The National Abstainers’ Union
By Editor
THE “Federal Council of Churches of Christ in America” has formed the National Abstainers’ Union for the purpose of inaugurating “a nation-wide educational temperance movement to present to the people of our country the latest scientific data of temperance research, and to urge voluntary personal abstinence as a real solution to the problem. “To accomplish this, it will compile instructive temperance information as shown by the results obtained in the industrial plants, on the railroads, and in the departments of the army and navy, both in America and abroad. An extensive press bureau will be conducted, to supply the public press and temperance organizations with timely and correct information. Temperance literature, printed in many languages, will be used among the foreign-speaking population of our country, and distributed to the immigrants who throng our shores. “This movement is of no political significance whatever, for the union will neither endeavor to secure legislation nor to enforce existing laws.” The formation of the Abstainers’ Union was preceded by two great mass meetings, the one held in Philadelphia, March 15, where the Hon. William Jennings Bryan addressed a monster mass meeting of sixteen thousand men, setting forth “the economic importance of total abstinence.” A month later, this address was repeated in substance at Carnegie Hall, New York City, following which the Federal Council organized the union upon the plan outlined in brief above. Certainly such a work as this is highly commendable, and all Christian people everywhere should work ardently along these lines of true temperance education. We cannot refrain, however, from wishing that the Federal Council would follow the same course in regard to Sunday observance, that they do in promulgating this temperance issue; that is, that they would not enter the political arena, and undertake to secure legislation for the observance of Sunday.