Dough after having perfectly risen should not be kneaded again. If in pans, it should be immediately baked. If in mass, it should be divided into loaves or rolls, and gently pulled, rolled or folded into shape, when it may also be put to bake. These loaves or rolls will, however, be lighter and more delicate if permitted to rise again before they are placed in the oven. Much of the superior excellence of the Vienna imperial roll is due to the peculiar manipulation the light dough is subjected to just before it is placed in the baking pan.
The final and perhaps most important point in bread making has been reached when the loaves are put in the pans to rise for the last time. To decide when dough is just light enough to bake is a very delicate and important matter. If it is put in the oven a moment too soon, you fail to obtain the supreme loaf to which you are entitled for your toil; and if permitted to pass the point of perfect lightness you lose the best results of your labor. The exact time required for loaves to rise after they have been placed in the pans can not be given, as it varies in different temperatures, at different seasons, and with different brands of flour. But it is seldom less than half an hour, or more than an hour and a half.
A loaf of bread should nearly double in size after it is put in the pan; or if a deep gash be cut in the top of it, the incision should disappear by the time the loaf has perfectly risen. Bread, when light enough for baking, feels aerated all through; and by lifting and weighing it in the hand one can generally recognize the condition of lightness quite as accurately as by sight.
The exercise of a little observation and judgment will soon enable one to decide when dough has reached its best and most perfect state of lightness. But where any doubt exists in regard to the matter it is better to put it in the oven while rising toward perfection than after it attains the altitude at which it begins to retrograde.
Potato Bread.—Potato added to flour is generally supposedto improve the quality of the bread. That it does is unquestionably true, where the flour used is of an inferior grade. “Of all starches,” says Dr. Graham, “the starch found in the potato is best adapted to the growth of yeast, and in using potato in bread, bakers made practical application of a fact long before chemists discovered it to be such.” Potatoes when used in bread should be well boiled and smoothly mashed, and equal portions of potato and flour be used in making the ferment. The bread is then made in the same manner as when flour alone is used.
Whole Wheat Flour.—It is claimed that bran in Graham flour often proves an irritant to delicate digestive organs. In whole wheat flour we have the entire food principle of the grain without the hull. The cold blast process of milling gives us this flour of a very superior quality.
Whole Wheat Flour Breadshould be made in every particular like patent or new process flour bread, and baked in loaves, twists, or fancy rolls. It is very delicious baked in the form of muffins and eaten warm.
Graham Bread.—The ferment for Graham bread should be of white flour, and prepared in the same manner as the ferment for white flour bread. When light add sugar and salt to taste, and work in Graham flour until the dough becomes elastic and clinging and is sufficiently stiff. Let stand till perfectly risen; then shape into loaves by rolling gently under the hand on a well floured molding-board, and place in greased baking pans. Less flour is required in proportion to the “wetting” for Graham than for white bread. And unless Graham dough is of the proper consistency, the bread when baked will be moist, sticky and insipid, or dry, rough and unpalatable. The correct proportions are a little more than two measures of Graham flour to one measure of “wetting.”
Oat, Corn and Barley Bread.—Fermented bread can be made of oat, corn, or barley meal, or flour; care being taken to add wetting in proportion to the demands of the grain. When corn or oat meal is used, boiling water should be poured upon it and it be permitted to swell for at least an hour before the yeast is added. These grains make delicious muffins and bread to be eaten warm.
Pinhead oat meal, pearled barley, and corn grits, well cooked and made into bread by adding whole wheat flour, can be baked in muffin pans, or rolled thin and baked in crisp rolls.
Rye Bread.—The method of making rye bread is almost identical with that for making wheat bread—from three to three and a half measures of flour to one measure of “wetting” being required. More time is necessary for it to ferment or rise, and it will not become so light, spongy and elastic as wheat.
Boston Brown Bread.—Scald a pint of corn meal with a pint of boiling water. When sufficiently cool add a pint and a half of rye meal, a gill of yeast, a gill of molasses, and a teaspoonful of salt. Mix well, and when perfectly risen steam five hours, then put in the oven half an hour to dry and harden the crust.
Vienna Bread.—To a pint of new milk, add a pint of water, an ounce of compressed yeast, a teaspoonful of salt, and flour sufficient to make a thin batter. Stir well and let stand for an hour to rise, then work in flour until the dough is the proper consistency for bread. When very light, which will be in about three hours, divide and mold into loaves, and set to rise in the bread pans; or shape into imperial rolls and set to rise.
Imperial Rolls.—Separate one of the Vienna loaves, detached from the mass of dough, into ten or twelve irregular pieces of the thickness of about half an inch. Take separately each of these pieces in the left hand, and slightly stretch with the thumb and forefinger of the right hand one of the irregular points over the left thumb toward the center of the roll. Repeat this operation, turning the piece of dough as it proceeds, each time lifting the thumb and gently pressing it upon the last fold until all the points have been drawn in, when the roll can be placed to rise. If the folding has been properly done, the roll when baked will be composed of a succession of sheets or layers of delicate, tenacious crumb surrounded with a thin crisp crust. The fingers can be slightly greased to keep the dough from sticking to them while shaping these rolls; but if it is of the proper consistency, it will not stick to the hands.
Baking Bread.—When bread is ready for baking, it is desirable to fix the air cells as soon as possible by heat; but it does not follow that to do this it should be put in a very hot oven and a crust immediately formed on the loaves.
Temperature of the Oven.—The heat of the oven should not be greatest when bread is put to bake; it should slightly increase in intensity for about ten minutes, and after remaining at a firm, steady temperature for that length of time should gradually decrease till the baking is finished. The principal change to be effected by the baking, which is the coagulation of the albumen of the air cells, takes place at a temperature somewhere near 212°, and as the temperature within the loaf can not rise above that point, no changes go on there except those produced by the watery vapor or steam. Flour, however, is not browned except at a much higher temperature; hence a greater degree of heat is necessary to properly bake the outside of the loaf. During the period of baking bread the heat of the oven should not rise above 570° nor fall below 240°.
An ordinary sized loaf of bread, with the oven at the proper temperature, will bake thoroughly in an hour; a loaf the size of one of the pans recommended, in about half an hour. But as there are several hygienic and philosophical reasons why bread should be well baked, it is better to err by leaving it in the oven a little too long than not quite long enough.—Bread and Bread Making.
End of Required Reading for November.
BY MARY LOWE DICKINSON.
Old sorrows that sat at the heart’s sealed gate,Like sentinels grim and sad,While, out in the night damp, weary and late,The King, with a gift divinely great,Waited to make me glad.Old fears, that hung like a changing cloud,Over a sunless day;Old burdens that kept the spirit bowed,Old wrongs that rankled and clamored loud—They have passed like a dream away.In the world without and the world within,He maketh the old things new;The touch of sorrow, the stain of sin,Have fled from the gate where the King came in,From the chill night’s damp and dew.…Anew in the heavens the sweet stars shine,On earth new blossoms spring;The old life lost in the life divine,“Thy will be mine, my will is thine,”Is the song which the new hearts sing.
Old sorrows that sat at the heart’s sealed gate,Like sentinels grim and sad,While, out in the night damp, weary and late,The King, with a gift divinely great,Waited to make me glad.Old fears, that hung like a changing cloud,Over a sunless day;Old burdens that kept the spirit bowed,Old wrongs that rankled and clamored loud—They have passed like a dream away.In the world without and the world within,He maketh the old things new;The touch of sorrow, the stain of sin,Have fled from the gate where the King came in,From the chill night’s damp and dew.…Anew in the heavens the sweet stars shine,On earth new blossoms spring;The old life lost in the life divine,“Thy will be mine, my will is thine,”Is the song which the new hearts sing.
Old sorrows that sat at the heart’s sealed gate,Like sentinels grim and sad,While, out in the night damp, weary and late,The King, with a gift divinely great,Waited to make me glad.
Old sorrows that sat at the heart’s sealed gate,
Like sentinels grim and sad,
While, out in the night damp, weary and late,
The King, with a gift divinely great,
Waited to make me glad.
Old fears, that hung like a changing cloud,Over a sunless day;Old burdens that kept the spirit bowed,Old wrongs that rankled and clamored loud—They have passed like a dream away.
Old fears, that hung like a changing cloud,
Over a sunless day;
Old burdens that kept the spirit bowed,
Old wrongs that rankled and clamored loud—
They have passed like a dream away.
In the world without and the world within,He maketh the old things new;The touch of sorrow, the stain of sin,Have fled from the gate where the King came in,From the chill night’s damp and dew.
In the world without and the world within,
He maketh the old things new;
The touch of sorrow, the stain of sin,
Have fled from the gate where the King came in,
From the chill night’s damp and dew.
…
…
Anew in the heavens the sweet stars shine,On earth new blossoms spring;The old life lost in the life divine,“Thy will be mine, my will is thine,”Is the song which the new hearts sing.
Anew in the heavens the sweet stars shine,
On earth new blossoms spring;
The old life lost in the life divine,
“Thy will be mine, my will is thine,”
Is the song which the new hearts sing.
BY BISHOP JOHN F. HURST.
The poorest Germans one sees are not here in Germany, but on the American side of the Atlantic, at Castle Garden and other landing places. All hours of the day and night I have been along the German thoroughfares of travel, and yet I can not recall that any one has put out his hand for alms, or that few have presented the appearance of extreme penury. There is no question that there has been a wonderful coming up of the general industrial life of Germany since the consolidation of the countries, and since the leadership of Bismarck has thrust new force into every part of the national civilization. But what with all the absorption of a million of men into the national army, and the coming and going from civil into military life of all the young in the land, there are multitudes to whom bread is the one supreme thought. There are millions for whom there must be work to-day for the loaf of to-morrow. There are two questions which constantly monopolize the thought of the Prussian government—to keep safe against the French, who do not forget the loss of Alsace and Lorrain, in 1871, and, then, how to keep the workingmen busy. Why all this talk about German colonies? Why does Prussia, with only a strip of the North Sea for its only outlet to the ocean, fill its days of Parliament and its periodical press, with discussions as to how to get more land, on some distant coast, where colonies may be planted? It is simply to furnish, as does India for Britain, an outlet for trade. Why did the old Kaiser Wilhelm, only the other day, declare that he had spent his reign in trying to develop the internal policy of the country, but that to his son and successor, Friedrich Wilhelm, would belong the mission of developing the German colonist policy? He meant, as does every Hohenzollern, that his people should be busy in peace, and therefore strong for war. But while there are few evidences in public of extreme poverty in Germany, and while there has been a singular elevation of the general cheerfulness of the lower classes, there is real pauperism, and a plenty of it. But it is not allowed to come to the light. No shrewder piece of management has ever been accomplished in Germany than the skillful dealing with the veritable pauper within the last ten years. It is as nearly a perfect work as one ever saw performed upon the man in rags. It is as exquisite an adjustment of legal and voluntary measures, an interlacing of what people choose to do and what they are compelled to do, as the sun shines on. But this must be said: the government could not manage the pauper alone. It was too great a task for even Bismarck and the Emperor. Christian people have done it, and of their own free will. In 1880 a body of earnest people, many of them evangelical Christians, formed themselves into an association for the care of the poor and for beneficiaries. Scattered societies had already existed, and for a long time. For example, in 1840, Gustav Werner founded an institution for the relief of the poor of Wurtemburg, which has grown into a mammoth affair, and now numbers one hundred and twenty-four houses for labor. Other benevolent spirits had followed in his footsteps. But here in Germany the watchword is now consolidation, and so the efforts to solve the pauper problem have been combined. The association which came into being only four years ago, to help the poor out of their misery, has held annual sessions, collected important statistics, presented themes for better methods, and has rallied to the standard men of the strongest hands and keenest minds in the Fatherland. They have told the government some things that the census taker knows nothing about. Each report of their annual meeting is a stout volume, and a more useful document can hardly be found in the current literature of even literary Germany.
I have said that there is but little semblance of extreme pauperism—the actual putting out the hand for the coppers with which to buy bread and cast off clothes. But this retirement of the pauper from public gaze is a new thing. What has he been doing? Until very lately, to every German square mile, which is four times the English mile, there were ten beggars, who averaged a mark, or twenty-five cents, a day, by the desperate plying of their craft. Now, the German empire covers just space enough to make the voluntary gifts to beggars amount to 36,500,000 marks, or $9,125,000. This state of things existed in much grosser forms when the gifts were simply enormous, until very recently, and since the beginning of the efforts to solve the question of beggary.
But the one great thing that has come to light, and which is now presented to the German people with tremendous force, is this: the cause of the pauperism is intemperance. This revelation has been slow in coming, but it has come at last, and the statistics show that where there is most beer there is most beggary. Hence the efforts made to do away with public pauperism touch upon the still broader and deeper one of intemperance.
The desperation of the beggar is well known. Here in Germany they have a proverb:
Es ist und bleibt die alte Geschicht;Wer betteln kann verhungert nicht.
Es ist und bleibt die alte Geschicht;Wer betteln kann verhungert nicht.
Es ist und bleibt die alte Geschicht;Wer betteln kann verhungert nicht.
Es ist und bleibt die alte Geschicht;
Wer betteln kann verhungert nicht.
Which, rendered strictly, runs about thus:
The old story—we have it still;The beggar’s sure to have his fill.
The old story—we have it still;The beggar’s sure to have his fill.
The old story—we have it still;The beggar’s sure to have his fill.
The old story—we have it still;
The beggar’s sure to have his fill.
But the efforts now made, by the banding into one great organization all associations for caring for the poor, are directed toward the actual disarming of the beggar by giving him work, and making him work, no matter how he comes by his beggary. The government comes in to aid the voluntary efforts, and enacts laws against the asking for alms, and any one offending is in danger of the work colony. The general public are not only cautioned against giving to a pauper, but are informed that it is an actual damage to the State and to the recipient. The government, of course, has nothing to say about the great cause of vagabondism—namely, intemperance. But no one now denies it. It is a confirmed thing, in every rank, that it is beer which makes the 100,000 beggars of the German empire. Various measures have been resorted to in order to cure intemperance. The one adopted in a Hessian town deserves the credit of originality. The name of any person found under the influence of liquor was posted on a public bulletin, so that every passer by, and even the school children, could read it. The effect has been marvelous. Previously, public drunkenness was common there, and even people otherwise respectable were found reeling along the streets. But so great has been the change that public intemperance has been driven from the place.
But what is now done with the German beggar? He is given work, such as he can do, and is paid for it. The whole land is getting to be covered with groups of paupers, or “colonies,” who soon lose the odious name and business, and are getting gradually converted into respectable and thriving citizens, and becoming absorbed into the surrounding population. The German believes that beggary is a mania, and grows upon one like anyother vice or craze, and that it must be broken up. But the gentlest measures are adopted. Such work is offered as is congenial. The hours are adjusted to the person’s age and ability. If the pauper is an invalid, even that feature is cared for. His family is considered, and made a special study. His work seems to be paid for at a fair rate, and he hardly knows, from anything he sees or hears, that he has ever been a beggar. If, after leaving the colony, he relapses into beggary, his labor becomes more enforced, and assumes the firmer form of a penalty. Is it not about time that, in all countries, we look at the beggar with a sympathy broad enough to show him the way to care for himself, and to make to him the great revelation that even for him, with all his rags and habit of taking alms, there is still a possible manhood?
BY MISS FRANCES E. WILLARD,President of W. C. T. U.
Much as I disliked the restriction then, I am now sincerely grateful that my Puritan father not only commanded me not to read novels, but successfully prohibited the temptation from coming in his children’s way. Until I was fifteen years old I never saw a volume of the kind. “Pilgrim’s Progress” was the nearest approach we made, but it seems profanation to refer to that choice English classic in this degenerate connection. [I should add that Rev. Dr. Tefft’s “Shoulder Knot” was also early read at our house, in theLadies’ Repository; but, then, that delightful work was ahistoricalstory, and even my father praised it.]
A kind and garrulous seamstress who declared that this law of our household was “a shame,” told us what she could remember of “The Children of the Abbey,” and finally brought in, surreptitiously, “Jane Eyre” and “Thaddeus of Warsaw.” But the glamor of those highly seasoned pages was unhealthful and made “human nature’s daily food,” the common pastoral life we led, and nature’s soothing beauty seem so tame and tasteless that the revulsion was my life’s first sorrow. How evanescent and unreal was the pleasure of such reading; a sort of spiritual hasheesh eating with hard and painful waking; a benumbing of the healthful, every-day activities of life; a losing of so much that was simple and sweet, to gain so little that was, at best, a fevered and fantastic vision of utter unreality. In all the years since then I have believed that novel writing, save for some high, heroic moral aim, while the most diversified, is the most unproductive of all industries! The young people who read the greatest quantity of novels know the least, and are the dullest in aspect, and the most vapid in conversation. The flavor of individuality has been burnt out of them, always imagining themselves in an artificial relation to life, always content to look through their author’s glasses, they become as commonplace as pawns upon a chess board. “Sir, we had good talk!” was Sam Johnson’s highest praise of any whom he met. But any talk save the dreariest commonplace and most tiresome reiteration is impossible with the regulation reader of novels or player of games. And this is, in my judgment, because God, by the very laws of mind, must punish those whokilltime instead ofcultivatingit. For time is the stuff that life is made of; the crucible of character, the arena of achievement, and woe to those who fritter it away. They can not help paying great nature’s penalty, and “mediocre,” “failure,” or “imbecile” will surely be stamped upon their foreheads. Therefore I would have each generous youth and maiden say to every story-spinner, except the few great names that can be counted on the fingers of one hand: “I really can not patronize your wares, and will not furnish you my head for a football, or my fancy for a sieve. By writing these books you get money and a fleeting, unsubstantial fame, but by reading them I should turn my possibility of success in life to the certainty of failure.Myself plus timeis the capital stock with which the good Heavenly Father has pitted me against the world to see if I can gain some foothold. I can not afford to be a mere spectator. I am a wrestler for the laurel in life’s Olympian games. I can make history, why should I maunder in a hammock and read the endless repetitions of romance? No, find yourself a cheaper pattern, for I count myself too valuable for the sponge-like use that you would put me to.”
Nay, I would have our young people reach a higher key than this. Because of life’s real story with its mystery and pathos; because of the romance that crowds into every year; the plot that thickens daily, and the tragedy that lies a little way beyond; because of Christ and his kingdom—the mightiest drama of the ages, let us be up and doing with a heart for any fate. Humanity is worth our while; to love, to bless, to work for it.
“The cause that lacks assistance,The wrong that needs resistance;The future in the distanceAnd the good that we can do.”
“The cause that lacks assistance,The wrong that needs resistance;The future in the distanceAnd the good that we can do.”
“The cause that lacks assistance,The wrong that needs resistance;The future in the distanceAnd the good that we can do.”
“The cause that lacks assistance,
The wrong that needs resistance;
The future in the distance
And the good that we can do.”
These ought to be the bread of life to us, the tireless inspiration of each full day of honest toil. God meant this to be so, for only thus do we cease chasing about for happiness, and find blessedness instead.
I thought, while fresh in mind, to sketch a real, live, every-day romance of which my heart is full; and I ask true hearts to cherish the impetus it is capable of giving toward noble character and Christlike deeds.
One stormy evening about thirty-five years ago a gentleman of lithe figure and alert face answered the door-bell of his spacious home in Portland, Maine. A lady stood before him closely veiled, who, on entering the cheery sitting-room where the gentleman and his wife had been cozily seated around the evening lamp, proved to be the latter’s girlhood friend. She had come on the saddest errand that woman’s misery ever compels. What she divulged was none the less a secret to her loyal heart because an open secret to her neighbors. It was the old, old story of an inebriate husband who had not come home for days, and whose business situation was forfeited, and children on the threshold of want. She closed by giving the location of the saloon where she had reason to believe him concealed, and pitifully murmured, turning to Neal Dow (for it was he), “Can’t you find my husband, and won’t you bring him home?”
In his own decisive fashion Mr. Dow sought the saloon, found the two-fold victim of inherent appetite and outward temptation, and asked the saloon keeper’s aid in conveying the half-unconscious man to the carriage. To his astonishment this was refused in tones of anger, and the declaration made that he had better attend to his own business, no man liked this impertinent interference, and the saloon keeper certainly did not propose to get the ill will of his best patron. He also pointed to his license hanging on the wall; said he paid a good sum for the privilege of selling, and meant to get his money back with interest. This was Neal Dow’s firstinterview with a saloon keeper, and it aroused all the indignation of his upright nature and all the energies of his undaunted will. Turning to go he fired this Parthian arrow at the vender: “So you mean to tell me that you’ll go right on selling to this man?” and receiving an explosively affirmative reply, he added: “The people of the State of Maine will see if you will keep on selling.” From that time the grand old “Father of Prohibitory Law” took for his motto, “This one thing I do.” He associated good men with him; traveled over the state in his own carriage; spoke in school houses and wherever he could get admission; in his own phrase he “sowed the State of Maine knee-deep with temperance literature;” the common people heard him gladly; the caucus decided to send men to the legislature who would represent the people’s will in this supreme decision, and on the 26th of May, 1851, prohibition became the legal method of the Pine Tree State in reference to the liquor traffic.
During the great discussion that preceded this action three legislators were whittling, whistling and discussing “how it was best to vote.” Two of them said they should be struck with political lightning if they voted for the new law, but the third—“Farmer Skillig” was his name, I think—declared, in the honest, downright tones of the average “legislator with hay-seed in his hair,” that this was the right sort of a law, and he’d vote for it and take his chances. Sequel: The time servers were never heard of more, after they had served their time, but Farmer Skillig flourished on and on in the legislature like the green bay tree.
Last summer I met on the shore of Puget’s Sound, where he is a leading citizen of Olympia, capital of Washington Territory, Captain Hall, who told me a suggestive incident about the famous “Maine law.” It seems the bill was passed on Saturday, and the (Democratic) Governor Hubbard being absent from the capital over Sunday, it was feared the saloon interest would search out and destroy the legal copy, and as the date of adjournment was close at hand, the subject might be laid over for a year. True to their instincts, the liquor men did their best to find the “only true copy,” forcing their way into the State House on the Sabbath, breaking open desks, etc., but Captain Hale, who was a member of the House, had taken the precious “bill” under his care and carried it in his breast pocket until the Governor’s return, when his signature was promptly affixed and the law was safe. Four years later, by one of those “reactions” of which history is full, a license law was substituted, which, after two years of trial was overthrown, and by overwhelming majorities prohibition came again and took up its peaceful and permanent abode in Maine.
Like every other law it has been constantly strengthened by the introduction of better machinery for enforcement. The “search and seizure clauses” have greatly energized the executive arm; the outlawing of “clubs,” the including of cider, the provision for a constabulary force to be appointed by the Governor on application from a county—all these “cogs in the wheel” are a terror to evil doers, but a praise to them that do well. And now what has this law wrought out for Maine? It has driven every distillery and brewery out of the state. It has so decreased crime that Maine has less of it in proportion than any other state in the Union. Its state’s prison, by recent showing, had but 400 inmates, or only one in every sixteen hundred (1,600) inhabitants. In the same year Massachusetts had one to every four hundred and sixty of her population. It has decreased internal revenue receipts from the manufacture and sale of alcoholics to an average of seven cents to each person, while in the United States at large the average is one dollar and seventy-one cents per capita.
Many newspapers edited in the interest of license have circulated the report that Maine leads off in the number of persons arrested, according to its population, but artfully concealed the fact that so large a number of these arrests are not for what a license state calls “crime,” but are for selling intoxicating liquors at all!
In 1882 the United States revenue report shows that while $1.71 per inhabitant were collected in the whole Union, only 4 cents per inhabitant were collected in Maine. Prohibitory Maine has about the same population as license New Jersey; yet the liquor tax in the former state is only 3 cents per inhabitant, while in the latter state it is $2.40, and in the country at large $1.83. In reply to the assertion that tobacco and opium eating are taking the place of liquor drinking in Maine, I may mention thatthe tobacco tax paid by Maine is only 17 cents per inhabitant, while the average for the country is $1.00 per inhabitant; and that opium eating is far less prevalent here than in other eastern states.
This analysis might be carried on indefinitely with equally satisfactory results in answering the question: What has prohibition done for Maine?
In 1876 Hon. Henry W. Blair, of New Hampshire, introduced to the people of the United States the idea of constitutional prohibition, and offered in Congress an amendment to the National Constitution prohibiting the traffic in strong drink. Coming from a source so prominent, and following so soon upon the woman’s crusade, this idea was like the spark to tinder, being caught up with zeal in all parts of the nation, and petitions have since been addressed to almost every state legislature, as well as annually presented to the National Congress. In 1880 the people of Kansas voted upon this question, giving eight thousand majority for prohibition; in 1882 Iowa gave thirty thousand, and in 1883 Ohio cast three hundred and thirty thousand votes for, and only ninety thousand against constitutional prohibition, but was “counted out” by party manipulation, as the temperance people publicly declare. Practically, then, the jury of the people has passed sentence against the liquor traffic every time that the great chancery suit of “Home versus Saloon” has been submitted to them. Meanwhile, “the mother of us all” in prohibition work was Maine, and the whole temperance host, both within and beyond that noble old pioneer state, felt that she should not be outdone by her daughters of the newer New England in the West. And so petitions poured in on the legislature of Maine asking for the submission of an amendment to the constitution which should ground the prohibitory principle in the state’s organic law. This request was at first declined, not from antagonism to prohibition itself, for neither party dare attack that by any open declaration, but on the ground that since the fathers fell asleep all things might well continue as they were; new fangled ideas were well enough for new regions, but said the average politician,
“The good old ways are good enough for me.”
“The good old ways are good enough for me.”
“The good old ways are good enough for me.”
“The good old ways are good enough for me.”
Still the temperance people urged that Maine should not be outdone; that she should march with the age; that
“New occasions teach new duties,Time makes ancient good uncouth;They must upward still and onward,Who would keep abreast of truth.”
“New occasions teach new duties,Time makes ancient good uncouth;They must upward still and onward,Who would keep abreast of truth.”
“New occasions teach new duties,Time makes ancient good uncouth;They must upward still and onward,Who would keep abreast of truth.”
“New occasions teach new duties,
Time makes ancient good uncouth;
They must upward still and onward,
Who would keep abreast of truth.”
More than this, it was argued that constitutional prohibition has many advantages over local and statutory prohibition, and against it no good or logical objections have ever been made, although the organs, attorneys and friends of the saloon have said and written much.
Constitutional prohibition is superior to statutory because it is more democratic and best accords with the idea of republicanism. The friends of temperance, unlike the distillers, brewers and retailers, arewilling to trust the people.
Constitutional prohibition is superior to statutory because it is a more certain and perfect expression of public sentiment; because it carries with it greater weight and dignity; because it is non-partisan (though it requires before it a party to submit, and after it a party to enforce).
Constitutional prohibition best accords with correct principles of law-making, the constitution being a general statement of principles, rights and obligations. It can not be repealed by the legislature, since every member of that body on being “qualified” raises his hand in solemn oath that he will defend the constitution. It holds the law already on the statute book as with a clinched nail, and therefore furnishes a stronger cage and better lock for the tiger of license and the lion of taxation. If it does not kill him it chains the mad dog of rum and beer with a short chain and puts up a sign—THIS IS A MAD DOG!So that few will go near him andnobody can let him loose without the consent of the people.
For these reasons, and many others cogently set forth by Rev. H. C. Munson, Secretary of the Maine Temperance Alliance, the people pursued the legislature and the amendment was submitted at its last session. Public interest was at once concentrated on Maine; nor in America alone, but wherever English is spoken the heart of the people was aroused. From New Zealand came a letter to Hon. John B. Finch, the great prohibition orator and chief Good Templar of the world. It read in this fashion: “We hear that the parliament in your province of Maine has submitted prohibition to a vote of the people to know if after thirty years’ trial they think it the best method of handling the liquor traffic. Tell them for the sake of humanity to stand by their law, for a vote in Maine counts one in New Zealand either for or against outlawing the dram shop.”
Mrs. Emily Pitt Stevens, the gifted California lady who came to help in the campaign said: “If you defeat the prohibition amendment I can not go back to my vineyard-cursed state, and tell them so, but prefer to be buried face downward under a lone pine in the state that went back on its record.”
Mrs. Pearson, vice president of the Woman’s Temperance Association of England, and associate of its president, Margaret Lucas (sister of John Bright), declared that if Maine failed she would be glad that three thousand miles of brine separated her from the faces she would have no courage to look into. And so on every side rang the refrain of warning. Three hundred speakers went up and down through the state, most of them “to the manor born,” nearly all freely giving their services. This was perhaps our most effective argument as “speakers from a distance.”
Your verdict will be that of the whole Anglo-Saxon race. Sometimes a part stands for the whole, and to-day you are the world’s jury. Arnold of Winkelried stood for all the republics of the wide world. Luther stood for all Protestants. The men at Gettysburg stood for the nation. Who will ask, or who remember what man was chosen Governor in Maine this year? Only a handful of people for a little time, but humanity cares what decision you give on the outlawing of those dealers who would sell alcoholic poison as a drink, because we are in the midst of the great fight for a clear brain, and everybody has a vital interest that victory shall be won.
The “sword marks” of John B. Finch were everywhere; Mary A. Woodbridge, chieftain of Ohio’s gigantic battle, told how fields were won; Col. Chevis, a gallant Southron, “who served under Stonewall Jackson,” but whom the temperance cause has reconstructed, did admirable service. Mrs. McLaughlin, with her winsome eloquence; Mrs. Kimball, with her polished style; Mrs. Lucy H. Washington, with her rapier-like logic, all were there. Ministers of every denomination entered the field; a Catholic priest “stumped” one of the fifteen counties; the temperance societies were a unit in their devotion, and while the seething caldron of politics was at its height, the temperance campaign, perfectly distinct, went on beside it; with prayers instead of processions, torches of truth rather than pine knots, and “Coronation” instead of “We’ll vote for Blaine and Robie.”
Speaking in eleven chief towns on as many successive nights I found the W. C. T. U. had worked up the meetings with great care. For “a success” in this line does not “happen,” but is organized, preëmpted, captured by consecrated common sense. I can readily tell a meeting that is a work of art and “made up of every creature’s best” from one thrown together with a pitch-fork. In most towns they had the opera house and banked up the stage with flowers; in one there was a veritable hedge of golden rod; in nearly all the cross and flag were foremost, side by side, and our W. C. T. U. motto, “For God and Home and Native Land” was sometimes in gilt letters on emerald velvet, others in delicate tracery of decorative work, or in evergreen on a white ground. Always they gave our anthem of the national W. C. T. U., composed by Drs. J. E. Rankin and Bischoff, of Washington, and beginning:
“‘For God and Home and Native Land,’Our motto here we write it;There is no foe we’ll not withstand,No battle but we’ll fight it.”
“‘For God and Home and Native Land,’Our motto here we write it;There is no foe we’ll not withstand,No battle but we’ll fight it.”
“‘For God and Home and Native Land,’Our motto here we write it;There is no foe we’ll not withstand,No battle but we’ll fight it.”
“‘For God and Home and Native Land,’
Our motto here we write it;
There is no foe we’ll not withstand,
No battle but we’ll fight it.”
At Belfast the ladies had turned the Unitarian Church into a bower of beauty with potted plants in every window, the national colors in great folds above the people’s heads, mottoes in profusion, and on a table below the tall, old fashioned pulpit they had placed a veritable ballot box, borrowed from the town clerk, and poised over it a snow white dove with a “Yes” ballot in its beak. When I saw that latest “witty invention” of the unrepresented class it seemed to me pathetic beyond words, and so eloquent that no matter how spent might be the arrow of my speech, the voters must give heed to its appeal.
Thus gently and patiently wrought the W. C. T. U. of Maine under its beloved leader, Mrs. L. M. N. Stevens, of Portland, who has been for years the foremost temperance figure in the state, except Neal Dow, and whose mingled strength and gentleness outrank that famous leader in the people’s heart. Four days prior to the voting Mrs. Stevens presided over the annual convention of the W. C. T. U., held in the town of Gardiner, for the purpose of final and concerted action as to what should be done at the polls. Nothing proves more plainly the profound hold of the temperance reform upon the heart of woman, nor more surprisingly demonstrates the change in public sentiment, than the willingness of these conservative women of the church to go directly to the polls. At first they counseled with their western sisters who knew the methods pursued in Iowa, Ohio, and other states, but Mrs. Woodbridge suggested nothing beyond renting vacant rooms near the voting precincts, serving refreshments there, and giving out votes to those who passed that way. My own observations in Iowa were of similar character. I was in Marion, Iowa, on the 27th of June, 1882, their voting day, where an all day prayer meeting was held; the children marched and sang, the lunch was served, and out of nine hundred voters, eight hundred votes were cast for the amendment. But we women were like Mary’s little lamb, and “waited patiently about” till the voters came to lunch, though sending out the children with amendment ballots and bouquets. When these methods were suggested the ladies quietly said, “But the leading men in our towns think it important that we should see the votes go in, for they say ‘there’s many a slip ’twixt the cup and the lip’ in this matter, and our ‘Yes’ ballot might be cast aside when the men had left our presence.” It goes without saying that the western sisters did not discourage those brave women, but rejoiced in these modern Baraks who had said, “If thou wilt go with me I will go up,” and the brave Deborahs who had answered, “I will surely go with thee.”
Among the methods chosen was an address to the voters asking them to represent their home constituency, to be sent out just before the portentious September 8th, “a day for which all other days were made,” as it seemed to those earnest hearts. With this address plenty of “Yes” ballots were to be inclosed for the “vest pocket vote,” unknown to any save the man who casts it, is often a factor of power. Mrs. Woodbridge told the ladies that in Ohio they decorated tent, booth, or rooms of theW. C. T. U. with mottoes, and had prominently in view a large Bible, on a pulpit cushion, which, without preconcerted action, was almost always open to Isaiah v., with the passage marked: “Woe unto him that justifieth the wicked for a reward.”
A delegation of ladies came four hundred miles to attend this convention, from Aroostook county, which covers a larger area than the State of Massachusetts. The W. C. T. U. in that county has “conquered a peace,” and is the right arm of the enforcing power. They reported that one hundred Scandinavians had become naturalized for the express purpose of voting “Yes” on the prohibition amendment.
Among the resolutions passed by this convention was the following (an exact copy of the one adopted by our National W. C. T. U. at its last session): “Resolved, That we will lend our influence to that party, by whatever name called, which furnishes the best embodiment of prohibition principles, and will most surely protect our homes.” In the evening we had a meeting under the trees in the town park, where thousands congregated, and the full moon looked down on us, an emblem of the purity and elevation that characterize our cause. Though the street population was out in force, there was perfect quiet and decorum, and not one whiff of tobacco smoke sullied the pleasant air.
And now the fateful day wore on apace. Fortunately the Sabbath came just before, and representative clergymen of all denominations, including the Universalist and Catholic, Episcopal and Unitarian, had united to request that every pulpit should be a temperance Gatling gun that day, to send into the pews a steady fire of intelligent conviction. From the circular I take this sentence, which furnishes the key of the campaign everywhere: “One thing we very much desire:that there should come over our people next Sunday a deep and solemn feeling that this is God’s battle with sin.”
The waking thought of the white-ribbon host in Maine can readily be guessed: “God grant us good weather to-day.” What was that but another way of wishing for the best light on this last act of a great drama, only this was no mimic stage, but one on which the measureless hope and uplift of humanity were to be exhibited for all the world to see? Woman’s secret prayer was to be transmuted by spiritual alchemy into manhood’s sturdy resolve; the cherished hope of the gentle was to become the stern decision of the strong; the “cause” was to radiate out from temperance ministry and Band of Hope into the wide, free area of a mighty Commonwealth. Let me give from telegrams, letters, and newspapers, a few pulses out of the people’s heart that day soon after noon:
Portland, Me.Be of good cheer, all goes well. My faith claims a majority of fifty thousand.Mrs. L. M. N. Stevens.
Portland, Me.
Be of good cheer, all goes well. My faith claims a majority of fifty thousand.
Mrs. L. M. N. Stevens.
Bath, Me.At nine o’clock a. m., one hour before the voting, the church bells rang out their call for the friends of temperance to assemble and pray. Meetings largely attended, and conducted by the pastors. Ladies went to ward rooms to distribute “Yes” ballots.A delegation of eight young ladies were present at West Bath with bouquets for all who would vote for the amendment. “Yes,” sixty-six; “No,” one.One young toper voted the “Yes” ballot and the prohibition ticket straight.The boys of the Cold Water Army parade to-night with torches to celebrate the victory in Bath. Five hundred and six majority for the amendment. Praise meeting at headquarters.It was amusing to watch the men in ward five go down stairs to smoke their pipes. They did not like to do this in the presence of the ladies who remained until the close of the polls.The distributors of the “No” ticket were very scarce. In one ward a fellow passed them for awhile, but felt so lonesome that he gave it up.
Bath, Me.
At nine o’clock a. m., one hour before the voting, the church bells rang out their call for the friends of temperance to assemble and pray. Meetings largely attended, and conducted by the pastors. Ladies went to ward rooms to distribute “Yes” ballots.
A delegation of eight young ladies were present at West Bath with bouquets for all who would vote for the amendment. “Yes,” sixty-six; “No,” one.
One young toper voted the “Yes” ballot and the prohibition ticket straight.
The boys of the Cold Water Army parade to-night with torches to celebrate the victory in Bath. Five hundred and six majority for the amendment. Praise meeting at headquarters.
It was amusing to watch the men in ward five go down stairs to smoke their pipes. They did not like to do this in the presence of the ladies who remained until the close of the polls.
The distributors of the “No” ticket were very scarce. In one ward a fellow passed them for awhile, but felt so lonesome that he gave it up.
Bangor, Me.A barge, bearing appropriate mottoes, filled with children, was mounted on a wagon, drawn by four black horses, and driven by a well known citizen, from one polling place to another, and the way those young folks sung “For God and Home and Native Land” was a caution to the rummies! Button-hole bouquets were presented to “Yes” voters by the ladies. Ice water was furnished at each polling place by the W. C. T. U. Not a man was arrested for drunkenness or disturbance, and “Wicked Bangor,” which was given up as “sure to go no,” even by the temperance people, counts 1,718 “Yes” against 1,146 “No.” Praise ye the Lord.
Bangor, Me.
A barge, bearing appropriate mottoes, filled with children, was mounted on a wagon, drawn by four black horses, and driven by a well known citizen, from one polling place to another, and the way those young folks sung “For God and Home and Native Land” was a caution to the rummies! Button-hole bouquets were presented to “Yes” voters by the ladies. Ice water was furnished at each polling place by the W. C. T. U. Not a man was arrested for drunkenness or disturbance, and “Wicked Bangor,” which was given up as “sure to go no,” even by the temperance people, counts 1,718 “Yes” against 1,146 “No.” Praise ye the Lord.
Augusta.Seven wards; three to six women at each all day. Gov. A. P. Morrill called on Mrs. Dr. Quinby, President W. C. T. U., and said he had never known an election so orderly and pleasant. He and others attributed it to the presence of the ladies. He wished they could deposit ballots in their own right. Mrs. Q.’s sons, fourteen and nineteen years of age, went with her to the different wards. One pastor escorted his wife to the polls.
Augusta.
Seven wards; three to six women at each all day. Gov. A. P. Morrill called on Mrs. Dr. Quinby, President W. C. T. U., and said he had never known an election so orderly and pleasant. He and others attributed it to the presence of the ladies. He wished they could deposit ballots in their own right. Mrs. Q.’s sons, fourteen and nineteen years of age, went with her to the different wards. One pastor escorted his wife to the polls.