A 114-Year Tradition : WCTU’s Way of Life Has Been Clean, Sober

Martha Edgar of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union readily admits that things will probably get worse before they get better.

“Alcohol is involved in the death of well over 20,000 on our highways and in over half the 1,000 or more boating accident deaths each year,” she said.

Moreover, Edgar added, “most kids will have seen at least 100,000 beer commercials by the age of 18.”

Still, her abiding faith gives Edgar plenty of room for hope.

“I think the general public is changing its opinion. I think America is scared that we really have a serious problem on our hands.”

Buttressed by her faith, Edgar, a third-generation teetotaler from Evanston, Ill., is the outgoing national president of the WCTU.

“There are times when we do feel frustrated, I guess,” she allowed in an interview last week. “But if we can save one person from alcohol, that’s a lot.”

The 114-year-old WCTU’s annual national convention arrived in Anaheim last week, in the form of a largely gray-haired group of people out to save the world from the evils of drink, drugs, cigarettes and pornography. Of about 400 people who attended, most were delegates.

Established in the aftermath of the Civil War, the WCTU became the first international women’s organization and was at one time the largest U.S. women’s organization with a peak membership of about 1 million at the turn of the century. The nonprofit group, based in Evanston, now counts about 150,000 members.

“We are not a church, but we are the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, with a belief in the word of God and a commitment to Jesus Christ as Lord,” said Edgar, the wife of a retired Reformed Presbyterian Church minister.

The Protestant organization’s religious roots date to Annie Wittenmeyer of Keokuk, Iowa, who in 1874 became the first WCTU president. Wittenmeyer was a Methodist involved in the Ladies’ and Pastors’ Christian Union who edited the “Christian Woman” paper for 11 years. The WCTU’s second and perhaps most charismatic president, Frances E. Willard, also was involved with the Methodist Episcopal Church.

It was Willard who termed the Woman’s Crusade of 1873-74 “a second Pentecost” and saw the need to move “from prayers to politics.”

For many years, the Methodists cut a large swath in the WCTU because of that church’s opposition to drinking. Although the number of Methodist members remains high, many different denominations are represented in the organization today.

The early WCTU was involved in a range of causes: It helped to form groups such as the Parent-Teacher Assn. and Travelers Aid, helped establish some of the first day-care centers and fought for women’s rights and child labor laws, according to WCTU spokesman Mike Vitucci.

“They contributed a lot to the way of life of this nation,” Vitucci said.

Of course, in the early days, tactics were a bit different. The WCTU often drove its point home by taking on the enemy on his own turf. Bands of women would go to local saloons, where they would kneel and pray to persuade tavern owners to curtail their business.

The organization was in the forefront of the fight for Prohibition, which by the WCTU’s account was far more successful than some might believe.

In recent years, however, the WCTU has been overshadowed by more vocal groups such as Mothers Against Drunk Driving.

The WCTU’s lower-profile efforts include publishing myriad materials promoting abstinence, many of them distributed to children in public and private schools. Brochure subjects range from the dangers of crack cocaine to how to concoct an alcohol-less “cherry charm” drink of lemon, orange and grapefruit juices with a bit of cherry syrup (ginger ale optional).

Many Allies

Today, the WCTU has allies from the White House--First Lady Nancy Reagan’s “Just Say No” campaign against drugs--to behind the Iron Curtain. In April, Edgar met and compared notes with Dr. Valentina Cotel and Dr. Andrew Dmitriev, top-ranking officials with the Temperance Promotion Society of the Soviet Union.

“We have many unexpected allies in this warfare,” Edgar told conventioneers in the keynote address.

“There has been a dramatic turnaround in the attitude of man, especially the media, toward the WCTU,” Edgar said. “Instead of being an object of ridicule, the WCTU is now a source of help. Instead of ‘little old ladies in tennis shoes,’ they are women who knew what they were talking about all along.”

It doesn’t take much to join the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union: “$3.65 is the basic--a penny a day and a prayer,” Edgar said.

Composition of Membership

The typical dues-paying member is a 58-year-old Protestant woman from a suburban or rural area, according to Vitucci.

“The urban areas aren’t very active in this type of organization,” he said. “In the big city, everything is there: the lounges and the saloons . . . and probably a very highly organized drug supply system. It (WCTU) isn’t very active in a big city due to that.”

Not every member fits the “typical” description. And not all are women. Men and youngsters are welcome as non-voting members.

“And we do have young people in our groups,” said Colleen Wilson of Los Angeles. “Not all of us are senior citizens.”

Branches of the organization embrace youngsters from infants to adolescents and, contrary to popular belief, even young adults.

Perhaps the WCTU’s greatest achievement was the passage of Prohibition, the 18th Amendment to the Constitution, by Congress in 1920.

‘Crime Is Still Here’

“Up to that time, no other amendment ever was adopted so overwhelmingly,” WCTU literature notes.

Edgar is convinced that Prohibition was never properly enforced and that the crime associated with that era continues despite the legalization of alcohol.

“The crime is still here,” she said. “We have more bootlegging today than in the time of Prohibition because they don’t want to pay taxes” on liquor.

Moreover, WCTU literature asserts, the per capita consumption of alcohol is triple the level of 1933, when Prohibition ended, and the number of alcoholics has increased from 2.4 million in 1940 to 11.2 million today.

Prohibition will rise again, Edgar promises, but not before there is a drunk in every household.

“I think down the road . . . when every family in America has at least one alcoholic in it, America will rise up and do something about it,” Edgar said. “I believe they will ask for something to be curbed.

“I don’t know if it will come before the year 2000 or not.”