Jerauld County, SD News.....Memorial September 26, 1884
************************************************
Copyright.  All rights reserved.
http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm
http://www.usgwarchives.net/sd/sdfiles.htm
************************************************
File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Joy Fisher sdgenweb@yahoo.com March 5, 2005, 12:00 am

Wessington Springs Herald
Memorial.

	The memorial of the American home against the American saloon, presented by
Nettie C. Hall, M. D., to the 1st Republican convention of Jerauld Co., received
and acted upon by the same.

To the honorable delegates to the Republican Convention, the would-be
commissioners and voters in general of Jerauld Co. Gentlemen:

	We do not come here to-day at the bidding of any party organization nor in the
interests of any man or set of men. We come as delegated representatives of the
Woman's Christian Temperance Union to present to your thought the memorial of
the American home against the American saloon. Our society is the resilt of the
Woman's Temperance Crusade of 1874 and stands not only for total abstinence and
prohibition but for no sectarianism in religion, no sectionalism in politics, no
sex in citizenship – A society as well known in Florida as in Oregon by the
result of last year's work – A society that has had an open hand for the
Catholic as well as for the protestant, and for the foreigners as for the native
born. We belong that band who has fed the hungry and clothed the naked and
healed the sick, taught the ignorant, elevated the degraded, gladdened the
sorrowful, and led to the cross multitudes that had been wandering. The band
that has gathered against the fortunes that had been scattered, and built again
the home that had been ruined; bound up the broken hearted, given peace where
was discord broken open many a prison and restored many a maniac to his right
mind, prevented many a suicide, thinned the workhouse, jails and hospitals,
helped to fill the schools and lecture rooms; turned in useful citizens those
who were pests of society; secured the adoption of temperance text books by law
into the schools of Michigan, New Hampshire, Vermont and New York, by which
books the children are taught the effects of alcohol on the human system. Our
work is not only in America but in Canada and across the sea, where cathedral
doors have been thrown open to us and bishops and Canons have taken hold of this
work. In the words of Jennie Eggleston Zimmerman, "The correct formation of a
child's habits, the reformation of drinking men and the transformation of public
opinion and law relative to the liquor traffic are the steadfast aims of the W.
C. T. U. We are 100,000 strong, working under our motto: "For God and home and
native land," "with malice toward none and charity for all." We do not come for
any whim but at the mandate of stern conviction under the pressure of personal
responsibility. Because of what the saloon does against the home we are here to
ask, nay, to plead that you nominate only such men for office as will honor our
county by taking such a stand in the great issue of to-day as will throw a safe
guard around our homes. Men of high moral standard, men for whom good, true
women may work and pray. We ask men of every shade of politics, of every creed
of religion to join us in our efforts to protect the homes of Jerauld Co. from
the rumseller. We come to you asking that every man shall give a vote on our
side remembering if you do not that your wives and children will be without
representation.

	We ask you in the voice of those whom you love to take this stand. We want men,
large hearted men who will dare to do right. The qualifications we would require
in your candidate would be that he is a good lover of his country, a good
citizen, and that he is true on the temperance question. Let your American
manhood stand to its convictions and be as true as twenty years ago in the day
of the nation's need. Dare to vote right and mothers good and true will shower
blessings on your head and He who made the world will bless and reward the
righteous deed. We know that the government insures protection to life, limb and
property but in dismay that our brothers have forgotten to adequately protect
our homes unless you by your vote prevent the horrible monster that threatens to
invade our country. Our homes are in danger. Rumors are floating in the air that
men want to come among us with a deadly poison to fire the brain of our best
beloved and destroy our peace and happiness. We hear distant murmurs that other
men would have them come if they will only pay into the county treasury gold.
Shame on you, brothers! For paltry gold you would sell our husbands, fathers and
boys. Shame on you, brothers, for a pittance you would give a man vested rights
to break the heart and rob helpless women abd children. If you give the vile
thing entrance it will take anybody's husband, yours, my sister; anybody's son,
yours, doting father; anybody's parent, yours, my dear boy. It will take them
from you hale, fond and true and send them back to you, bleared and blasphemous
and beastly, and we must live and toil, eat and even sleep under the shadow of a
nameless fear. Only imagine even one saloon in Wessington Springs and that
saloon paying $100,000 license, if such a thing were possible. Your sons could
not walk the streets or stroll in the park or visit the home of a friend but you
are haunted with the thoughts that hold your eye waking. Your daughters if out
of your sight are on your hearts like a brooding anxiety. Gentlemen, can you put
the license so high that my boy will not be ruined, soul and body? Can you
insure that you can put figures so high that my neighbor's husbands and sons
will not fall a victim to the seductive wiles of strong drink. Can you tell me
truly that some poor woman who has made every sacrifice in coming to this
country to help her husband earn a home, and oh! We women know how hardly earned
these homes are, can you promise me truly that even if a high licensed saloon
comes that poor woman will not see her home turned over into other hands, her
happiness in life wrecked, as heart-broken and sad she leads her little ones to
a place of refuge if ever so poor, while she seeks some means for earning their
bread, while father once so kind and tender is a disgrace to those whom he
should protect. You need not go but a little over three miles from the Springs
for an instance. Not more than one year ago a kind father left a sick child to
come to the Springs for medical aid. The tempter found him in a weak hour and –
and that father crazed with drink spent money for whisky while at the Springs
that should have bought bread, and the invalid mother watched alone all night
with her sick child. No fancy sketch, gentlemen, I was the physician to whom he
applied for help. That man, like many others I know, came to this community as a
place of refuge from the drink fiend – he is not living here now or I would not
have mentioned it. Oh, yes; you are right, "saloons make business lively."
Exceedingly lively for the neglected wife and children, very lively times for
wife and little ones to find food and clothing. 

	Again I say, shame on the man who would not only take the bread and home but
honor, self respect and affection from families to build school houses. If
Jerauld county can't build school houses without saloons, better levy an extra
tax on the women and leave them their husbands. I for one would rather pay
one-tenth of my earnings into the county treasury. I have no doubt but the
majority of the women in Jerauld county would do the same if there was no other
alternative.

	It would be better that cholera, diphtheria, black vomit and worst types of
small pox be lingering under every blade of grass or wafted on every breeze,
lurking in the poisoned air, climbing in at your window, seething and reeking in
every drop of water, smiting the first born and every babe in the cradle.

	It is a fundamental principle of our Declaration of Independence that any
community has a right to prevent a public nuisance and to express by its
suffrage whether or not such a nuisance shall exist among them. We ask for
prohibition which shall say no man shall sell poison to another man. That no man
shall sell to another that which will deprive his mind of reason and his heart
of feeling. The republican party has guaranteed protection to sheep husbandry,
and we wives and mothers are just foolish enough to think our husbands and sons
are of as much value as our sheep and lambs, and if you will only throw your
influence for home protection as surely as for sheep husbandry we will be better
contented.

	Put it to your conscience, brother, whether at such a time and under such
circumstances you would be at liberty to refuse to give your vote and your
influence to the cause of prohibition.

	Christians, patriots, men of humanity, will you not come along to our rescue?

	On your part the sacrifices will be small, on ours the benefit conferred immense.

	The attitude of the N. W. C. T. U. towards political parties is as follows: "We
will lend our influence to that party whatever name called which shall furnish
the best embodiment of prohibition principles and will surely protect our homes."



File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/sd/jerauld/newspapers/gnw91memorial.txt

This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.org/sdfiles/

File size: 9.4 Kb