Representative women of New England/Lillian M. N. Stevens
MRS. LILLIAN M. N. STEVENS.—"As sweet and wholesome as her own piny wood" was Frances E. Willard's epigrammatic description of the woman—above named—who succeeds her as leader of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union hosts. Miss Willard and Mrs. Stevens first met in 1875 at Old Orchard, Me., and the friendship there begun ripened into the deepest affection as the years passed.
Mrs. Stevens was born in Maine, and her home has always been within the borders of that State. Her parents were Nathaniel and Nancy Fowler (Parsons) Ames. Her first public work was in the school-room as teacher, when she was Miss Ames. At the age of twenty-one she married Mr. M. Stevens, of Stroudwater, a charming suburb of Portland. Her husband is in full accord with her, and is one of the most genial of hosts to the multitude of her co-workers who are entertained in their hospitable home. Their only child, Mrs. Gertrude Stevens Leavitt, is an ardent white ribboner and one of the State super intenilents in the Maine W. C. T. U.
Mrs. Stevens possesses keen business ability and indomitable will power. She is a woman of culture, gentle in manner, and the embodiment of kindness. The old home, which has been for a century in the Stevens family, resounds constantly to the music of children's voices, for, although Mrs. Stevens has been prominently connected with the child-saving institution of her State, she believes most ardently that an institution can never be a substitute for a home; and, while she urges her Maine women to open their doors to God's homeless little ones, she herself sets them a practical example.
Mrs. Stevens has been one of the prime movers in woman's temperance work ever since the historic crusade of 1873 in Hillsboro, Ohio. In 1874 she assisted in the organization of the W. C. T. U. in her native State. For three years she acted as treasurer, and she has since been continuously its president, unanimously chosen. For thirteen years she was assistant recording secretary of the National W. C. T. U., for one year its secretary, and at the Cleveland convention in 1894 she was, on nomination of Miss Willard, elected vice-president-at-large of the National Union, succeeding to the presidency in 1898.
Besides filling these offices and leading the women of Maine as president of the constantly growing State W. C. T. U., working and speaking for it untiringly, Mrs. Stevens has carried on a great amount of work connected with the charities of Maine, having been officially connected with several homes for the dependent classes. For years she has been the Maine representative in the National Conference of Charities and Correction. She was one of the lady managers of the World's Columbian Exposition.
No woman in the organization which she leads is more loyal to its fundamental principles. None possesses in a greater degree the confidence of its friends and the good will of its opponents than Mrs. Stevens, of Maine. Only those who best know her realize the depth of her religious nature. Her creed is truly the creed of love, her life one of peace and good will. Her Bible always lies close at hand vipon her desk, and .shows much reading. From the well-worn New Testament lying upon her couch we copied these words: "Tell our white ribboners to study the New Testament. I love the New Testament. No human being has ever conceived as he should what the New-Testament means by 'loyalty to Christ.' Among the last words spoken bv Miss Willard, February 13, 1898." "Loyalty to Christ " may well be calleil the keynote to Lillian Stevens's life, and more clearly than do most people she finds Christ always among "his brethren" in poor, sin-stained, sorely burdened humanity. Mrs. Stevens has said that any written account of her would have little meaning could there not be combineil with it a sketch of the organization which has meant so much to her in her life work. In fact, it was with this understaniling that Mrs. Stevens consented to have a sketch of her' life prepared for this volume.
Perhaps no question is asked more frequently than "What has the Woman's Christian Temperance Union done?" and few questions are more difficult to answer with any degree of satisfaction. This is not for lack of material, but rather becau.se of an over-abundance thereof. A few of the more general facts of its history may here be presented.
The National Woman's Christian Temperance Union is the crystallized effort of the Women's Crusade of 1873-74. It was organized in Cleveland, Ohio, November 18-20, 1874. Its characteristics are simplicity and unity, with emphasis upon individual responsibility. It is organized by State, district, county, and local unions. Every State and Territory in the United States, including Alaska and Hawaii, has a State or Territorial union, and there is a beginning in the Philippine Islands. Ten thousand towns and cities have local unions.
Twenty-five national organizers, fourteen national lecturers, and twenty-one national evangelists are constantly in the field, besides those of the several States and Territories. One thousand new unions were organized in 1900. One-fifth of all the States gained more than five hundred members over and above all losses in the year 1900.
Organization among the young women has grown into a branch, with its own general secretary and field workers. It is an integral part of the W. T. C. U., and is known as the Young Woman's Christian Temperance Union, or the Y. W. C. T. U. Organization of the children into Loyal Temperance Legions is also a branch, and numbers two hundred and fifty thousand Seniors and Juniors. Organization among colored people has secured nine separate State unions and many members. Organization among the Indians is well begun in the Indian schools and among the more civilized adult Indian women. The department of organization among foreign-speaking people circulates literature in eighteen different languages, and keeps a missionary at the port of New York. It is not unusual for a national organizer to travel ten thousand miles m one year. This work is largely missionary. In 1883 Miss Willard and Miss Gordon visited every State and Territory in the Union, and completed an itinerary which included every city of ten thousand or more inhabitants by the census of 1870. Eight round-the-world missionaries have been sent by the National W. C. T. U.
Through Miss Willard the National was instrumental in organizing the World's W. C. T. U., which now includes fifty-eight different countries and five hundred thousand members.
The W. C. T. U. originated the idea of scientific temperance instruction in the public schools, and has secured mandatory laws in every State in the Union and a federal law governing the District of Columbia, the Territories, and all Indian and military schools supported by the government. Under these laws twenty million in the public schools receive instruction as to the nature and effects of alcohol and tobacco and other narcotics on the human system. Sixteen million children receive temperance teaching in the Sunday-schools, and two hundred and ninety-six thousand nine hundred and sixty-four of these are pledged total abstainers. The W. C. T. U. was an important factor in securing the insertion of the quarterly temperance lesson in the International Sunday-school Lesson Series, 1884, and in securing a world's universal temperance Sunday. Two hundred and fifty thousand children are taught scientific reasons for temperance in the Loyal Temperance Legions, and all these children are pledged to total abstinence and trained as temperance workers. The educational value of the W. C. T. U. to its own members through courses of study and practical work is immense. Before any other temperance society had taken up mothers' meetings, the W. C. T. U. had organized in thirty-seven States and Territories, and two thousand meetings were held in Illinois in one year. W. C. T. U. schools of methods are held in all Chautauqua gatherings. Indiana held a W. C. T. U. school of methods in every one of its counties in 1900.
The W. C. T. U. has largely influenced the change in public sentiment in regard to social drinking, equal suffrage, equal purity for both sexes, equal remuneration for work equally well done, equal educational, professional, and industrial opportunities for men and women. Through its efforts thousands of girls have been rescued from lives of shame, and tens of thousands of men have signed the total abstinence pledge and been redeemed from inebriety. The several States distributed nine million four hundred and forty-four thousand three hundred and fifty pages. The National W. C. T. U. printed and distributed in 1901 fifty-five thousand annual leaflets of sixty-six pages each, which, with its annual reports and other literature given away, amounts to over five million pages.
The Union Signal, the official organ for the National and World's W. C. T. U., a sixteen-page weekly, has a large circulation. The Crusader, a sixteen-page monthly, the official organ of the Loyal Temperance Legion, has a large and increasing circulation. One thousand columns are filled weekly in other newspapers by two thousand eight hundred and sixteen superintendents. Thirty-two States publish State papers devoted entirely to W. C. T. U. interests.
The W. C. T. U. has been the chief factor in State campaigns for statutory prohibition, constitutional amendments, reform laws in general, and those for the protection of women and children in particular, and in securing anti-gambling and anti-cigarette laws. It has been instrumental in raising the age of protection for girls in every State but two. The age is now eighteen years in thirteen States, sixteen years in nineteen States, and from twelve to fifteen years in the other States. Through its influence scientific temperance instruction laws have been secured in every State and Territory. Curfew laws have been secured in four hundred towns and cities. It aided in securing the anti-canteen amendment to the army bill, which prohibits the sale of intoxicating liquors in all army posts. It secured the appointment of police matrons, now required in many of the large cities of the United §tates. It keeps a superintendent of legislation in Washington during the entire session of Congress, to look after reform bills.
Eight thousand petitions have lately been sent by the W. C. T. U. to the physicians of the United States, asking that their medical practice and teaching, as well as their personal example, be upon the side of safety in regard to the use of alcohol. By petitions and protests Congressman-elect Roberts, the polygamist, was prevented from taking his seat in the United States Congress. Similar effort was made by the W. C. T. U. to retire Mr. Smoot, and the influence of this organization helped to bring about the Congressional investigation concerning modern Mormonism and polygamy. Because of protests the prohibitory law in Indian Territory was not repealed nor openly attacked. For the same reason the prohibitory constitution of Maine was not resubmitted. The National W. C.T. U. secures more petitions than any other society in the world. It is estimated that not fewer than twenty million of signatures and attestations have been secured by the W. C. T. U., including the polyglot petition. Other societies work largely through W. C. T. U. machinery in circulating petitions. The thought of the polyglot petition originated with Miss Willard, and it was written by her. It has seven million signatures and attestations.
The W. C. T. U. will continue to petition for federal legislation to protect native races in our own territory and in foreign lands. It will continue to protest against the bringing of Chinese girls to this country for immoral purposes, and against the enslaving of the same, and against the legalizing of all crime, especially that of prostitution and liquor selling. It will continue to protest against the sale of liquor in Soldiers' Homes, where an aggregate of two hundred and fifty-three thousand and twenty-seven dollars is spent annually for intoxicating drinks, only about one-fifth of the soldiers' pension money being sent home to their families. It will continue to protest against the United States government receiving a revenue for liquors sold within prohibitory territory, either local or State, and against all complicity of the federal government with the liquor traffic. It will continue to protest against lynching, and will lend its aid in favor of the enforcement of law. It will continue to work for the highest well-being of our soldiers and sailors, and especially for suitable temperance canteens and liberal rations.
It will continue to work for the protection of the home against its enemy, the liquor traffic, and for the redemption of our government from this curse, which redemption can only come, it believes, by the prohibition of the manufacture and sale of intoxicating liquors for beverage purposes. It is pledged to the highest interests of the great institutions of the world — the home, the school, the Church, the State.