Temperance Movement Documentary
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- Duration: 3:51
- Published: 2010-04-12
- Uploaded: 2010-11-20
- Author: delizon5
The Temperance Movement by speakers Jesus Guzman, David Gonzalez, Donovan Fonseca, and Danny Elizondo (DEMSA)
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A temperance movement is a social movement urging reduced use of alcoholic beverages. Temperance movements may criticize excessive alcohol use, promote complete abstinence, or pressure the government to enact anti-alcohol legislation.
Many years later, in 1898 James Cullen founded the Pioneer Total Abstinence Association in response of the fading influence of the original temperance pledge.
Towards the end of the 19th century it became apparent that problems associated with settlement, such as larrikinism and drunkenness, were growing in society. Increasing urbanization heightened public awareness of the gap between social aspirations and reality of the young colony. Generalisations from newspapers, visiting speakers & politicians in the 1890s allowed development of large public overreaction and fervour to the magnitude of the problem of alcohol. It became the firm opinion of a number of prominent New Zealanders that the colony’s problems were associated with alcohol. In 1893 the Alcoholic Liquors Sale Control Act aligned licensing districts with parliamentary electorates. In 1894 Clutha electorate voted ‘no-license’ and in 1902 Mataura and Ashburton followed suit. In 1905 Invercargill, Oamaru and Greylynn voted ‘no-license’. In 1908 Bruce, Wellington suburbs, Wellington South, Masterton, Ohinemuri and Eden voted ‘no-license' and many wine makers were denied the right to sell their wines locally and were forced out of business.
In 1911 the Liquor Amendment Act provided for national poll on prohibition and the New Zealand Viticultural Association was formed to “save this fast decaying industry by initiation of such legislation as will restore confidence among those who after long years of waiting have almost lost confidence in the justice of the Government. Through harsh laws and withdrawal of government support and encouragement that had been promised, a great industry had been practically ruined.”
In 1911 a national referendum on prohibition was held with 55.8 percent in favour of prohbition, but not enough for the sixty percent majority required.
In 1914 sensing a growing feeling of wowserism, Prime Minister Massey lambasted Dalmatian wine as "a degrading, demoralizing and sometimes maddening drink." Another referendum was held this year with 49 percent voting in favour of Prohibition. The three-fifths majority was replaced with a fifty percent majority. The 1917 election was delayed until 1919 because of World War I.
On April 10, 1919 a national poll for continuance was carried with 51%, due only to votes of Expeditionary Force soldiers returning from Europe. On December 7, 1919 prohibition won 49.7 percent of the vote. Of the 543,762 votes originally cast the prohibition lobby only lost out by 1632 votes. Of the 1744 Special Votes 278 were for Prohibition. The pressure applied from the temperance movement crippled New Zealand's young wine industry post World War I. Restrictive legislation was introduced on sale of liquor, and by 1928 the percentage of prohibition votes begin to decline.
In the United Kingdom, temperance as a mass movement originated in the 19th century. Before this, though there were diatribes published against drunkenness and excess, total abstinence from alcohol was very rarely advocated or practised. The earliest temperance societies, inspired by a Belfast professor of theology named John Edgar, who poured his stock of whiskey out of his window in 1829, concentrated their fire on spirits rather than wine and beer. A more hard line attitude dates from March 1832 when Joseph Livesey started his Temperance Movement in Preston, requiring followers to sign a pledge of total abstinence. The term Teetotal is derived from a speech by John Turner, a follower of Livesey, in Preston in 1833. Livesey opened the first temperance hotel in 1833 and the next year founded the first temperance magazine, The Preston Temperance Advocate (1834–37). The British Association for the Promotion of Temperance was established by 1835.
The mass working class movement for universal suffrage, chartism,(1838 on) included a current called "temperance chartism". Faced with the refusal of the parliament of the time to give the right to vote to working people, the temperance chartists saw the campaign against alcohol as a way of proving to the elites that working class people were responsible enough to be granted the vote.
In 1847 the Band of Hope was founded in Leeds, with the stated aim of saving working class children from the perils of drink. The members had to pledge to abstain "from all liquors of an intoxicating quality, whether ale, porter, wine or ardent spirits, except as medicine"
In 1853, inspired by the Maine law in the USA, the United Kingdom Alliance led by John Bartholomew Gough was formed aimed at promoting a similar law prohibiting the sale of alcohol in the UK. This hard-line group of prohibitionists was opposed by other temperance organisations who preferred moral persuasion to a legal ban. This division in the ranks limited the effectiveness of the temperance movement as a whole. The impotence of legislation in this field was demonstrated when the Sale of Beer Act 1854 which restricted Sunday opening hours had to be repealed, following widespread rioting. In 1859 a prototype prohibition bill was overwhelmingly defeated in the House of Commons.
Despite this setback Quakers and the Salvation Army (founded in 1864) still lobbied parliament to restrict alcohol sales. Nonconformists were active with large numbers of Baptist and Congregational ministers being teetotal. In Wales Lady Llanover closed all the public houses on her estate and was an outspoken critic of the evils of drink.
The League of the Cross was a Catholic total abstinence organisation founded in 1873 by Cardinal Manning. In 1876 the British Women's Temperance Association was formed to persuade men to stop drinking. From 1880 to 1882 the cause of abstinence was revived by the Gospel Temperance or Blue Ribbon movement, based in America. They sent a member named Richard Booth to promote their cause in England through mass meetings held up and down the country. In 1884 the National Temperance Federation, associated with the Liberal Party was founded.
The temperance movement received an unexpected boost due to state intervention when the Liberal government passed the Defence of the Realm Act in 1914 at the beginning of the First World War. According to the provisions of this act pub hours were licensed, beer was watered down and was subject to a penny a pint extra tax. This situation was maintained by the subsequent establishment of the State Management Scheme in 1916 which nationalised breweries and pubs in certain areas of Britain where armaments manufacture was taking place.
Between the wars American exponents of the sterling example set to Britain by National Prohibition, such as William "Pussyfoot" Johnson and Dr Armor, toured the country, to be met with derision and (in Johnson's case) violence. In the end the dismal example of the complete failure of Prohibition in America put paid to any remote chance that the temperance lobby would succeed in achieving its aims in the UK.
It should be recorded that the former Manchester City F.C. football stadium Maine Road took its name from a street that had been renamed Maine Road (from Dog Kennel Lane) by members of the Temperance Movement. They selected the name as a result of the 1853 Maine law. Since the demolition of the stadium, the street's significance has reduced however it still retains the name as recognition of the works performed by the Temperance Movement in that area of Manchester.
Mathew James Fitzpatrick's in Rawtenstall is the last remaining temperance bar in the UK and still to this day provides the region with non-alcoholic beverages and cordials. The labels of their bottles bears one of the last temperance pledges to be signed in the area.
The future looked bright for the young movement, which advocated temperance or levelness rather than abstinence. But many of the leaders overestimated their strength; they expanded their activities and took positions on observance of the Sabbath, and other moral issues. They became involved in political in-fighting and by the early 1820s their movement stalled.
But some leaders persevered in pressing their cause forward. Americans such as Lyman Beecher, who was a Connecticut minister, had started to lecture his fellow citizens against all use of liquor in 1825. The American Temperance Society was formed in 1826 and benefited from a renewed interest in religion and morality. Within 12 years it claimed more than 8,000 local groups and over 1,500,000 members. By 1839, 18 temperance journals were being published. Simultaneously, many Protestant churches were beginning to promote temperance.
By the turn of the century, Mary Hunt’s efforts along with Elizabeth's and the other teacher's proved to be highly successful. Virtually every state, the District of Columbia, and all United States possessions had strong legislation mandating that all students receive anti-alcohol education. Furthermore, the implementation of this legislation was closely monitored down to the classroom level by legions of determined and vigilant WCTU members throughout the nation.
Temperance writers viewed the WCTU's program of compulsory temperance education as a major factor leading to the establishment of National Prohibition with passage of the 18th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Other knowledgeable observers, including the U.S. Commissioner of Education, agreed.
Because of the correlation between drinking and domestic violence—many drunken husbands abused family members—the temperance movement existed alongside various women's rights and other movements, including the Progressive movement, and often the same activists were involved in all of the above. Many notable voices of the time, ranging from Lucy Webb Hayes to Susan B. Anthony, were active in the movement. In Canada, Nellie McClung was a longstanding advocate of temperance. As with most social movements, there was a gamut of activists running from violent (Carrie Nation) to mild (Neal S. Dow).
For decades prohibition was seen by temperance movement zealots and their followers as the almost magical solution to the nation's poverty, crime, violence, and other ills. On the eve of prohibition the invitation to a church celebration in New York said "Let the church bells ring and let there be great rejoicing, for an enemy has been overthrown and victory crowns the forces of righteousness." Jubilant with victory, some in the WCTU announced that, having brought Prohibition to the United States, it would now go forth to bring the blessing of enforced abstinence to the rest of the world.
The famous evangelist Billy Sunday staged a mock funeral for John Barleycorn and then preached on the benefits of prohibition. "The reign of tears is over," he asserted. "The slums will soon be only a memory. We will turn our prisons into factories and our jails into storehouses and corncribs."
There was often considerable overlap in membership in these organizations, as well as in leadership. Prominent temperance leaders in the United States included Bishop James Cannon, Jr., James Black, Ernest Cherrington, Neal S. Dow, Mary Hunt, William E. Johnson (known as "Pussyfoot" Johnson), Carrie Nation, Howard Hyde Russell, John St. John, Billy Sunday, Father Mathew, Andrew Volstead and Wayne Wheeler.
* Category:USA-centric Category:19th century reform movements
This text is licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA License. This text was originally published on Wikipedia and was developed by the Wikipedia community.
![The orioles are a family of Old World passerine birds. The family Oriolidae comprises the figbirds in the genus Sphecotheres, and the Old World orioles in the genus Oriolus.[1] Several other genera have been proposed to split up the genus Oriolus. For example, the African black-headed species are sometimes placed in the genus Baruffius. The family is not related to the New World orioles, which are icterids, family Icteridae. The family is distributed across Africa, Europe, Asia down into Austral](http://web.archive.org./web/20110201015415im_/http://cdn.wn.com/pd/79/41/4c5dee164039e85a002220723b24_grande.jpg "The orioles are a family of Old World passerine birds. The family Oriolidae comprises the figbirds in the genus Sphecotheres, and the Old World orioles in the genus Oriolus.[1] Several other genera have been proposed to split up the genus Oriolus. For example, the African black-headed species are sometimes placed in the genus Baruffius. The family is not related to the New World orioles, which are icterids, family Icteridae. The family is distributed across Africa, Europe, Asia down into Austral")
![The orioles are a family of Old World passerine birds. The family Oriolidae comprises the figbirds in the genus Sphecotheres, and the Old World orioles in the genus Oriolus.[1] Several other genera have been proposed to split up the genus Oriolus. For example, the African black-headed species are sometimes placed in the genus Baruffius. The family is not related to the New World orioles, which are icterids, family Icteridae. The family is distributed across Africa, Europe, Asia down into Austral](http://web.archive.org./web/20110201015415im_/http://cdn.wn.com/pd/79/41/4c5dee164039e85a002220723b24_thumb.jpg "The orioles are a family of Old World passerine birds. The family Oriolidae comprises the figbirds in the genus Sphecotheres, and the Old World orioles in the genus Oriolus.[1] Several other genera have been proposed to split up the genus Oriolus. For example, the African black-headed species are sometimes placed in the genus Baruffius. The family is not related to the New World orioles, which are icterids, family Icteridae. The family is distributed across Africa, Europe, Asia down into Austral")
