LETTER FROM ANNA GORDON, PRESIDENT OF WORLD’S W.C.T.U.

White Ribbon, Volume 29, Issue 343, 18 January 1924, Page 9

LETTER FROM ANNA GORDON, PRESIDENT OF WORLD’S W.C.T.U.

Believing: that ju«t now the United States and Canada are the thief demon stiatior* stations for Prohibition and its enforcement, I personally have felt our efforts in aggressive, intensive campaigns should largely be centred here, so far as my own contribution to world Prohibition, is concerned. In the . nited States we have safely imbedded in our constitutional law the Prohibition of Intoxieating liquors. The majority of our people obey and are in sympathy with the law. In the great majority of our forty-eight States its benefits on public health, economics, morality, child life ; md home happiness are steadily increasing. Kven in the States where enforcement is lax —states which did not enact a prohibitory law for themselves—we find conditions better than under the license regime. In the older countries it is very difficult to gain and to hold Prohibition territory, but slowly and surely the educational sapping and mining process is going on. and in due time the nations desiring to conserve the lx;st interests of their people will follow the example of that noble native woman ruler in India, the Begam of Bhopal, and will adont the Prohibition policy.

We rejoice that in the United States women in all the large organisations having a social welfare programme, women of the churches, women of the patriotic, fraternal and civic groups, one and all are pushing law enforcement and arousing the good citizenship of the country to the peril ot Indifference to the present critical situation. l/'W-

lessness, however, is not peculiar to the United fltates to-day, l>ut l>ecause the reckless element in our country cun include in its attacks and nullifications a constitutional law, the enforcement of which cuts across personal habit and personal preed of sain, pood citizens have more to reckon with in a settlement of the issue of lawlessness versus law.

Two tfroat international Conventions have announced their dates for May or June of 1925, to be held in the United States the Triennial Convention of the World I/capne Against Alcoholism, similar in scope to the Toronto Convention of 1922. and the Quinquennial Convention of the international Council of Women, of which Lady Aberdeen is

President. The general officers of the Worlds W.C.T.U. have agreed that our 1925 Triennial Convention shall meet in the United States in conjunction with dates to 1h» taken by these other great groups. The League and the (Quinquennial Council desire to co-operate with us in the selection of dates so that they may be consecutive and overseas delegates may have the benefit of special rates for steamships and cross continent travel for those who land on our Pacific Coast, and enable all who wish to do so to attend the trio of vitally Interesting Conventions. To this end we shall

work, and we hope soon to announce city and dates for the Twelfth Convention of the World's W.C.T.I . The Council meeting will lx* held in Wash ington, D.C.; that of the World Leagu« will probably meet in New York City. Knowing this basic fact that our next Convention ir. to be held in America

near the Atlantic sea coast ports of en-

try, wo hope all auxiliary countries will begin at once to organise Convention parties to visit America for these meetings. Miss Agnes Slack will soon bo writing you particulars, and 1 know she will be glad to render assistance to those on the other side of the Atlantic. Kven though the latest Convention of the World's W.C.T.U. was held in the I'nited States, we feel it is essential you should come again to our Prohibition experimental station and see for yourselves the splendid strides our law has made in the four short years it has l>een a Federal provision. We want hundreds of delegates from every quarter of the globe to come to us and carry back to their own people their impartial observations anil surveys. This would bring quicker and far more stable extension of Prohibition area and Prohibition principles than to have a few hundred of us Americans centre in

one country overseas for a World Convention. To our thought, the coming to America of friends of our cause from

fifty or more nations will mean fifty live wires in these fifty countries refuting the liquor props gamin, which now fills the newspapers of these lands.