Ohio History Journal

F  M  WHITAKER

 

 

Ohio WCTU and the Prohibition

Amendment Campaign of 1883

 

 

 

 

The Woman's Christian Temperance Union may be said to be a product of Ohio in

at least two ways  One, its foundation is the only lasting result of a phenomenon of

the winter and spring of 1873-1874 known as the Woman's Crusade, which

achieved its first success and national recognition in Ohio  This movement, in

which bands of respectable ladies marched in groups upon saloons in various loca-

tions, singing, praying, and exhorting both the dispenser and consumer of alcoholic

beverages to cease and desist, attracted attention first at Hillsboro and recorded its

initial success, the closing of all the liquor dispensaries in town, at Washington

Court House  Two, an organization officially calling itself the Woman's Christian

Temperance Union was first formally instituted in Ohio in June 1874  A national

organization of the same name was not formed until the following November in a

meeting held at Cleveland  Yet the WCTU was never as strong in Ohio as in several

other states  One key reason for this may be found in an examination of the devel-

opment and consequences of a campaign mounted in 1883 to add an amendment to

Ohio's constitution forever prohibiting the manufacture and sale of all intoxicating

liquors within the boundaries of the state  This campaign seems in retrospect to

represent the peak of the Ohio WCTU's independent influence and power.

The Ohio WCTU was not at its inception an organization which could be called

distinctly prohibitionist, i e , committed to the total abolition of the liquor traffic.

There was, in fact, a good deal of debate in the group's earliest years as to the pro-

priety of any sort of political activity on the part of those who called themselves

ladies  The debate began in the course of the Woman's Crusade itself  Those who

opposed the movement often claimed that it was some sort of political trick aimed

at influencing the municipal elections to be held that spring; those who favored it,

or were at least not openly hostile, tended to maintain that the Crusade's success de-

pended upon the women's avoidance of politics and political entanglements  Some

support for the opponents' position was provided by the readiness of the ladies and

especially their gentlemen allies to resort to the use of legal pressure when prayer

did not readily produce success  Support is also provided by the fact that the move-

ment seemed to die out after the April 1874 municipal elections, many of which

 

 

 

 

Mr  Whitaker is an Assistant Professor of History on the Marion Campus of The Ohio State University.

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Ohio WCTU                                                                 85

 

turned on the question of the passage or enforcement of local prohibitory laws, were

over.1

The specific question of the desirability and/or practicality of striving for immedi-

ate or even eventual prohibition appeared as early as the first of three meetings that

ultimately produced the Ohio WCTU. The first meeting, held at Columbus in Feb-

ruary 1874 while the Crusade was at its height, saw Dio Lewis, the man who was

generally acknowledged to be the instigator of the movement, expressing the view

that any talk of prohibition would only retard the progress of the Crusade. Despite

a speech in rebuttal by John Russell, Vice Presidential candidate of the National

Prohibition party in the campaign of 1872, the majority of those present appeared to

agree with Lewis.2

The question came up again at a second meeting of the women crusaders and

their supporters in April. This meeting had been called for the specific purpose of

encouraging the Ohio Constitutional Convention then sitting at Cincinnati to main-

tain inviolate the provision in the constitution of 1851 which forbade the legislature

in any way to license the traffic in intoxicating liquors.³ The resolutions committee

report called for a memorial to the convention pleading for the retention of the 1851

anti-license clause. The flash point of the convention was a minority report by

some members of the resolutions committee which called upon the constitutional

convention to make total prohibition of the liquor traffic a part of the new con-

stitution. Mr. S. J. Stewart of Steubenville, who presented the minority report, said

although the majority of the committee felt that public sentiment was not yet ready

for prohibition, the minority wished to take a bolder ground and prohibit the liquor

trade altogether. Several women spoke in opposition to this approach. One said,

"if they could not get a prohibitory law they should do the next best thing and get

all the law they could." Another said that the question of prohibition had killed

one convention in the city of Columbus and had nearly killed another. This con-

vention had been called to give expression to the sentiments of Temperance people

on the question of "license" or "no-license" and she hoped it would not be led into

what she called "side issues." A third hoped that the convention "would have noth-

ing to do with the vexing question of prohibition." The majority report of the reso-

lutions committee was adopted by an "overwhelming vote."⁴

Thus the ladies who were to form the Ohio WCTU in June were distinctly cool to

the idea of prohibition as of the early spring of 1874. There appears, in fact, to

have existed a considerable degree of doubt in the minds of these women con-

cerning the propriety of their engaging in politics at all, but many of the so-called

"Praying Bands" had been active in behalf of various "Temperance Tickets" at the

spring elections. As already noted, the April convention had been called to urge

the constitutional convention to act in accordance with their wishes. These actions

would certainly seem to come under the heading of political activity. Yet the very

word "political" seemed to frighten them.

 

1. F. M. Whitaker, "A History of the Ohio Woman's Christian Temperance Union, 1874-1920" (un-

published Ph.D. dissertation, The Ohio State University, 1971), Chapter 2.

2. Cincinnati Commercial, February 26, 1874.

3. Whitaker, "OWCTU," 203-208.

4. Minutes of this meeting are found on pp. 12-26 of the first of two volumes of manuscript minutes

now in the possession of the Ohio WCTU at its headquarters in Columbus. (Hereafter they will be re-

ferred to as "Manuscript Minutes" with the volume number and page.) Manuscript Minutes, I, 15,

18-19. See also Cincinnati Commercial, April 23, 1874.

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86                                                             OHIO HISTORY

 

In May of 1874 there was held at Mansfield a joint meeting of two committees of

the ladies, one of which had been elected at the February convention in Columbus

and the other at the April convention in Cincinnati. These committees jointly

passed a resolution which appears to have expressed an important matter of concern

since it was readopted word for word by three similar meetings during 1874. The

resolution read: "Resolved, that while we acknowledge that a result of the woman's

movement will be to create temperance law, we do believe the more exclusively it is

confined to prayer work, regarding woman's part as spiritual, and of divine origin,

carefully maintaining this character, the greater will be our success."5

The question of the propriety of political action arose in its most acute form at a

third general meeting held in the city of Springfield on June 17, 1874. It was at this

meeting that the name "Woman's Christian Temperance Union" was formally

adopted and the organization given its final form. Yet these actions were taken al-

most as an afterthought. What concerned the delegates primarily was the fact that

the Ohio Constitutional Convention had ignored their pleas and submitted to the

voters along with the proposed constitution of 1874 a provision which would allow

the General Assembly to license and regulate the manufacture and sale of in-

toxicating liquors. At least one newspaper account designated the organization for

the defeat of the so-called "license clause" as the "leading object" for which the

WCTU convention was assembled.⁶ Of the ten resolutions presented to the conven-

tion by the resolutions committee and duly adopted, five dealt directly with the

campaign against license.

The first of these resolutions was adopted by the convention without debate. In

its entirety the resolution said: "Resolved, that we consider the traffic in in-

toxicating liquors as a beverage, criminal: and that, as advocates of temperance,

we will use our influence in all suitable ways to elevate such men to office as will use

their official authority to create and enforce such laws as will most effectually sup-

press this ruinous and immoral traffic."⁷ This statement would seem to be a clear

call for political action. To the assembled delegates, however, it apparently was

not.

The second resolution reported by the committee, which appears to say the same

thing in different words, caused debate that was called both "long and heated" and

"sharp." The resolution as reported by the committee read: "Resolved, That we

will increasingly oppose the giant evil of intemperance, by personal, social, and po-

litical influence, and by the press, by the pulpit, by speech, and by prayer." A mo-

tion was made to strike out the word "political" and the debate was on. Delegates

from the northern part of the state, especially those from Cleveland, were reported

as being particularly opposed to the motion. The debate took up the rest of the af-

ternoon and was resumed after a recess for dinner. Finally an amended resolution

was accepted and the motion to strike the word "political" defeated. As amended

the resolution read, "That we, each in our appropriate sphere, and by all proper

means, not as partisans, but as Christian citizens, will unceasingly oppose the giant

evil of intemperance by personal, social, and political influence, by the press, by the

pulpit, and by prayer."8

It will be seen that four new clauses were added to the amended resolution. The

 

 

5. Manuscript Minutes, I, 33.

6. Cincinnati Commercial, June 18, 1874; Manuscript Minutes, I, 45-48.

7. Ibid., 43-44.

8. Ibid., 44, 45; Cincinnati Commercial, June 18, 1874.

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Ohio WCTU                                                             87

 

first two, "each in our appropriate sphere, and by all proper means," seem clearly to

be aimed at calming the fears of those who were concerned with standards of female

propriety then in vogue. It seems equally clear that the other two, "not as partisans,

but as Christian citizens," were aimed at calming the fears of those who were con-

cerned lest the movement be taken over by the Prohibition party and/or lead to the

defeat of Republican candidates in subsequent elections, fears which had been ex-

pressed as early as the preceding February. Commenting on the resolution as fi-

nally passed, the Cincinnati Commercial confessed itself unable to understand how

political action could be taken without partisanship but maintained that those who

opposed the resolution must have known that political action was inevitable "when

social questions upon which it [Ohio WCTU] acts and which it aims to determine,

are inseparable from State politics."⁹

Perhaps, as it appears from the records, many delegates were still uneasy con-

cerning this resolution. On the morning of the second day, Mrs. S. K. Leavitt of

Cincinnati, who less than twenty-four hours earlier had been calling for the defeat

of the license clause as one of the primary objectives of the convention, introduced a

resolution which read: "That while we acknowledge that a result of the Woman's

Movement will be to create temperance laws, we do believe the more exclusively it

is confined to prayer work, regarding woman's part as spiritual and of Divine origin,

carefully maintaining this character, the greater will be our success." She asked

that men not vote on her motion. The women passed it unanimously. This was, of

course, a word-for-word reiteration of the resolution passed by the meeting of the

combined committees held at Mansfield in May and by similar meeting held at

Delaware earlier in June. But even this failed to calm the nerves of those who were

distressed by the implications of an overt juxtaposition of women and politics.

Later in the day still another resolution was presented and adopted, explaining that

"... the action of this Convention in resolving to oppose the evil of intemperance by

the pulpit, the press, and by every agency and influence which we can legitimately

command, is not meant to express any change of our policy as temperance workers

nor any abandonment of the distinctly religious features of the movement known as

the 'Woman's Crusade,' but simply indicates our united purpose to do our full duty

as Christians, and religiously employ all the means which God has placed within

our reach to accomplish the worthy end we seek."¹⁰ This "clarification" apparently

restored calm; the subject was not taken up again at this convention.

Ohio Republicans were soon to find that the phrase "not as partisans" meant

exactly what it said. Three months later, on September 23, 1874, the executive

committee of the Ohio WCTU met at Delaware. The group was presented with a

request from a "Temperance Committee of Fifteen" asking that the WCTU concur

in supporting the Republican party in the state-wide elections of 1874 because of

the position the party had taken on the question of Temperance in its platform.

The request was denied on the ground that "We believe the more closely we confine

our work to prayer and related work, regarding it as spiritual and of Divine origin,

the greater will be our success." The executive committee did, however, "rejoice in

the step taken by this great political party in the direction of Temperance reform."11

This position apparently gained the Union little credit among Republicans. Eliza

Daniel Stewart of Springfield, an ardent prohibitionist who liked to be known as

 

9. Ibid., February 26, June 19, 1874.

10. Manuscript Minutes, I 46, 47.

11. Ibid., 63-64.

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88                                                          OHIO HISTORY

 

"Mother" Stewart, later commented that the Republican Temperance plank, which

she called "a most insignificant expression" in support of Temperance though it

held the loyalty of "very many honest but credulous temperance men," drove

enough "liquor men" into opposition to defeat the Republican ticket. Thereupon

the Republicans "charged their poor, Crusading wives with breaking up the party,"

she said.¹²

Once established, the Ohio WCTU spent the next five years struggling for its very

existence.¹³ With the Crusade over and the battle against "license" having ended in

the defeat of the license clause and the entire proposed constitution of 1874, mem-

bership dropped sharply. Just how sharply no one really knew. By November of

1875, the organization's secretary had to admit that "The aggregate membership,

though repeatedly sought after, remains an indefinite quantity." That there was a

marked shrinkage in membership, however, was not a matter for doubt. Unions in

many smaller towns and some whole counties were reported as having merged with

older Temperance organizations, such as the Good Templars and the Sons of Tem-

perance.14

In the spring of 1877 the Ohio WCTU and the cause of Temperance in Ohio gen-

erally received a "blessing" which nearly obliterated what was left of the women's

organization. In the spring of 1874 the Woman's Crusade in Maine had given rise

to a second movement which one nineteenth century Temperance historian says

"supplemented" the women's movement but "soon became but little less con-

spicuous" than the Crusade itself. This was the so-called Reform Club movement

in which numbers of former drinkers pledged themselves to drink no more and

banded together in clubs to encourage each other to keep that pledge.¹⁵ This move-

ment reached Ohio in the spring of 1877 and was greeted with rejoicing by the Ohio

WCTU. But the blessing was not unmixed. Reports during 1878 and 1879 showed

local unions in numerous areas merging with the local Reform Clubs. When the

movement petered out, as it had generally done in Ohio by 1880, the expiring local

Reform Clubs took many local unions into oblivion with them. The Ohio WCTU

had maintained since 1876 that its membership was about 5,000,16 but figures re-

leased by the National WCTU in 1882 credit Ohio with a membership of only 2,239

in a mere fifty local unions.17

During the same period (1874-1879) in which the Ohio WCTU was fighting for

its life it was also changing its mind about prohibition. As of 1874, the Union

clearly thought of prohibition as something to be hoped for in the future, when pub-

lic opinion was ready to support it. The April convention's rejection of the idea of

what might be called "Prohibition Now" has already been discussed. The June

convention, on the other hand, passed without apparent disagreement a resolution

calling upon the men to band themselves together in order not only to strengthen

Temperance laws and see to their enforcement but also "to create anti-license and

prohibition sentiments."¹⁸ By 1878 the Ohio WCTU was clearly thinking of prohi-

bition as an immediate goal instead of a long range one. This change of mind fol-

 

 

 

12. Eliza Daniel Stewart, Memories of the Crusade ... (Columbus, 1888), 385.

13. Whitaker, "OWCTU," 233-240.

14. Manuscript Minutes, I, 152, 155, 159, 169.

15. Daniel Dorchester, The Liquor Problem in All Ages (Cincinnati, 1884), 409-420.

16. Manuscript Minutes, I, 177, 252-271, 306-319; II, 84, 98-99, 101-105, 369.

17. Dorchester, Liquor Problem, 450.

18. Manuscript Minues, I, 49.

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Ohio WCTU                                                                  89

 

lowed a series of defeats, not the least of which was the passage, in March 1875, of a

law withdrawing from municipal corporations the power to prohibit retail sales of

beer.¹⁹ Since this act invalidated the so-called "beer ordinances" for which the

ladies had fought so hard in the spring of 1874, it was clearly a resounding defeat

for them.

Early the following year the executive committee called for a return to battle

through the circulation of three different petitions, one of which called for the return

to municipal corporations of the power to prohibit the sale of beer. It was hoped

that the circulation of these petitions would serve as a propaganda device even if no

more positive results were forthcoming. Yet it was a discouraging business. In her

farewell address of 1879, Harriet Calista McCabe of Delaware, the Union's first

president, had to admit that "the manner in which our legislators have received

these toil-bought expressions of a large number of their constituents has dis-

heartened our workers insomuch that many places decline circulating them as a

waste of time and toil." Nevertheless, despite such discouragement, the Ohio

WCTU in these very same years moved from a hope for prohibition in the future to

a demand for "Prohibition Now." In 1877 the annual convention had resolved

"That we [shall] continue our efforts in the Temperance Reform, until the entire

prohibition of the liquor traffic is achieved."²⁰ A resolution passed by the conven-

tion of 1878 is even more specific:

Whereas, the sale or supply, in any manner or form, of intoxicating liquor for use as a bever-

age, is a high crime against society, inimical to good government, and destructive to the lives,

property, morals, peace, prosperity, and happiness of the public, therefore

Resolved, 4th. That we will use our influence, by petitions and otherwise for the total pro-

hibition of this crime by adequate and stringent laws.²¹

Still, however, there seemed to exist a difference of opinion among the Union's

leadership concerning the imminence of prohibition. A special report to this same

convention discussing in detail the laws of Ohio dealing with the sale of liquor in-

cluded the statement, "Prohibition is, of course, the standard which should be set far

in advance of the people, but we must reach it law by law." All that can be said

with certainty is that a comparison of the Union's official minutes for 1878 with

those of former years shows a marked increase in interest in legislative action in the

latter year. The special report just referred to is only one of such indications, al-

though it is no doubt the major one. It also seems that this increased interest in leg-

islative action could and did involve an increased interest in "Prohibition Now" or

in the near future. An anonymous report to the 1878 convention from Norwalk,

Ohio, for instance, stated that although previously "our people have generally

thought best not to give too much prominence to the point," many now called pub-

licly for prohibition as soon as it could be passed. When the chairwoman of the

Union's committee on petitions asked the convention for suggestions regarding the

nature of petitions to be circulated during the coming year, she was told to concen-

trate on prohibition.²² The convention of 1879 saw an even greater movement to-

ward increased emphasis on the use of legislative coercion against the liquor traffic,

at least in the minds of the Union's leadership. In her final speech as president,

 

19. Delaware Herald, April 3, 1875.

20. Manuscript Minutes, I, 175, 254; II, 48-49, 159.

21. Ibid, 65.

22. Ibid., 70, 94, 128.

• 6
 

Harriet McCabe, while still upholding the primacy of prayer in the work of the Ohio WCTU, delineated the new position or emphasis: It is fanaticism to pray "Thy Kingdom Come," fanaticism to strive against intemperance, and then object to such legal measures as are within our reach to suppress it. It is because, by long habit we dissever such measures from God as not being means of his own appoint- ing, that we sometimes err regarding them. The motto, "malice toward none, charity for all," like God's love, means as much a rod of correction, as a smile of approbation, if prop- erly understood. It is Christian effort ultimating in law which makes Christian civilization. That is what all our prayers and efforts mean.23 Yet Mrs. McCabe still took the position, which later leaders were to reject out of hand, that "We will take Local Option, and all that comes in our way, and with our feet joyfully standing on every small gain we may still repeat, as we reach on to pro- hibition, 'Thou Shalt Not,' as our only authority, our only prescribed limit." Cur- iously, the convention of 1879 did not, as a body, again adopt a resolution calling for prohibition. The central committee, however, declared that "our one purpose is to overthrow the traffic in intoxicants in its entirety" and that absolute prohibition was the only way by which this could be achieved. The new attitude is best summed up in Miss Esther Pugh's corresponding secretary's report. Having echoed Mrs. McCabe's contention that love often means the correction of errant behavior, she added, "Nor is it necessary to await the public sentiment which shall demand law. This will be a slow process. Communities have not yet reached this high grade of self-government, but a few strong minds may grasp all the higher possi- bilities and enforce them upon the weak, the ignorant, the vicious."24     23. Ibid., 160-161. 24. Ibid., 149, 183-184, 252. Emphasis added.

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Ohio WCTU                                                                91

 

While the Ohio WCTU was grappling with the question of immediate or eventual

prohibition, the Republican party in Ohio had been wrestling with the entire ques-

tion of the liquor traffic. It was suggested as early as the first week in March 1874

that a stringent state license law, requiring high license fees and including a provi-

sion allowing municipal corporations to ban the sale of intoxicants entirely would be

highly desirable. It was claimed that some prohibitionists had come around to this

point of view, recognizing that the "no-license" clause of Ohio's constitution of 1851

was a total failure in that "no license in the Constitution practically means free

whiskey in the administration."²⁵ It seems probable that the decision by the Con-

stitutional Convention of 1874 to submit to the voters a separate license clause was

an attempt to please both the Republicans who wanted regulation of the liquor traf-

fic and the Temperance forces who wanted to preserve the "no-license" clause of the

constitution of 1851.

As already noted, the Ohio WCTU had taken a leading role in creating opposi-

tion to this clause which was so effective that it was said to have been a primary

cause for the rejection by the people of the entire proposed constitution.²⁶ Despite

this defeat, Ohio Republicans continued to believe that concern over the cost to the

public of the liquor traffic, especially in terms of the public costs of the poverty and

crime which consumption of alcoholic beverages was believed to cause, was an issue

upon which all who were disturbed about the "liquor problem" could unite, regard-

less of whether their idea of a final solution was individual abstinence, strict regu-

lation of the traffic by law, or outright prohibition. Accordingly, the Republican

party in Ohio sought some means by which a special tax could be levied upon the

liquor business which would help to bear the increased public burdens thought to be

caused by such business while at the same time avoiding conflict with the provision

of the still effective constitution of 1851 which forbade any licensing of the sale of

alcoholic beverages. At their party convention held in Cleveland on June 8, 1881,

Ohio Republicans adopted a resolution saying that "The public interests require

that the General Assembly should submit to a vote of the people such amendments

to the Constitution of the State, relative to the manufacture, sale and use of in-

toxicating liquors as shall leave the whole matter to legislation."²⁷ It will be noted

that, although the resolution can only mean that the "no-license" clause was to be

repealed, the fact was nowhere spelled out. It will also be noted that the adoption

of such an amendment would allow not only the taxation of the traffic, but licensing

or even prohibition by statute as well.

Having won power in the election of 1881, the Republicans seemed reluctant to

wait upon the slow amendment process. On April 22, 1882, the Ohio legislature

produced an act familiarly known as the Pond Law which was clearly designed as a

special tax on the sale of intoxicating liquors. The Pond Law required that those

engaged in such sales pay an annual tax of from $150 to $300, depending upon the

population of the community in which they did business. The act also required the

posting of $1,000 bond by each such individual as a guarantee of the faithful per-

formance of the act's requirements. The Pond Law lasted only a little more than a

 

 

25. A. M. Hills, Life and Labors of Mary A. Woodbridge (Ravenna, Ohio, 1895), 77, 82; Dorchester, Li-

quor Problem, 406-407; Cincinnati Commercial, March 2, 21, 1874.

26. Philip D. Jordan, Ohio Comes of Age, 1873-1900 (Carl Wittke, ed., The History of the Stale of Ohio,

V, Columbus, 1943), 20-21. See also, Emilius 0. Randall and Daniel J. Ryan, History of Ohio (New

York, 1912), IV, 325.

27. Joseph P. Smith, ed., History of the Republican Party in Ohio ... (Chicago, 1898), I, 448.

• 8
 

month before being declared unconstitutional by the Ohio Supreme Court as a vio- lation of the "no-license" clause.28 At least one member of the Ohio WCTU saw in the passage of this law an encouraging sign, an "opening wedge of legislation" which would eventually lead to prohibition. Mary A. Woodbridge, Mrs. McCabe's successor as president of the Ohio WCTU, on the other hand, saw in it only an at- tempt to produce what she called a "so-called 'temperance measure'" that would yet be mild enough that the Republican party's position with opponents of Temper- ance would not be damaged.29 Undaunted by the invalidation of the Pond Law, the Republicans at their annual convention held in Columbus June 7, 1882 passed a res- olution which called a little more specifically for a constitutional amendment which would allow special taxation of the liquor traffic: "The tax-paying people of the State demand that by specific taxation the traffic in intoxicating liquors shall be made to bear its share of the public burdens, and the Constitution in so far as it may be an obstacle in the way of the exercise by the people, through their representa- tives, of practical control over the liquor traffic, to the end that evils resulting there- from may be effectually provided against, should be amended at the earliest date provided by law."30 In her presidential address delivered slightly more than a week later, Mrs. Wood- bridge attacked the Republican position on six counts. First she said, "To tax a crime, thus virtually permitting it and licensing it, is a sin, which Christian women cannot condone." Second, "If the liquor traffic is not a crime, but is right, it should     28. Randall and Ryan, History of Ohio, IV, 531, 532; see also, Logan County Index (Bellefontaine), June 1, 1882. 29. Minutes of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union of the State of Ohio, at the Ninth Annual Meeting, Youngstown, June 13-16, 1882, p. 62. (Title varies. Hereafter these publications will be referred to as 0 WCTU Minutes with the year and page.) 30. Smith, Republican Party, 1, 459.

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Ohio WCTU                                                             93

 

not be especially taxed; if wrong, it should be prohibited." Third, "Though it might

close numbers of the so-called 'lower saloons,' the higher would multiply their at-

traction, and an increased number would become victims of their allurements. Our

sons do not learn to drink in the lower, but the higher places. If any were legalized,

mothers would chose the lower." Fourth, "The diminution in number of saloons

would be temporary and lead to final increase. Those entering the temples of death,

would in a few years be unfit for palatial residences and the lazar houses would be a

necessity." Fifth, "Were such a law upon our statute books the State and liquor

traffic would be allied, and stand as thief and partaker." Finally, "In the Mosaic

ritual, upon which we are told all law is founded, sin is nowhere sanctioned or regu-

lated, but condemned and prohibited, and God's blessing will not rest upon a nation

whose laws are not in harmony with His."³¹

Fierce as opposition to special taxation and implied licensing may have been, it

did not lead automatically and logically to an immediate counter campaign for

statewide prohibition by the introduction of an opposing constitutional amendment.

At least some, if not most, of the impetus for this drive seems to have come from

outside Ohio. In 1879, a movement was begun in Kansas which was to result in the

adoption of a prohibition amendment to that state's constitution in 1880. This

movement differed from most earlier campaigns for statewide prohibition in being

aimed at legislation designed to be more permanent than a simple statute would be.

Temperance enthusiasts were quite frank in declaring that such a move was de-

signed to make prohibition safe from fluctuations in the attitudes of legislatures or

the unfavorable decisions of state courts. Iowa followed the example of Kansas

early in 1882. For a while, prohibition by amendment of the various state con-

stitutions appeared to Temperance supporters to be the wave of the future. The

state WCTUs had taken leading roles in both campaigns. Among the leaders of the

National WCTU, Mrs. J. Ellen Foster of the Iowa Union was particularly noted for

her advocacy of this line of approach. A contemporary Temperance historian said

of her that she was "pre-eminently conspicuous" among all those of either sex who

were especially enthusiastic about this new development.32

The Ohio WCTU convention of 1882 held in June of that year received a special

communication from Mrs. Foster in which she called upon the Ohio Union to "go to

work at once for State Constitutional prohibition, no matter how far in the distance

it seems. Agitate, agitate, agitate. This movement will not interfere with any other

lines of temperance work, whether legislative or on the line of moral suasion, and

being non-partisan, it is particularly adapted to be a woman's movement."³³ The

group responded to Mrs. Foster's suggestion by adopting, as part of its "Plan of

Work" for the coming year, the statement "That we accept Mrs. J. E. Foster's rec-

ommendation of organized effort for a constitutional amendment, forever prohibit-

ing the manufacture and sale of distilled, fermented, and malt liquors, as a bever-

age, in the State of Ohio." The sixth resolution passed by the convention was one

which called for such an amendment: "We recognize Constitutional Prohibition as

the only complete remedy for the terrible evils resulting from the traffic in and use

of intoxicants, and that we pledge ourselves to work for its accomplishment." Thus

prohibition by amendment of the state constitution was clearly adopted as a goal by

 

 

31. OWCTU Minutes, 1882, p. ²³-²⁴.

32. Dorchester, Liquor Problem, 418, 420-422, 497-500, 501.

33. OWCTU Minutes, 1882, p. 13.

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94                                                            OHIO HISTORY

 

the WCTU convention of June 1882, but nowhere was it even implied that a cam-

paign for such an amendment was to begin at once. It even appears that Mrs.

Woodbridge, as of June at any rate, entertained some doubts as to whether the new

line of approach would work in Ohio. In her presidential address she said of Kan-

sas and Iowa that these two states "have such a party majority that they can risk the

loss of a few thousand votes without defeat. In states more doubtful in the great

campaigns, the parties will never take up a dangerous issue until forced to do so.

These two states have no overwhelming forces massed in great cities to which all

else must bow. . . . What controls the Crusade-State, baptized first of all into this

greatest reform of our day? Cincinnati."³⁴

Something obviously changed Mrs. Woodbridge's mind between June and Octo-

ber, or at least encouraged her to think of an immediate campaign. By mid-

October she was calling publicly for a massive petition campaign to impel the Ohio

General Assembly to put a prohibitory amendment to the Ohio constitution before

the people.35  What the "something" was that changed Mrs. Woodbridge's mind

cannot be determined from the material that has come to hand. Unfortunately the

Ohio WCTU minutes for 1883 are among the missing. Possibly she may have be-

lieved that anti-license sentiment was the cause for the Republicans' defeat in 1882

on the special tax issue. This, however, is only conjecture. In any case, a campaign

was launched in October 1882 which by February 1883 had produced petitions

bearing 157,000 signatures of adult Ohians (76,000 of whom were male and there-

fore voters) asking that the General Assembly put a prohibitory constitutional

amendment before the people of the state.³⁶ It was said that during those four

months the number of local unions affiliated with the WCTU more than doubled,

making Ohio's the fastest growing Union in the nation.³⁷

The degree of influence which these petitions may have had on the Republican

members of the General Assembly meeting early in 1883 cannot be determined but

they must have had at least some weight. In any case, it is certain that the question

of Temperance legislation was one with which they continued to feel compelled to

grapple. Yet the Republicans were so divided on the question that month after

month passed in angry discussion with no coherent party position in prospect.38 By

March, however, Republican proposals for constitutional amendments on the liquor

question had finally been distilled into three which were thought to cover all the

major positions: one amendment would permit complete legislative control of the

traffic, a second would allow licensing of it, and a third would prohibit it entirely.

Almost another month was consumed in arguments concerning these possibilities.

On April 4 the Ohio State Journal somewhat sharply reminded the legislators that

any amendment to the constitution had to be advertised at least six months before it

could be voted on and that there were only five days left before that deadline would

be reached. That very day resolutions passed both houses calling for the sub-

mission to the voters of two amendments; one providing for legislative control and

specifically allowing taxation of the traffic and a second calling for full con-

 

 

 

34. Ibid., 25, 43, 80.

35. Logan County Index (Bellefontaine), Ocotber 19, 1882.

36. Samuel Unger, "A History of the National WCTU" (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, The Ohio

State University, 1934), 47.

37. Hills, Woodbridge, 83.

38. Wilfred S. McCuskey, "The Political Campaign of 1883 in Ohio" (unpublished M.A. thesis, The

Ohio State University, 1948), 21-23.

• 11
 

Ohio WCTU                                                                 95

 

stitutional prohibition. This action, the Journal commented, came "to the great

surprise of everybody, and especially to the members of the Legislature them-

selves." On the following day, a resolution calling for a third amendment proposal

that would specifically authorize license was defeated, apparently on the ground

that licensing was already provided for in the first proposed amendment.39

If the passage of resolutions submitting the two proposed constitutional amend-

ments to the people represented a clarification of the Temperance question from the

Republican point of view, the passage of the so-called Scott Law on April 17, 1883

had the effect of confusing the issue again. In essence, the Scott Law was little

more than a reenactment of the ill-fated Pond Law except that the tax was to be

$200 for all dealers without regard to the size of the community in which they oper-

ated and that the provision calling for the posting of bond was omitted.40  The possi-

bilities of a predicament in this matter had been seen by the Ohio State Journal as

early as mid-March. How could the legislature pass a law levying a special tax on

the liquor traffic before it submitted a constitutional amendment for popular ap-

proval which would give it the power to pass such a law? So great was the Journal's

desire for a liquor tax law, however, that it was able to condemn the house's initial

refusal to pass such a law on April 6 as a "blunder" and within a week to argue that

the Scott Law would help to insure adoption of the first proposed amendment.41

The passage of this law may have had the effect of cancelling out any gratitude

which the Ohio WCTU might have felt for the fact that it was Republican votes in

the legislature which had put constitutional prohibition on the ballot. A resolution

passed at the Ohio Union's convention of June 1883 coupled vociferous support for

the so-called "Second Amendment" calling for prohibition with a resounding con-

demnation of both the Scott Law and the so-called "First Amendment" repealing

the "no-license" clause. The law and the proposed amendment, the resolution said,

were both "based on the principle of raising revenue from crime and vice breeding

institutions, and in doing so, give governmental sanction to a traffic that is wholly

evil."⁴² The Republicans, on the other hand, were lavish in their praise of the Scott

Law and made it a cornerstone of their campaign.⁴³

Once the question of constitutional prohibition was on the ballot, the Ohio

WCTU set to work for its adoption with great energy. Then and later, the ladies re-

garded it as "their" campaign.44 Then and later, most commentators seemed ready

to agree with them.⁴⁵ When, however, a nonpartisan state convention met at Co-

lumbus on July 24, 1883 to form a semi-permanent organization in support of the

prohibitory amendment, the gathering could bring itself to do no more than to ac-

knowledge that the movement for constitutional prohibition had begun with the

WCTU and that the organization was "a most invaluable auxiliary in carrying for-

ward the work to final victory."⁴⁶ To this the WCTU replied in kind by speaking of

 

 

 

 

39. Ohio State Journal (Columbus), March 8, April 4, 5, 6, 1883.

40. Randall and Ryan, History of Ohio, IV, 532.

41. Ohio State Journal, March 12, April 7, 10, 13, 1883.

42. Logan County Index, June 27, 1883.

43. Smith, Republican Party, I, 469.

44. OWCTU Minutes, 1884, pp. 38-39; 1888, p. 12; 1889, pp. 32-33; 1904, p. 12.

45. Ohio State Journal, July 25, 1883; Cleveland Leader, Ocober 3, 8, 1883; Jordan, Ohio Comes of Age,

177 178.

46. Ohio State Journal, July 25, 1883.

• 12
 

the "Amendment Association" formed at this convention as an auxiliary of the Union.47 Mrs. Woodbridge and her followers were chagrined to find that those politicians who had voted to submit the prohibitory amendment proposal to the voters appar- ently did not feel called upon to give it active support. In the face of what she claimed was unrelenting hostility to the second amendment on the part of all major newspapers in the state, Mrs. Woodbridge founded in mid-summer a weekly called the Amendment Herald, of which, according to her biographer, 200,000 copies were distributed weekly during the campaign, 100,000 by subscription. The same source maintains that ten thousand posters were put up and a corps of special speakers em- ployed.48 The Ohio State Journal noted in the middle of July that John P. St. John, the former governor of Kansas, had been engaged to speak for the proposed amend- ment "some ten or twelve times, at $50 a speech." Mrs. J. Ellen Foster was sched- uled to spend the month of September in Ohio, lecturing in support of the proposed amendment for "$25 per night, hotel bill or private entertainment for herself and her husband, and carriage hire." This, the Journal commented somewhat sourly, "looks like business in more ways than one."49   All this required money. Mrs. Woodbridge was later to mention most prominently "the grand man, generous       47. OWCTU Minutes, 1884, p. 39; Logan County Index, June 27, 1883. 48. Ibid.; Hills, Woodbridge, 85-87, 97-98. 49. Ohio State Journal, July 11, 1883.

• 13
 

Ohio WCTU                                                             97

 

Ferdinand Schumacher of Akron, who poured his thousands into our treasury."

One post-election account claimed that Schumacher had spent "fully $10,000 in the

movement." He was also the Prohibition party candidate for governor in the same

election. Mrs. Woodbridge also singled out "Mr. Rockefeller, of Cleveland" as a

special contributor. It was maintained, however, that the primary souce of funds

was the numerous small donations of churches, Sunday Schools, and individuals for

whom such giving meant real sacrifice. The ladies in the Cuyahoga County Union

had even resolved to go without gloves from June to October and donated "an

amount equal of the entire glove bill for the year" to the campaign for the second

amendment.⁵⁰

The Union women were not without other support in their campaign. The Wit-

tenberg Synod of the Lutheran Church and the Central Ohio Conference of the

Methodist Episcopal Church passed resolutions urging support for the prohibition

amendment. "Most of the ministers in the Central Ohio Conference," the same re-

port stated, "will postpone their removal to their new appointments until after the

election in order to get in their vote on the Amendment."⁵¹ Preachers of all Protes-

tant faiths seem to have been prominent in support of the movement. In addition,

the Ohio WCTU was frank to admit that the "Amendment Association" had played

a vital role, especially in counties which the women's organization could not reach.

The Good Templars of Ohio, though they "covered a much smaller territory" than

the former group, were also acknowledged to have been of great help.⁵²

The major political parties, in the meantime, seem to have been primarily en-

gaged in evading the Temperance issue instead of lining up solidly in opposition to

prohibition, as Mrs. Woodbridge charged. Most Republicans appear to have fol-

lowed J. B. Foraker, the Republican gubernatorial candidate, in maintaining that

the party had done its duty in submitting the issue to the voters and that the ques-

tion of prohibition was now a nonpartisan one. George Hoadly, the Democratic

candidate, on the other hand, rejected both the Scott Law and the proposed second

amendment as Republican measures, while the Democratic press was accused by its

opponents of avoiding the issue and of standing as "mute as a wooden indian" on

the subject. One Republican paper went so far as to maintain that even though the

Democratic party was publicly silent on the matter, it was secretly helping the

amendment "wherever they can without showing their hand" because the Demo-

crats realized "that the adoption of the second amendment would render Republi-

can success in Ohio impossible for several years to come."⁵³

The result of the amendment campaign came as a surprise to some people and as

a bitter disappointment to the ladies of the Ohio WCTU. On the morning of elec-

tion day October 9, 1883 the Ohio State Journal expressed doubt that the prohibi-

tory amendment would carry, but, it added, "It is patent to the most casual observer

of the situation that there has been a remarkable change in public opinion in regard

to prohibition within the last six months." And even if the amendment did not

carry, those who had supported it, would have nothing to be ashamed of. As the re-

sults were announced, the Logan County Index of Bellefontaine saw in the "im-

 

 

50. OWCTU Minutes, 1884, p. 36. 40; Cleveland Leader, October 12, 1883; Smith, Republican Party, I,

473; Logan County Index, June 27, 1883.

51. Ibid., October 3, 1883.

52. Cleveland Leader, October 7, 1883; OWCTU Minutes, 1884, p. 39.

53. McCuskey, "Campaign of 1883," 66; Cleveland Leader, October 2, 3, 1883; Logan County Index,

June 13, 1883.

• 14
 

98                                                             OHIO HISTORY

 

mense" vote for the second amendment "one of the surprises of the election." The

Cleveland Leader, believing that the second amendment had passed, remarked,

"Hereafter it will hardly be in order to speak of the citizens of Ohio who favor con-

stitutional prohibition as a few fanatics.' "54

On election day the prohibitory amendment was estimated to have received more

than 300,000 affirmative votes, a majority of those cast on the question. The

OWCTU was later to adopt the figure 323,189 as its official number. The problem

was that this majority was not large enough. In order to be adopted, the amend-

ment needed to receive a total affirmative vote equal to a majority of all votes cast

in the election. This it had failed to do. One Republican paper noted that some

150,000 Republican voters had "refrained from supporting prohibition.... Had

this vote been added to that actually cast for the second amendment, and had the

Prohibitionists voted with the Republicans for State and local officers, the doom of

the liquor traffic would have been sealed in Ohio at once and forever."⁵⁵ The tech-

nicalities of the counting procedure had been a source of confusion to the voters

throughout the campaign. It had to be explained several times that the amendment

would not be helped by a voter's failure to vote for a party ticket: all votes cast

would be counted in the total which would decide the exact number of votes needed

for adoption. Similarly, failure to vote on the amendment question would actually

count against the amendment since it would raise the number of affirmative votes

needed for adoption without contributing one of those affirmative votes. It was the-

oretically quite possible for the amendment to fail of adoption without receiving a

single "no" vote. The ladies of the WCTU gave evidence of being unable (or per-

haps unwilling) to understand this procedure. Mrs. Woodbridge's immediate reac-

tion was to write in her Amendment Herald that supporters of the prohibitory

amendment "were outwitted, sold out, cheated, and swindled by the politicians-

that is all." Henceforth it became standard doctrine among the members of the

Union that the needed ballots were "certainly cast" but were "ignominiously

counted out by supporters of the liquor traffic." At least one Republican news-

paper at the time thought there might be some substance to this charge in Cleve-

land. The WCTU, however, did not accept the Leader's suggestion and demand a

recount.⁵⁶

If the actual vote cast for the prohibitory amendment remained a matter for some

doubt, there could be none concerning the defeat of the Republicans. This defeat

was clear even to Republicans in Columbus as early as 1:00 A.M. on the morning of

October 10, and there was little disagreement with the idea that "the temperance

question is largely responsible for the defeat." Cleveland Republicans also felt that

the belief on the part of the voting public that Republicans were solidly in support

of the second amendment had a "damaging effect upon our whole ticket."⁵⁷ A his-

torian of the Ohio Republican party was later to maintain that the effect of the

Temperance question was indiscriminately bad; the minority of Republican candi-

 

 

 

 

 

54. Ohio State Journal, October 9, 1883; Logan County Index, October 11, 1883; Cleveland Leader, Oc-

tober 10, 1883.

55. Ohio State Journal, October 11, 1883; OWCTU Minutes, 1884, p. ⁷⁰.

56. Cleveland Leader, October 13, 1883; Ohio State Journal, July 24, August 18, October 9, 1883; Hills,

Woodbridge, 94, 159-160; OWCTU Minutes, 1884, p. 70; 1898, p. 33; 1904, p. 12.

57. Cleveland Leader, October 10, 13, 1883; Ohio State Journal, October 11, 1883.

• 15
 

Ohio WCTU                                                             99

 

dates who had declined to discuss the question publicly "in the end were beaten as

badly as the boldest advocates."⁵⁸ Yet while blaming the Temperance question for

their defeat, Republican papers were generally very mild in their criticisms of those

who had supported the prohibitory amendment. The Ohio State Journal com-

plained that the prohibition campaign had actually been too nonpartisan since no

credit was accorded the Republican party for putting the amendment on the ballot

in the first place. In Cleveland, it was said, the presence of the ladies at the polls ac-

tively campaigning for the prohibitory amendment allowed the Democrats to start

the rumor that these women intended to start a new woman's crusade. According

to the Leader, "Many Germans and Bohemians were heard to say that they voted

the Democratic ticket merely on account of'those crusade women.' "59

As might be surmised from her editorial remarks in the Amendment Herald noted

earlier, Mary A. Woodbridge reacted to the defeat of the prohibitory amendment

with considerable bitterness. This feeling was particularly directed against the Re-

publicans. She accused them of deliberately passing the Scott Law, knowing that it

was probably unconstitutional, in order that the people of Ohio might see a definite

reduction in their tax rates and be more inclined to support the first amendment

which would have legalized such a tax. She further accused them of deliberately

confusing the issue by submitting two proposed amendments to the Ohio con-

stitution instead of the one which alone really mattered. Democrats and Republi-

cans, she said, had both worked against the cause by printing their party tickets with

the spaces after the prohibitory amendment left blank. Therefore the OWCTU had

been forced to print tickets of both parties with the word "yes" filled in at the appro-

priate place. After this was done, it was discovered that someone had "tampered

with" the printing plates and the whole printing had to be called back and reissued.

In addition to all this, "telegrams were retained, letters miscarried and mail stacked

up in a city postoffice, till it seemed as if men in places of public trust were in league

with the powers of darkness to defeat the cause of temperance and righteousness."

These experiences, her biographer says, caused Mrs. Woodbridge to change her po-

litical affiliation. Until "the latter part of the year 1883," he says, she had always

been in the "fullest sympathy" with the Republican party. But the behavior of the

Republicans in the campaign of 1883 "gave a rude shock to her faith in her own

dear party that filled her alike with pain and disgust." She announced her change

of heart in an editorial printed in the Amendment Herald of April 17, 1884, which

castigated the Republicans in the General Assembly for their refusal to resubmit to

the people the question of constitutional prohibition. When, later in the year, "the

leaders of the National WCTU crossed the Rubicon and marched into the Prohibi-

tion camp," her biographer says, "Mrs. Woodbridge was among them."⁶⁰ In view of

this account, it is difficult to explain how the name "Mrs. Mary A. Woodbridge, of

Ohio" could have been listed as the first of five secretaries of the national conven-

tion of the Prohibition party which had met at Cleveland on June 17, 1880.⁶¹

The campaign conducted by Frances E. Willard to bring the National WCTU to

an endorsement of the Prohibition party is beyond the scope of this monograph and

 

 

 

 

58. Smith, Republican Party, I, 473.

59. Ohio State Journal, October 11, 1883; Cleveland Leader, October 10, 1883.

60. Hills, Woodbridge, 84-88, 111-120.

61. Cyclopedia of Temperance and Prohibition (New York, 1891), 567.

• 16
 

100                                                             OHIO HISTORY

 

is treated in detail elsewhere.⁶² The Ohio WCTU seems to have taken no official

position in the early skirmishing on this question. By its convention of June 1884,

however, it was in a different mood. In her presidential address, Mary Woodbridge

referred to "a party [which she did not name] indifferent to an interest which more

than all others is injurious to the people, is untrue to that people, and the nation is

unsafe in its hands." Apparently the delegates thought she was referring to the Re-

publicans. Among the convention's list of formal resolutions was one which "Re-

solved, That we express our hearty and grateful appreciation to that political party

which has adopted as part of its platform the prohibition of the liquor traffic."63

This resolution, though it does not mention the Prohibition party by name, is still

considerably more specific than a similar resolution which caused a furor before

being passed by the National Union at its St. Louis convention of the following

October.

What happened in Ohio immediately after this is not as clear as one might wish.

What is clear from the records of the OWCTU is that at the state convention of 1884

Mary A. Woodbridge announced that she would not stand for reelection and was

replaced as president by Mrs. Ellen J. Phinney of Cleveland. In the minutes of the

convention, it is implied that Mrs. Woodbridge made this move because of ill

health,64 but her biographer indicated that the move was made because of her dis-

satisfaction with the strength of the support she had received from the convention in

regard to her request for an endorsement of the Prohibition party. In any case,

Mary Woodbridge resigned her editorship of the Amendment Herald on July 26,

1884, apparently because of a statement issued two days earlier by the Ohio Union's

new officers explaining that the action of the convention of the previous June did

not bind the Ohio Union to an allegiance to any political party.65 Thus the stage

was set for a full-blown confrontation at the Ohio Union's Kenton convention of

June 1885 over the question of endorsing the Prohibition party, no matter how

obliquely.

Two reports of the resolutions committee were presented to the convention. The

majority report called for endorsement of the Prohibition party. The minority re-

port called for a continuation of what was termed the Union's "non-partisan" ap-

proach of the past. Unfortunately the official minutes of the 1885 convention are

also among the missing and so the exact text of the resolution in question cannot be

determined. It is evident, however, that the question of which report was to be

adopted prompted a lively debate. Those favoring the minority report appeared to

be outnumbered. The majority report also had the active and vocal support of

Mary Woodbridge and of Frances Willard, who was there to deliver the traditional

annual address. A final vote on the matter was deferred to the following morning.

In her address delivered in the evening after the debate, Frances Willard argued

earnestly in favor of official support for the Prohibition party. On the following

morning, the majority report, calling for a resolution of support for that party, was

adopted by a vote of 96 to 47. In the afternoon, an election of officers was held in

 

 

62. Mary Earhart, Frances Williard: From Prayer to Politics (Chicago, 1944), 210-218: Helen E. Tyler,

Where Prayer and Purpose Meet: The WCTU Story, 1874-1949 (Evanston, 1949), 65-68; Norton H. Mez-

vinsky, "The White Ribbon Reform" (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Universtiy of Wisconsin, 1959),

196.

63. OWCTU Minutes, 1884, p. 55, 60.

64. Ibid., 61, 44.

65. Hills, Woodbridge, 127-128.

• 17
 

Ohio WCTU                                                             101

 

which Mary A. Woodbridge was again elected president of the Ohio WCTU.⁶⁶ The

only account of the convention available does not reveal whether Mrs. Phinney re-

fused to stand for reelection or whether she did so and was defeated.

The delegates from the Cleveland Union were most unhappy with the result of

the vote on the resolutions. So also was the entire Cleveland Union. At a meeting

held on the afternoon of July 13, 1885, the Cleveland Union voted to dissolve its

connection with both the National and Ohio WCTUs. Speaking in favor of the se-

cession resolution, Mrs. Ellen J. Phinney maintained that, although the National

resolution passed at St. Louis in the fall of 1884 and the Ohio resolution passed at

Kenton in the preceding June were susceptible to the "widest possible inter-

pretation," these actions had alienated many people who were most willing to sup-

port prohibition and had in fact done so in the campaign of 1883. If the work of

the Union were not to be further injured, the Cleveland Union must disassociate it-

self from these resolutions in support of the Prohibition party. One clergyman who

was a member of the local Union's advisory board argued that only by such an ac-

tion would the churches of Cleveland again be open to speakers from the WCTU as

they had been in the past. Another clergyman predicted that the days of the

WCTU's influence were over unless the Prohibition party association were repu-

diated. A third pointed out the descrepancy between the more than 300,000 non-

partisan votes polled for the second amendment in 1883 and the 16,000 votes which

represented the Ohio Prohibition party's highest attainment. Several letters were

read from members forced to be absent from the meeting expressing support for se-

cession. One of these came from "Mrs. J. D. Rockefeller." Present as a guest was

Mrs. J. Ellen Foster of Iowa who had touched off the first spark which led to the

amendment campaign. While refusing to speak at length until after the vote was

taken, Mrs. Foster nevertheless pointed out that the action contemplated did not

represent an endorsement of the Republican party but only a return to the non-

partisan orientation which had been so successful for the WCTU in the past. The

resolution of secession passed by a vote of 31 to 3.⁶⁷

Mrs. Woodbridge maintained in her open letter announcing this secession that

the Cleveland Union had affiliated with the Ohio WCTU only within the past "five

or six years" and was now simply returning to its former independence.

Furthermore, the Cleveland Union was known to have an advisory board of men.

The membership at large, she said, knew little of the actual work of the WCTU

since the Cleveland executive board ran things to suit itself.68  Whether this line of

argument impressed anyone is unknown. It is evident, however, that the Union lost

several women who had formerly been prominent among its leadership, not the

least of whom was Ellen J. Phinney who had functioned as Mrs. Woodbridge's right

hand support in the campaign of 1883. It may also be doubted that the withdrawal

of Mrs. Rockefeller's financial assistance was to be taken lightly.

The Ohio WCTU exacted a rather strange revenge on Ellen J. Phinney: they tried

to and eventually succeeded in erasing her name from its memory. The official

seventy-fifth anniversary history of the Ohio Union nowhere mentions her name.

As early as 1892, Mrs. Henrietta Monroe, Mrs. Woodbridge's eventual successor as

president, spoke of Mary A. Woodbridge as having been president for seven years.

 

 

 

66. Kenton Republican, June 18, 19, 1885.

67. Cleveland Leader and Herald, July 14, 1885.

68. Hills, Woodbridge, 147-156.

• 18
 

102                                                         OHIO HISTORY

 

This was not accurate. She served from 1879 to 1884, which is five years, and an

additional year from 1885 to 1886. Mrs. Woodbridge gave the annual address for

1892 and was at times seated among the delegates.⁶⁹ One cannot help wondering if

she was present when the statement was made.

The campaign for state constitutional prohibition in Ohio in 1883 ended in frus-

tration and bitterness. A later president of the Ohio WCTU referred, in 1898, to

the "Second Amendment Campaign" of 1883 as "probably the greatest political

movement ever attempted by women."⁷⁰ Perhaps it was-as of 1898. But the en-

dorsement of the Prohibition party which arose as a result of the ladies' frustration

at their defeat in 1883 could not but put a complete end to any influence the Ohio

WCTU might have had with an Ohio Republican party which tended to blame the

OWCTU's prohibitory amendment idea for their own defeat of 1883. Eventually

the Ohio WCTU was to quadruple its membership to more than 40,000 by 1920.

By 1920 also they were to see their dreams realized with the adoption of both Prohi-

bition and Woman Suffrage as amendments to the Federal Constitution. But in

these victories the Ohio WCTU could only share: in both campaigns they had

served only as handmaidens to the Ohio Anti-Saloon League and the Ohio Woman

Suffrage Association. Never again did the Ohio WCTU wield the independent in-

fluence and power it had displayed in the prohibition amendment campaign of

1883.

 

69. Mary B. Ervin, History of the Ohio Woman's Christian Temperance Union (Columbus, 1949);

OWCTU Minutes, 1892, p. 37, 156.

70. Ibid., 1898, p. 32.

• 19