincoln
Legion. After long study of the situation, Dr.
Howard Russell decided to sound a number
of leading comrades in temperance work to
see whether they would agree with him that

232 THE LINCOLN LEGION
the hour was ripe for carrying forward sys
tematic pledge-signing enrollment through
out the whole country in connection with
the churches, which should include substan
tially the features which have been em
bodied in the Lincoln Legion.
The responses received from several hun
dred pastors and temperance workers
throughout the land have been favorable
and generally enthusiastic in their endorse
ment of these propositions submitted by Dr.
Russell. We can quote only a few of them
here. These are typical statements:
Rev. Francis E. Clark, D. D., of Boston :
" I like your plan, and believe it is along the
right line."
Bishop Samuel Fallows, Chicago : " I will
do all in my power to advance the work so
important and far-reaching that you are
undertaking." Rev. Albert G. Lawson, D. D., Camden,
N. J. : " It is wise and timely. Much of
our present weakness has come from just

THE LINCOLN LEGION 233
such neglect of moral and Christian effort
as you propose."
Rev. S. S. Scovill, D. D., Wooster, Ohio:
" It is a movement in the right direction."
Mrs. Mary H. Hunt, Boston : " I heartily
approve, if accompanied by education as to
the nature and power for evil of alcoholic
drinks." Rev. James D. Hill, D. D., Salem, Mass. :
" I have the clear opinion that we ought to
do no less to shut up saloons, but ought to
do more to get men to stop drinking. When
men stop drinking the saloon will stop."
Rev. W. H. Hickman, D. D., Greencastle,
Ind. : " The plan is good ; will commit the
people ; certainly I endorse this movement."
Mrs. Ellen J. Phinney, Cleveland, Ohio:
" I do approve most heartily. We can enroll
a mighty host."
Rev. A. Z. Conrad, D. D., Worcester,
Mass : " It is the great need of the hour. It
will educate and stimulate. It will give the
saloon a blow between the eyes."
William Shaw, Boston (Treasurer C. E.

234 THE LINCOLN LEGION
Society) : " It is fundamental. Political
prohibition is helpless without it."
John Sobieski, Neosho, Mo. : " I think it
just the thing. Will do all I can to push it."
President W. O. Thompson, D. D., Colum
bus, Ohio : " Heartily in favor ; something
must be done to arouse the younger ele
ment of society to its danger."
Rev. P. S. Henson, D. D., Chicago (now
Brooklyn) : " I hail it as the hopefulest
thing yet attempted. The practical, per
sonal pledge has been too long neglected, for
fireworks shot in the air and hitting noth
ing." The National Executive Committee of the
Anti-Saloon League some time since en
dorsed the plans submitted to them by Su
perintendent Russell, and approved the
initiation of this movement. The State
Board of Trustees of the New York State
Anti-Saloon League, in June, 1902, did like
wise. The League officers in several other
States have given their sanction. The pas-

THE LINCOLN LEGION 235
tors of a number of important churches
and many influential business men have
promised their hearty co-operation. Every
thing augurs a hopeful and successful in
auguration of this important work.
I have now told the story of the Lincoln
Legion, its founder, and the persons and
events which have anticipated and sug
gested this new movement. I wish to testify
to my deep and growing interest in the
coming Lincoln Legion. The times are op
portune, the leadership will be masterful,
the constituency will be enthusiastic.
As to the methods, as you read the pros
pectus which now follows, prepared by Su
perintendent Howard Russell, I am sure
you will agree with me that a most attrac
tive and workable plan of fellowship is
offered by the " Lincoln Legion." It only
remains for all who approve the purposes of
the Legion to take a share in the sacrifice
and service involved, and together we shall
make the cause triumphant " Fall in, and
forward march ! "

236 THE LINCOLN LEGION
The Prospectus is as follows :
PROSPECTUS OF THE LINCOLN
LEGION.
It is hereby proposed :
First, Name : That we accept the inspira
tion of the life and teaching of Abraham
Lincoln upon the question of Abstinence
from Intoxicants ; that we recognize his tem
perate example as a model for our practice,
and that we honor his sacred memory by
organizing a host of pledged abstainers to
bear his name, and to be called THE LIN
COLN LEGION.
Second, Pledge : That we make our pledge
simple and brief in form and elastic as to
time. Twelve words will be sufficient to em
body the central organic idea which we place
upon our banner :
"WITH GOD'S HELP,
I WILL ABSTAIN FROM ALL
INTOXICATING LIQUORS
AS BEVERAGES."

NOTE
WITH REFERENCE TO THE PLEDGE.
Since the sheets were printed for this volume,
conclusive proof has been found that the pledge on
page 224 was not only signed and advocated, but
actually composed by Abraham Lincoln. It will,
therefore be adopted as the most fitting pledge to be
signed by the members enlisting in the
Lincoln Legion.

THE LINCOLN LEGION 237
A choice is to be given the recruit in this
Legion of three kinds of pledges as to time.
The Red pledge is a term pledge which
binds the signer for a limited term;
the length of which he states upon the
pledge. This pledge is renewable, and
it is the duty of the officers to see that it is
renewed. The White pledge is the life pledge, which
will be ordinarily taken by those who are
entirely settled upon the question.
The Blue pledge is for the children,
limited to their reaching twenty-one years
of age. Renewable for life, after reaching
fifteen years of age.
Third, Colors: The colors for a Lincoln
Movement would naturally be our national
colors. We have already had a Blue Ribbon
and Red Ribbon Movement, while the White
Ribbon of the W. C. T. U. has been every
where a badge of abstinence. As we need
in order to be successful, a unification of the
efforts of all upon this work, so let us com
bine all our former emblems and in unison

238 THE LINCOLN LEGION
sing : " Three cheers for the red, white, and
blue!" Fourth, Enrollment and Oversight: It
should be understood that the Lincoln
Legion is to be built up by present organiza
tions, thus unitedly promoting total ab
stinence. A new independent organization
is not necessary nor desirable. A very
simple form of administration is proposed,
full details of which will be printed in a
small handbook. The Legion will be sub
divided into Hundreds, Thousands, County
Divisions, and State Divisions. Suitable
officers will be appointed, as for example,
the Captain and nine Comrades in each
Hundred and a Marshal and ten Captains
in each Thousand. A County, State, and
National President will be the leading
officer of those respective Divisions of the
Legion. Fifth, Initial Services and Reunions
will be held by the various subdivisions, at
such times as may be agreed upon.
It is proposed that Lincoln's Birthday

THE LINCOLN LEGION 239
shall be fittingly honored in every lo
cality by this organization, which his
marked sobriety and gracious memory have
inspired, and that the Lincoln Legion shall
do its part to redeem the Fourth of July
from the empty clamor, and indifferent or
objectionable observance, which have come
to characterize too often the recurrence of
our national holiday.
Sixth, As to Constituents : The Lincoln
Legion is to be an open society with no
grips nor passwords, and is to be made up of
men, women, young people, and children.
It is hoped that it will become the practice
for whole families to unite together as mem
bers of the same Hundred. All political
partisanship is to be kept out of the organi
zation, each member being free as to his
party preferences.
Seventh, The League and the Legion:
With reference to the relationship of the
Lincoln Legion to the Anti-Saloon League,
the Legion may very conveniently be promo
ted by the League officers, since the League

240 THE LINCOLN LEGION
is the direct agency of the churches, in which
especially the Legion must become strong if
it makes any headway and history for the
cause of Abstinence. While the Anti-
Saloon League will introduce and foster the
Lincoln Legion in many of the States, the
League will, however, claim no monopoly of
the work of organizing and promoting the
Legion. It is expected that any other
organization and any individual anywhere
may lend a hand in pushing forward the
good work of the Legion. The Legion will
support the measures of the League so
far as such measures appeal to the members
of the Legion as lines of activity which may
consistently be carried forward. It is rea
sonable to expect that the Legion will stand
for advancing legislation against the saloon
and that as an organization it will assist
in supporting public officials who will enact
and enforce reasonable temperance legisla
tion in accord with general public senti
ment. It is expected that in all the Re
unions of the Legion will be discussed the

THE LINCOLN LEGION 241
questions at issue with the Saloon in the
State and -community and that all possible
efforts will be made to weaken the places of
temptation to drink, so far as consistent
with the non-partisan character of the
Legion. A State Division Reunion, held an
nually or bi-annually, and largely attended,
as it probably would be, would exert a pow
erful influence in advancing all phases of
the reform throughout the State. As the
League enlists those who are not total ab
stainers in its efforts to suppress the saloon,
so the Legion will recruit and enroll as
abstainers those who are willing to forego
the practice of using liquor as a beverage,
even though they be unwilling personally to
enter upon aggressive work against the
liquor traffic.
Eighth, As to the Expenses of the
Legion : Each Hundred in adopting its by
laws will prescribe as it chooses as to its
financial plans. The work will not be
costly. It will be promoted largely by
organizations already existing. Its Re-

242 THE LINCOLN LEGION
unions will be held in the churches and other
buildings which become responsible as posts
for the work. The sums needed for lit
erature and to send delegates to the Division
and Legion Reunions may easily be raised
by an offering at a regular Reunion of the
Hundred or Thousand.
The Anti-Saloon League will provide all
the printed matter necessary for recruiting
and mustering the Hundred, and it is
expected that the expenses of maintaining
the State Division headquarters can be
readily provided by an annual free-will col
lection by those Hundreds willing to take
it up for that purpose. It is therefore
thought best to prescribe no financial ob
ligation, but to leave each member of the
Legion free to do much or little or make no
gift at all as he may freely choose to do in
that regard.
Ninth, Badges, Buttons, etc.: It will
deepen the interest and help spread the
movement to have attractive badges, but
tons, and insignia. These will come nat-

THE LINCOLN LEGION 243

urally as the movement develops. The Lib
erty Bell is suggested as one of the badges.
The log house and the rails will be sugges
tive of Lincoln's early and honest struggles,
and his benign face will be always sugges
tive of what we seek to teach and practice in
the Lincoln Legion.
Tenth, The Spirit of the Legion:
The most important point connected with
the movement is the spirit which is to
characterize it. If it is God-ordained,
it will be Christlike in its aims and
works. It will be inspired from the be
ginning with the spirit of true love. The
13th of 1st Corinthians will be the chapter
embodying its high sentiments of tolerance
and forbearance. With " Love " as its first
watchword it will be easy to take up the
burden of sacrifice which abstinence for the
sake of others may require. It is often as
useful to go without for the sake of the
good of others as to do some positive act of
helpfulness. So " Sacrifice " will be an
other important watchword. The Lincoln

244 THE LINCOLN LEGION
Legion if it succeeds in doing the work
anticipated by those who have thought in
tently and prayed earnestly at its beginning
will have the spirit of the Helping Hand.
The children are to be guided aright by
example and precept and lovingly saved
from beginning the perilous and wasteful
habit of drink. The work of the Legion will
not perform its anticipated duty unless it
reaches an arm of help and salvation to
multitudes who are overthrown and bound
by the power of appetite for drink. As this
is the most supreme need of this reform so it
will be the most consecrated work of the
Legion. Let its climax watchword then be
" Service." "Love, Sacrifice, Service!" ^The ban
ner with such a motto leads the united dis
ciples of Jesus Christ, inevitably, into the
realm of evangelistic service. Is it too much
to expect, through the Lincoln Legion, the
turning from all sin by great multitudes of
people? Grant this, O Almighty God !
Who can measure the vast possibilities of

THE LINCOLN LEGION 245
such a unity in moral effort as is proposed in
the Lincoln Legion? It means a quicken
ing of the pace of a great reform. It means
for many, salvation from present distress
and dishonor. It means the opening of the
Heavens with revival rains ! If only we can
catch anew the bright and glorious spirit of
our honored leader, Abraham Lincoln!-
His was a life of Love, Sacrifice, and Ser
vice, inspired by the matchless Master, who
" came not to be ministered unto but to
minister, and to give His life a ransom for
many! " In this spirit we summon forth
into life and action, the hosts of
THE LINCOLN LEGION!

INDEX OF PERSONS AND FACTS
REFERRED TO
American Anti-Saloon League, origin of, 212-316;
organization of, Washington, D. C, December,
1895, 216; constitution of, 216; growth and
progress of, 221-222; Executive Committee of
endorses Gospel Temperance Plan, 234.
Alexander, Senator Park, 200.
Anti-Saloon League, first Missionary of, 196; first
public meeting of, June 4, 1893, 207; rapid
growth and success of in Ohio, 210, 211;
relation of Lincoln Legion to, 239.
Baily, Joshua L., referred to on page 114.
Baker, Rev. P. A., one of the first League workers,
219; elected State Superintendent of the Ohio
Anti-Saloon League, 1897, 220.
Band of Hope, 113.
Brand, Rev. Dr. James, presides at first meeting of
Anti-Saloon League, 207; prophesies that first
meeting of League will be historic, 207.
Beauchamp, Lou, referred to, 168.
Beecher, Henry Ward, tribute to Frances Willard
by, 153.
Berry, R. E., referred to on pages 40-41.
Breckenridge, Cleopas, referred to on pages 31, 32.
Breckenridge, Preston, referred to on pages 45, 46.
Burdick, P. A., referred to on page 168.
247

248 INDEX

Cadets of Temperance, 113.
Canfield, A. N., 214.
Catholic Total Abstinence Union, history and work
of, 116-117.
Clark, Rev. Dr. Francis E., endorses League plan
for Gospel Temperance, 232.
Coffin, C. C, testimony concerning Lincoln's tem
perance principles by, 24.
Connecticut Temperance Union, 212.
Conrad, Rev. Dr. A. Z., endorses League plan for
Gospel Temperance, 233.
Crook, Senator, 200-201.
Cuyler, Theodore L., meets Father Matthew, 89;
referred to on page 114.
Davis, Hon. Frank M., referred to on page 175.
Diller, Roland, Lincoln's legislative desk at home
of, 29.
Dinwiddie, Rev. E. C, one of the first workers in
Anti-Saloon League, 219; Superintendent of
Legislation in Ohio, 219; Legislative Superin
tendent at Washington, 219.
District of Columbia Anti-Saloon League, formed
June 23, 1893, 214; leads in the call for con
vention to organize American League, 214.
Drink habits, increase of in the large cities, 227-228.
Dodge, Rev. Dr. D. Stuart, referred to on page 114.
Douglas, Stephen A., offers whisky to Lincoln, which
is declined, 23.
Doutney, Thomas, referred to on page 168.
Dunn, Rev. Dr. James B., referred to on page 115.
Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 195.
Ewin, James L., First Secretary American Anti-
Saloon League, 215.

INDEX 249

Fallows, Bishop, endorses plan for Gospel Tem
perance, 232.
Father Matthew campaign, effect of, 225.
Finner, Mrs. D. K., Secretary of the Hillsboro cru
sade, 144.
First Church, Oberlin, Ohio, union meeting of Anti-
Saloon League in, 207.
First public meeting of Ohio Anti-Saloon League,
207.
Friends of Temperance, 113.
Galloway, Mrs. Almarinda, was present at Lincoln
meeting at South Fork Schoolhouse, 47.
Good Templars, 111-112.
Gospel Temperance plan, 236.
Gospel Temperance and pledge-signing efficient in
the reform, reasons why, 229-230.
Gough, John B., biography of, 121-136; signs the
pledge, 124; becomes a temperance orator,
125; Mary Gough, his wife, 127; at Faneuil
Hall, Boston, Mass., in 1844, 129; apostrophe
to water by, 130; effect of campaigns of,
226.
Gough, Mrs. Mary Whitcomb, referred to on pages
127-128.
Gunsaulus, Frank W., tribute to Frances Willard by,
151-153.
Hawkins, John, leading member of Washingtonians,
100; biographical sketch of, 102-108; referred to
on page 110.
Hay, John, testimony to Lincoln's abstinent prin
ciples, 26.
Henson, Rev. Dr. P. S., endorses League plan for
Gospel Temperance, 234.

250 INDEX

Hickman, Rev. Dr. W. H., endorses League plan for
Gospel Temperance, 233.
Hill, Rev. Dr. James D., endorses League plan for
Gospel Temperance, 233.
Howard, Gen. O. O., referred to on page 114.
Hunt, Mrs. Mary H., endorses League plan for Gos
pel Temperance, 233.
Independent Order of Rechabites, referred to on
page 113.
Interdenominational Christian Temperance Alli
ance, organized by Dr. Kynett, 212; co-operates
in organization of Anti-Saloon League, 214.
Ireland, Archbishop John, referred to on page 117.
Jackson, Rev. Dr. J. C, editor of The American,
Issue, the organ of the League, 221.
Kansas Temperance Union, 212.
Kynett, Rev. Dr. A. J., founder of the Interdenom
inational Christian Temperance Alliance, 212;
merges his organization into the Anti-Saloon
League, 214; one of the early leaders of the
American Anti-Saloon League, 214.
Lawson, Rev. Dr. Albert G., endorses League plan
for Gospel Temperance, 232.
Lewis, Dr. Dio, incites the woman's crusade, 139-
140.
Liberty Bell, suggested as one of the badges of Lin
coln Legion, 243.
Lincoln, Abraham, childhood of, 13; books read by,
14; what he told Leonard Swett about books
he read, 14; early life a life of poverty, 14; tells
Seward how he earned his first dollar, 14-16;
testimony of his Stepmother concerning him,
17; early had a spirit of helpfulness, 17; wrote

INDEX 251

essays against cruelty to animals, 18; saved a
poor drunkard from freezing to death, 18;
¦visited New Orleans at nineteen years of age,
19; sees slave auction at New Orleans, 20;
review of young manhood of, 20; Joshua
Speed tells of the beginning of career of as
lawyer, 21; Speed shares his room with young
Lincoln, 22; always stood for Temperance, 22;
first essay of was on the subject of Temper
ance, 22; was a member of the Sons of Tem
perance, 23; Declines whisky offered by
Stephen A. Douglas, 23; tells Leonard Swett
he had never tasted liquor, 23; offers water
to the committee who notify him of his nomi
nation as President, 24, 25; Hon. John Hay
and John G. Nicolay testify to Lincoln's habits
of abstinence, 25, 26; legislative desk of at
Roland Diller's home, Springfield, 111., 29;
testimony of Roland Diller to abstinent habits
of, 30; Cleopas Breckenridge tells the story
of temperance meeting at South Fork school-
house in 1847, addressed by, 32, 33; pledged
Cleopas Breckenridge to total abstinence, 34,
35; R. E. Berry and Moses Martin testify con
cerning address at South Fork schoolhouse
of, 41-46; Mrs. Almarinda Bell Galloway at
South Fork schoolhouse hears temperance ad
dress of, 47; Washingtonian address on Feb.
22, 1842, by, 51-75; was a reader of Sangamon
Weekly Journal, in which Father Matthew's ad
dresses appeared, 95; the honored leader of
the Lincoln Legion, 245.
Lincoln Legion, The, reasons why organization is

252 INDEX

needed, 229; strongly urged by the author,
830-231; pledge of, 236; name, 236; colors of,
237; enrollment and oversight in, 238; initial
services and reunions of, 238; will honor Lin
coln's birthday, 239; will hold similar re
unions on Fourth of July, 239; constituents
of, 239; relationship to Anti-Saloon League,
239; division reunions of, 241; expenses of,
241; printed matter to be prepared by Anti-
Saloon League, 242; badges, buttons for, 242;
Liberty Bell suggested as one of the badges
of, 243; spirit of, 243; watchwords of, 243-244.
" Love," one of the watchwords of the Lincoln
Legion, 243.
Luther, Martin, 195.
Mahomet, 195.
Martin, Moses, referred to on pages 40-43.
Martin, William, interests Father Matthew in
pledge work, 1838, 80-83.
Maryland State Temperance Alliance, 212.
Massachusetts Total Abstinence Society, 212.
Matthew, Father Theobald, begins his work, 84; at
Limerick, 84; amusing incident at Waterford,
85; visits England, 88; meets Theodore L. Cuy
ler, 88; visits America in 1849-1871, 91; wel
come speech of mayor of New York to, 92.
Metcalf, E. W., early supporter of Anti-Saloon
League, 210.
Murphy, Francis, biography of, 157-169; conversion
of in Portland, Me., 160; first lecture of, 161;
quotation from address in Columbus, Ohio,
by, 161.
Murphy campaign, effect of, 226.

INDEX 253

McDowell, Mrs. Gen., Vice-President of Hillsboro
crusade, 144.
National Temperance Society, sketch of its history
and work, 113-115.
New York State Anti-Saloon League, Board of Trus
tees endorses Gospel Temperance plan, 234.
Nicolay, John G., testimony to Lincoln's temper
ance principles by, 26.
Order of Good Samaritans and Daughters of Samaria,
113.
Oberlin, churches of, contribute $1,000 per year to
the Anti-Saloon League, 210.
Oberlin Temperance Alliance, 199; holds first public
meeting of Anti-Saloon League, June 4, 1893,
206.
Ohio Anti-Saloon League, first public meeting of,
in Oberlin, 207; joins District of Columbia
Anti-Saloon League in call for National Con
tention, 211; joins in organization of Ameri
can Anti-Saloon League, 215.
Price, Hon. Hiram, First President of The American
Anti-Saloon League, 215.
Phinney, Mrs. Ellen J., endorses League plan for
Gospel Temperance, 233.
Prospectus of Lincoln Legion, 236.
Reese, W. J., appointed Organizer of Missouri Anti-
Liquor League, 203.
Reynolds, Dr. Henry A., biography of, 166-168.
Root, A. I., early supporter of Anti-Saloon League,
210.
Russell, Howard H., visits Diller in Springfield, 30;
meets Cleopas Breckenridge, 32; at the Breck
enridge farm, 39; calls on Martin and Berry

254 INDEX

at Edinburg, 111., 40; biography of, 173-192;
admitted to the bar, 176; county superin
tendent of schools, 178; ministry in Kansas
City, 179; Pastor Armour Mission, 181; called
to temperance work, 183; characterization
of by Prof. W. F. Whitlock, 187-191; early im
pressions of the evil of drink by, 197; facts dis
covered at Staffordshire, England, by, 197; as
a lawyer prosecuted saloon-keepers, 197; in
Iowa took part in Prohibitory Amendment
campaign, 198; delegate to temperance con
ventions, 198; led in the Murphy movement,
198; organized local anti-saloon campaign at
Berea, Ohio, 198; assaulted by saloon-keeper,
198; while a pastor tried cases against illegal
saloon-keepers, 199; was given farewell recep
tion by citizens of Berea, Ohio, in 1888, 199;
employed by Oberlin Temperance Alliance in
legislative campaign, 199; organized Local
Option League in Ohio, 199; leader of Ohio
Legislative Campaign for local option law,
1887, 199-202; arranges Anti-Saloon Conven
tion, Pertle Springs, Mo., July, 1890, 202;
elected President Missouri Anti-Liquor League,
1890, 202; called to Armour Mission, Chicago,
1891, 203; as pastor sees many tragedies re
sulting from drink, 203-204; confers with
Oberlin faculty and citizens with reference to
anti-saloon organization in Ohio, 204; settles
the question of future work in the temperance
reform, 205; Oberlin Temperance Alliance
decides to inaugurate Ohio Anti-Saloon Leagne,
May 24, 1893, at request of, 206; employed as

INDEX 255

Superintendent Anti-Saloon League, May 24,
1893, 206; makes first public address advocating
Anti-Saloon League, 208-209; first Superin
tendent of the American Anti-Saloon League,
217; organizes State Leagues in the far West,
218; travels 50,000 miles per year in organizing
work, 218; enlists many additional helpers in
the League, 219-220; secures opinions as to
Gospel Temperance Campaign, 231-234; pre
pares prospectus of Lincoln Legion, 235.
Russell, Joseph A., referred to on pages 173-174.
" Sacrifice," one of the watchwords of the Lincoln
Legion, 243.
Stratton, Joel, induces Gough to sign the pledge, 121-
124.
Shaw, William, endorses League plan for Gospel
Temperance, 233.
" Service," one of the watchwords of the Lincoln
Legion, 244.
Seward, conversation with Lincoln by, 14.
Speed, Joshua, testimony about Lincoln by, 20-22.
Swett, Leonard, testimony about Lincoln's absti
nence by, 23.
Sobieski, John, endorses League plan for Gospel
Temperance, 234.
Sons of Temperance, Lincoln a member of, 23; re
ferred to on page 112.
Southwest Tabernacle, Kansas City, 202.
Scovill, Rev. Dr. S. S., endorses League plan for
Gospel Temperance, 233.
Shurtleff, Prof. G. W., introduces Mr. Russell at first
meeting of Anti-Saloon League, 208; predicts a
powerful and permanent league against the
liquor traffic, 208.

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