Our Conditions of Membership.

White Ribbon, Volume 1, Issue 9, 1 March 1896, Page 1

Our Conditions of Membership.

It seems to be necessary from time to time to remind our members of the catholicity of the YV.C.T.U. Intensity of purpose seems to have an almost fatal fatality for allying itself with narrowness of thought. While we welcome and admire zeal we must strenuously resist narrowness, lest we lapse into bigotry and create greater evils than those we are banded together to overcome. In this colony we have seen attempts made to create new tests of membership in the W.C.T.U Several years ago an attempt was made to impose a declaration of religious belief. Later we hear of the objection being taken to the election to office of a lady, who, though a total abstainer, frankly admitted her inability to endorse the plan of prohibition. In view of these attempts, and in the hope of preventing misunderstanding in the future, we reprint the following statement of the conditions of membership, contained in the leading article of the “ Union Signal ’ of Dec. 5, 1895. To sign the total abstinence pledge and pay the annual fee are the sole condition of membership in the Women's Christian Temperance Union .