“Dear Sisters, Be Not Unmindful of Your Precious Opportunities”: The President’s Address at the 28th Annual Convention of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union of Southern California, 12-16 May 1910

by Paul R. Spitzzeri

In the face of often-rampant drinking of alcoholic beverages in 19th century America, the temperance movement rapidly rose, especially among women who often bore the brunt of the crushing consequences of alcoholism in the family. A key driver in the effort to bring about the legal prohibition of the commercial manufacture, purchase and consumption of beer, liquor and wine was the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), established in 1874 in Cleveland with a crucial figure being Frances Willard.

The Southern California branch of the burgeoning organization was founded in 1883 with a two-day meeting in Los Angeles and the next ten conventions were held in the early fall (September and October) with other host cities including Santa Barbara, Riverside, San Diego, Pasadena, Santa Ana and San Bernardino. From 1893, the late spring became the time for the gatherings, usually in May and other cities welcoming delegates were Pomona, Ventura and Redlands.

From 12-16 May 1910, the 28th convention was held, for the ninth time, in the Angel City and specifically at the First Methodist Church, which was a core institution in support of the WCTU. The pastor was Charles Edward Locke, who began his responsibilities with the institution in 1908 and whose 1913 treatise White Slavery in Los Angeles has been featured here. The first church was on the west side of Fort Street (renamed Broadway in 1890) between 3rd and 4th streets and then, as the 19th century yielded to the 20th, it moved to the northeast corner of Hill and 6th streets across from Central/Sixth Street Park (which, in 1918, became Pershing Square.)

The featured object from the Homestead’s collection for this post is the report for the 1910 convention proceedings and we’ll focus on the resolutions as well as the address of President Hester T. Griffith. Born Hester Tuttle in 1854 in what became Minneapolis, Minnesota, her parents being among the earliest Anglos to live there and her father, who ran a saw mill, was territorial treasurer for almost a decade. She graduated from the state normal school for teacher education at age sixteen and taught for several years prior to marrying contractor Elijah Griffith.

At fifteen, Griffith had an evangelical conversion to Christianity with temperance a critical component of her faith. When she and her husband moved to Pasadena in the 1880s, she joined the local WCTU chapter, but also spent four years at Salt Lake City in women’s rescue and prison work and became a leading figure in the Union there. Returning to the Crown City, she held important positions in the Union, rising to both regional chapter president and state president. Later in 1910 Elijah Griffith died and, almost a decade later, Hester married painting contractor Francis A. Miller and lived in East Hollywood until her death in 1930.

As to the resolutions passed for the convention, there were seventeen, with the first being that the assembled pledged “to continue our efforts to secure total abstinence and complete annihilation of the liquor traffic” while the second affirmed that prohibition was the only way to achieve that goal including the glorious day “when the saloon shall be outlawed from every state and from our nation.” Moreover, the convention insisted that there was “a single standard of morals” undergirded by “the highest ideals of purity” so that it added “that we condemn all books . . . [which] make a distinction between the sexes as to the obligation of virtue and moral action.”

The fourth resolution sought to strengthen laws concerning white slavery, which was explicitly tied to temperance, while the fifth supported woman suffrage. Another important concept, mentioned above with Griffith’s work in Utah, was to impress on the California Legislature the need “to transform the penitentiary at San Quentin into a modern adult reformatory, banning indeterminate sentences and ending a fee system. Resolution seven called for “the reading of the Bible, without comment, in our public schools and other educational institutions,” while the eighth demanded the shuttering of saloons on Christmas as well as Sundays.

Whether this was another influence of Griffith, the ninth resolution supported a Constitutional amendment to ban polygamy, while the tenth was very specific in commenting

That we regret that a teacher in Southern California is using wines in her food demonstrations, and do hereby courteously request her to cease the use of alcoholic liquors in her demonstrations, and that a committee present this resolution to this teacher in the name of the W.C.T.U. of Southern California.

Resolution #11 called for “this barbaric and brutal custom” of boxing to be outlawed, while the following one condemned the advertisement of liquor through the mail and supported the postmaster-general policy concerning the banning “all objectionable or obscene postal cards from the mails.” A thirteenth resolution supported more organization of young women into the efforts of the Union, while the fourteenth called for the banning of the manufacture and sale of cigarettes (though nothing was said about cigars, chewing tobacco and other like products.)

With the Panama-Pacific International Exposition planned for several years away, the fifteenth resolution demanded that the event not be allowed to take place in San Francisco until the city’s “standard of morals is changed.” Returning to the prize-fighting, the next resolution supported a bill in the House of Representatives that would prohibit any descriptions or images of the sport, including any reference to betting on fights. This specifically applied to the epic match between Jim Jeffries and Jack Johnson bout, fought on Independence Day. Finally, the last resolution was one of thanks for the local union federation, the Methodist Church and others for their support of the confab.

Griffith’s report began with a greeting that inquired that “with the ever coming and going of the cosmopolitan population of Southern California, are we not in touch with the world?” and celebrated the importance of the temperance symbol of the white ribbon. Young women would know they were safe in the presence of another of their sex who wore it, while “the tempted boy . . . is strong to resist temptation” in seeing. The drunk understood it brought “helpfulness and sympathy for him,” while his wife and mother of their children knew that those who wore the ribbon were “trying to make the world a safer place for her alcohol-tainted children.” The president added, “dear sisters, be not unmindful of your precious opportunities” in this regard.

The Methodist Church was lionized, while in a section headed with “Good Government,” Griffith commented that

We meet in a great city, the metropolis of Southern California, great in location, population, desires and possibilities, and yet to be greater when the Owens River Aqueduct and the Panama Canal are completed; but greater than all else are the people who have dared to stand for righteousness. Never in the history of the “Angel City” have there been better conditions. The world is looking and heeding. Proud indeed are we to have a city government than other cities are following. Good men have been willing to make the sacrifice and accept the public trusts; men of integrity and honor; men whom the people can trust.

She then pointed out reform Mayor George Alexander and added that the City Council was, for the first time, free of any smokers, while the body, urged on by women advocates, recently passed an ordinance forcing smokers to the rear of streetcars.

A brief “Looking Backward” noted that the wife of attorney Will D. Gould issued the call, after Willard visited Los Angeles, for a meeting of 38 delegates representing 427 members to establish the regional chapter with the gathering at the city’s First Presbyterian Church. Talks were given on grape growers, the work of the Union; churches’ responsibilities towards temperance; alcohol’s effects on the body; and finance.

As for the present gathering, it included 329 delegates from nine counties and representing almost 5,200 members. There were some forty departments at work on a wide range of issues and Griffith added that “we have learned the preciousness of comradeship, mutual helpfulness, [and] sisterly affection” as well as developed a greater religious understanding, proclaiming “How blessed in the all-inclusiveness of our organization!”

With regard to principles, these were to be unchanging as the president observed that “Jesus was non-sectarian, undenominational, making no choice of color or race or rank” while adding that “we believe in the gospel of the Golden Rule” in that a person’s life habits were to be an example for others. Temperance was simply completely avoiding that which is harmful, while there was only a single purity standard. She added that “the equal right to have opinions and to express them in the home, on the platform, in the pulpit and at the ballot-box” was also essential, as were a living wage, the 8-hour work day and more.

To those men who stated, “if you women would only do your duty; if you would only look after your family and bring them up right; if you would stay at home from conventions and keep your children off the streets, everything would be all right,” Griffith responded that women would happily do so if men “would only make the streets safe for the feet of the loved ones!” Where men were, however, “the mothers’ best-beloved [were] to be snatched by the liquor traffic, which not only destroys the body but the mind and soul.”

She went on to note that, in almost three decades, the WCTU advocated what was “compulsory physiology teaching in our public schools concerning the evil effects of narcotics upon the human system.” Griffith said that life expectancy climbed four years, though whether this was due to temperance reform is a question. She added that liquor was banned from the military, public buildings, museums, soldiers’ homes and immigrant facilities and that 70% of the nation was under some form of prohibition, with 11,000 saloons closed and 4,000 more just in 1909 alone.

In a “Good News” section, she added more to the list of achievements in the name of temperance, including the recent Angel City visit of President William Howard Taft, who, Griffith witnessed, turned down offers of tobacco and wine as he and the mayor set examples. The work in other states was also highlighted in the reduction or elimination of alcoholic beverages, though in California it was found that “the liquor men stand together, while sometimes the temperance forces are divided,” though a dozen cities banned alcohol in the most recent election. At the state insane asylum in Stockton, Griffith was given a demonstration of a warm water cure and it was felt that proper treatment could save the state a significant sum.

With regard to prison reform, it was reported that changes were being observed at Folsom and San Quentin, including a new matron of the woman’s section of the latter leading prisoners on outdoor outings, while the aforementioned matter of indeterminate sentences, such as those ranging for 1-14 years for a particular felony, was discussed and a New York law led, she reported, to an 82% increase in good citizenship among inmates.

Griffith further attacked liquor dealers, who were “conducting an expensive educational campaign” in which it was asserted that “temperance is promulgated by the moderate use of wines.” She insisted, however, that “science answers back” that “alcohol is a dangerous poison, even in small quantities” and she dashed the argument that individual freedom was at stake by insisting that the freedom to drink was not viable if it was infringing or affecting others negatively.

The president observed that “the pioneer work has been done” but suffrage was moving to the forefront so that “all that is needed is further agitation and enlightenment, and the women will stand side by side with the men for home protection.” There had to be cooperation among men and women and she asserted, “the ballot will not debase the home or lessen its power and influence, but will dignify and purify fatherhood, and motherhood will come into her own, and woman will be a better mother.”

Another important plank in the WCTU platform was compulsory physical education in public schools for those 20 million students involved. United States Senator Frank P. Flint offered a bill for a federal bureau of physical education and the organization supported the effort, as well as another Flint piece of legislation to have a children’s bureau within the Department of Commerce, so that welfare, including mortality, physical issues, juvenile delinquency, occupational hazards, diseases and more would be investigated.

Under the title of “Social Evil,” Griffith stated that social diseases were more of a threat than tuberculosis, typhoid fever and others. By “social diseases,” of course, was meant illicit sex, including prostitution. Reading selected literature cited by her would mean “more sympathy and helpfulness to the fallen” and prevent others from falling into such traps. She added that “there are vital social and economic measures in the interests of public health, morals and heredity” and the “exposed ignorant girlhood and boyhood should be protected by knowledge, and there and other there will we stop the terrible traffic in girls—aye, and boys, too!”

Addressing “Fallen Women,” the regional leader denounced the idea that prostitution was a necessity, with some evidently claiming that “ladies of the night” existed “in order that other women may walk the streets in safety.” Even if this was true, Griffith noted, such women “should be kindly cared for and have the best of hospital treatment,” but she advocated for “industrial institutions where they may be prepared to take their places in the world as respectable women.”

In a section headed with “Let Something Good Be Said,” Griffith lauded Judge Frederick W. Houser for his egalitarian approach in the courtroom, while Judge Henry M. Willis was praised for his modern approach to probation and a member of the district attorney’s office staff was thanked for his efforts to abolish the fee system. Public defenders were called for to help so “that justice may be meted out to the culprit before the bar of justice.”

Lastly, Griffith offered a series of recommendations including the application of Christian principles in the Union’s work. Wearing the white ribbon, attending meetings, improving house visitations, and throwing conference dinners and receptions for for members, ministers, public officials, teachers and others were also suggested. Displaying temperance posters and charts, including in schools and other public places was encouraged as was “make an effort to have sex physiology and hygiene taught in the public schools.” With libraries, she exhorted the assembly to “give more heed to the books . . . securing the introduction of helpful ones” and she added,

Be a vigilance committee to help enforce the laws and create public sentiment concerning impure postal cards, picture shows, and all things destructive to the purity of the home.

As immigration skyrocketed during this period, Griffith told her hearers, “give more attention to the work among foreigners” and that this offered “a great missionary opportunity.” She also requested more consideration for men working with the railroads and streetcars, telegraph operation, law enforcement, drivers, news agents. Notably, she advocated for cooler summer uniforms for the streetcar conductors to minimize stress. An anti-cigarette law, raising the age of consent for girls from 16 to 18 years, reforming the prisons, and a “marriage education reform bill” were also mentioned, as was working for “the Bible as literature in the public schools.”

The lyrics to a temperance hymn and a separate couplet closed the address and included these lines:

Courage! your work is holy; God’s errands never fail;

Sweep on through storm and sunshine, the thunder and the hail;

Work on! sail on! the morning comes; the port you yet shall win,

And all the bells of Gold shall ring the ship of temperance in.

Mother live will win at last; California’s going dry!

Send the word from hill to hill: California’s going dry!

Temperance efforts from local option votes to state legislation did lead, within a decade, to the amendment of the Constitution to set Prohibition in motion in 1920. For a baker’s dozen of years, however, the “great social experiment,” while yielding initial declines in alcohol consumption, also paved the way for a huge clandestine bootlegging economy, the illicit importation of booze from Canada, México and elsewhere, and the rise of organized crime built around these illegal mechanisms. In late 1933, three years after Griffith’s death, Prohibition was reversed and the 18th Amendment remains the only one ever to be abolished.