temperance societies, and organizations devoted to political righteousness, comprehending all in one active federation, directing their total influence by practical methods to specific ends. The League binds itself to affiliate with no political party, and to be neutral on all public questions not touching the traffic in strong drink or civic corruptions springing therefrom; provided, however, that this pledge shall not hinder the indorsement of candidates for public offices whose election will further the objects of the League.

The membership of the League is composed of one delegate from each church, Sunday-school, Society of Christian Endeavor, Baptist Young People's Union, Epworth League, the Woman's Christian Temperance Union, the Prohibition Alliance, affiliating with the League throughout the United States.

The officers are Rev. C. W. McColl, President; Rev. E. S. Shumaker, Chairman Headquarters Committee; Thomas E. Taylor, Secretary; Rev. C. H. Winders, Treasurer-all located at Indianapolis. The members of the National Board of Trustees are Mrs. Lucy Thurman, Jackson, Mich.; James A. White, Columbus, Ohio; Mrs. E. E. Peterson, Texarkana, Texas; Miss Mary A. Lynch, Salisbury, N. C.; Mrs. Rosetta E. Lawson, Washington, D. C.; Rev. B. H. Tilghman, Burlington, N. J.; H. L. Billups, Sedalia, Mo.; Rev. W. G. Parks, Philadelphia, Pa.; Rev. G. C. Sampson, Indianapolis, Ind. There is a long list of associate members embracing the most prominent members of the race in sixteen different states.

Any person (colored or white) may become an associate member by paying one dollar into the League's treasury, and it is desired that many become associate members for the twofold assistance such act will afford the League.

V.

WORK AMONG THE NEGROES IN TEXAS.

By MRS. E. E. PETERSON, President Thurman W.C.T. U. (Colored)

During the state campaign of 1886-'87, the colored people were largely ignorant of the meaning of prohibition. Saloon men told them the common falsehoods that voting against liquor was taking their rights away from them, voting against their personal liberty, that it was only a ruse of the white people to get them back into slavery. And although the saloon men were and are all white, with not enough exceptions to be counted, they succeeded in misleading the colored people, and in buying the leaders among them—preachers and teachers, politicians, and all whom they could get who had influence in the community or town in which they (the leaders) resided.

There were few temperance men in those days, but they kept at work. At every association and conference and Sunday-school convention, there was one or more who would persistently make temperance reports. Many times it was argued by some that there was no good in temperance reports, that everybody drank just the same. But they continued to make reports. Twelve years ago, the National Woman's Christian Temperance Union sent into the state Mrs. Lucy Thurman, National Superintendent of colored work. She organized the women, and found quite a few to take hold. The first President was a teacher, Mrs. Fannie Hall, of Dallas, who could not continue the work, and resigned in two years. The second, Mrs. Dodson, of Palestine, also a teacher, then took up the work and was making rapid headway with it, but died after a few months' service. At the third convention I was elected, and for nine years have given my entire time to the work.

At first I found strong opposition to the cause, but by persistent Christian effort, and by living at the feet of the blessed Master for constant support, the sentiment is changed almost entirely. Not a leader, teacher or minister, of any standing in the state, of any denomination, will now offer one word in favor of the liquor traffic. None of the best men of the race will allow saloon men to pay them to work for the saloon in prohibition campaigns as we have had them over the state, and many are only waiting for the state campaign to come which we expect next year, since submission carried about a month ago in the Democratic primaries, and also was endorsed two to one in the Democratic convention which met in San Antonio.

We have fourteen colleges, academies, a state normal, and the presidents of all save one declare in favor of prohibition; and some of them are making speeches for it this summer in their summer campaigns for their respective schools.

In some of the counties in the eastern part of the state, where the colored people outnumber the whites two to one. prohibition carried by more than a thousand majority. In Matagorda county, in the southern part, when prohibition was voted upon the second time, after two years of prohibition, every colored box in the county carried for prohibition. Only one box lost, and that was where the whites were in majority. There are some instances where the colored people have not done so well, but even then the corrupt leaders are responsible for it. The masses would always vote right if the leaders were true. There are two Baptist Conventions in the state, and both endorsed state-wide prohibition, or rather expressed themselves in favor of it when submitted, which we hope to see done next year.

The liquor men have many intrigues to play upon the more ignorant ones of the race. For instance, in one county, a strong liquor man, not a

saloon man, but one who was in favor of the traffic, and no doubt was paid to be, had always been an "anti," saw that the colored people were receiving enlightenment on the question in the county campaign, came over to the prohibition side and announced through the papers, and in circular form, that they (the prohibitionists) were not going to allow the negroes to have anything to do with the election; that the white men of that county would not have black men running over their wives, and they all had better stay away from the polls on election day-and more of that kind of sentiment. The saloon men went to the colored people all over the county, showed them the papers and literature, and said, "We are going to stand by the colored people. You come to the polls on election day and you can vote for your rights," etc. Thus they pretended to show where they, the saloon men, were the negroes' friends. Sad pity! The poor colored people fell into the trap, and voted the curse back, and within two weeks after, in the county seat the calaboose was filled with men and women, all colored. Before that the calaboose was empty, and hogs were staying in it.

However, the leaders of the race and the people generally are becoming more and more incensed against the saloon. Where there are no saloons there is little or no race trouble, but where there are saloons there is often trouble. There have been nearly three hundred lynchings in the state, and not five of them have occurred in prohibition counties. In two counties last year, the saloon was brought back, and both have had lynchings since. Grimes county is one, and Milam county is the other.

Our white prohibitionists and Woman's Christian Temperance Union have ever stood by me and given me the greatest encouragement in counties where our own people were utterly unable to appreciate the effort. And many times, where the whites have come to the meetings and spoken and talked of it to the colored people, they too have been helped, through believing that if the best white people are with me, they too have a right to take hold. This is not true of the more enlightened ones. These have been interested all along, and now as a whole are in favor of the prohibition movement.

Our Teachers' State Convention endorsed prohibition in its last session in Dallas. Two M. E. Annual Conferences-Texas and West Texas, and one A. M. E. Conference-Northeast Texas, always endorse prohibition.

VI.

Here is an incident in the experience of Mrs. F. A. J. Gaudet, President of the Louisiana Willard Woman's Christian Temperance Union (Colored). The Union had started a campaign against the sale of liquor to minors. In the slum district of New Orleans Mrs. Gaudet intercepted

a boy leaving a saloon with a pail of beer. She called a policeman and requested him to arrest the barkeeper. This he refused to do, and also declined to take the boy into custody, saying that he (the policeman) had witnessed no violation of the law. He said:

"If you want a charge made you must go with me and the boy to the station."

"All right," she replied, "I will go."

"You will have to ride in the patrol wagon," he said.

Meanwhile the usual street crowd had gathered. She said to Mrɛ. Hill, one of their women:

"How embarrassing! How humiliating! But, if it takes this to win, God helping me, I will submit. We will ride."

The wagon came, and with the officer she, still holding to the boy with the liquor, climbed in, and rode away to jail. Here she had the boy and herself paroled. She took him to his home, and on the steps of his mother's house, at one o'clock Sunday morning, she read her a serious lesson, and turned her boy over to her, she to bring him to court Tuesday morning. On Monday morning a committee from the Saloonkeepers' Union waited on her, and promised if she would not prosecute the case they would keep every boy under eighteen years of age out of the saloons. She agreed to this, and they have kept their word partially.

It is notorious that the "race riots" in the cities of the north are the outgrowth of the saloon. There has never been such a "riot” except where "dives" flourish.

From the facts and conditions set forth so briefly and partially in this chapter, two things are evident.

1. That if liquor is entirely prohibited, the race problem at once loses its most threatening element of danger.

2. That the colored people respond as readily to good influences as to evil, and under favorable environment are faithful and dependable. 3. That if rightly led and encouraged they will themselves be of the greatest aid in overthrowing and destroying the liquor traffic among

them.

I

CHAPTER XXIX.

UNCLE SAM THE BIG BARTENDER.

“And now also is the axe laid unto the roots of the trees."

T cannot well be denied that the attitude of the United States government towards the liquor traffic is as anomalous as was its attitude towards negro slavery. Founded to establish justice, it denied justice to the negro on the basis of a compromise with slave-owners, as even now it denies justice to countless thousands of men, women, and children who suffer indescribable wrongs on account of the traffic in intoxicating liquors. Founded to provide for the general welfare, it ignored, under the slavery system, the highest well-being of a vast body of "persons" to whom it denied "personality," and in this day it still ignores the rights of men to be born into an environment free from peril to the fullest human life. Founded to secure the blessings of liberty to "ourselves and to our posterity," it inconsistently denied to the negro the title of freedom, and it still imperils the liberty of large numbers of citizens by tolerating the existence of a traffic which degrades the entire social and political life of the Republic.

The guilt of the government is infinitely more, however, in reference to the liquor traffic than it was in the matter of the slave trade. For with reference to the latter it had only a moral responsibility, while with the liquor busines it has established an open alliance and has made itself the chief beneficiary of this "trade of death.”

Under its constitution, this government, at its own instance, without coöperation of the states, or, even in spite of their opposition, has power to protest against the liquor traffic, to discountenance it, to tax it, or to prohibit it. This power lies in its authority to legislate upon questions of national revenue and expenditure, and to regulate intercourse with other nations and commerce between the states.

As early as 1790, despite Alexander Hamilton's opinion, expressed in the Federalist, that the spirit of excise laws, "inquisitive and peremptory," is inconsistent with the genius of the American people, a bill, providing for the taxation of distilled spirits was introduced in Congress.