WCTU Targets More Than Alcohol Now

Leader says union would block legalization of marijuana, curtail certain advertising, raise taxes

By Peggy Fletcher Stack
The Salt Lake Tribune
Copyright July 9, 2000

Mention the Woman's Christian Temperance Union and it conjures up images of 19th century housewives holding pray-ins on their knees at saloons, begging that the sale of liquor be ended. Or the excesses of Prohibition in the 1920s.

But the Temperance Union is not a thing of the past. Although WCTU membership has slipped from a high of 1.5 million in its heyday to about 5,000 today, its battles are no less important for the 21st century, said the union's national president, Sarah Ward, during an interview in Salt Lake City on Saturday.

Indeed, the group's concerns have expanded beyond alcohol to include a litany of contemporary issues such as drugs, pornography, gambling and homosexuality.

And its methods are the same as any other nonprofit, non-bipartisan group: lobby state and federal legislatures, send out mailings, set up a Web site, go on the speaker's circuit. As president, Ward does all of that and more.

On Friday, she met with Elder Richard Lindsay, an emeritus general authority who has represented the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on anti-pornography committees; George Van Kommen, an LDS physician who is president-elect of the American Council on Alcohol Problems, and William Evans of the LDS church's Public Affairs department.

"We are exploring the possibility of our organization and the LDS Church working together on common projects," Ward said.

Ward said Mormons are natural allies with her group because of their mutual commitment to abstain from the use of alcohol and tobacco.

To join the WCTU, a woman must take a pledge of "total abstinence" from alcohol, tobacco and illegal drugs. That means no celebratory champagne at the strike of New Year's. No occasional sips of wine with dinner. This is not moderate drinking, it is complete shunning, she said.

"We believe that first drink can be dangerous," said Ward, who took the pledge when she was in eighth grade in Knightstown, Ind., where she still lives. And neither a drop nor a drag on a cigarette has passed her lips since, she said.

In her keynote speech to about 30 members of Utah's Independent American Party at the Sale lake County Commission chambers in Salt Lake City, Ward offered her "wish list" of legislation:

*  To move alcohol and tobacco from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms to set up better controls of these substances

*  To put government warnings on bottles of alcohol

*  To ban all alcohol advertising from television just as tobacco has been, curtail these ads from sporting events sponsorship, teen magazines and movies

*  To continually raise taxes on alcohol and tobacco products

*  To block the legalization of marijuana

One of the projects that the WCTU will be undertaking during the next year will be to urge public and school libraries to provide filtering software to block selected pornographic material on all Internet stations which are accessible to minors.

"We need to take back our libraries," she said.

These efforts are fitting progeny to those WCTU founders whose goal was "the protection of the home."

The National Woman's Christian Temperance Union was founded in Cleveland, Ohio, in November 1874. Local chapters were called "unions" and were largely  autonomous, but closely linked to the state unions and national headquarters, set up in Evanston, Ill.

It soon became the largest women's organization in the United States, according to WCTU history posted on its website

"The crusade against alcohol was a protest by women, in part, because of their lack of civil rights," says the WCTU history.

Women could not vote. In most states women could not have control of their property or custody of their children in case of divorce. There were no legal protections for women and children, prosecutions for rape were rare, and the state-regulated "age of consent" was as low as 7. "Most local political meetings were held in saloons from which women were excluded," it says.

In 1879, Frances Willard became WCTU president and used her platform to attack many of these societal problems, of which the use of other drugs were only symptoms. The organization also endorsed women's suffrage and was among the fist groups to keep a professional lobbyist in Washington, D.C.

Willard's motto was "do everything." the history says.

Throughout its history, the WCTU has proposed, supported and helped establish such rights and groups as the eight-hour work day, kindergartens, the Parent-Teacher Association, uniform marriage and divorce laws, Traveler's Aid Society, and prison reform.

Besides alcohol, tobacco and drugs, the WCTU has opposed white slavery, child labor and army brothels. Though the WCTU's political power has been diminished, it is still "A 'do-everything group'," Ward said.