Temperance Reform
Unitarians have been active in the cause of temperance, but again as individuals rather than as a denomination. The emphasis they have put on the importance of individual opinion and personal liberty has made them often reluctant to join societies that sought to promote this reform by restrictive and coercive measures. As a body, therefore, they have shown a greater inclination to the use of moral suasion than legislative power.
From Dr. Channing this reform had the most earnest approval. “The temperance reform which is going on among us,” he wrote, “deserves all praise, and I see not what is to hinder its complete success. I believe the movements now made will succeed, because they are in harmony with and are seconded by the general spirit and progress of the age. Every advance in knowledge, in refined manners, in domestic enjoyments, in habits of foresight and economy, in regular industry, in the comforts of life, in civilization, good morals and religion, is an aid to the cause of temperance; and believing as we do that these are making progress, may we not hope that drunkenness will be driven from society?”18 He regarded the subject from a broader point of view than many, and urged that a sound physical education for all youth, as well as larger opportunities for intellectual improvement on the part of workingmen, would do much to prevent intemperance.19 He maintained that to give men “strength within to withstand the temptations of intemperance” is incalculably more important than to remove merely outward temptations. Better education, innocent amusements, a wider spirit of sympathy and brotherhood, discouragement of the use and sale of ardent spirits, were among the means he recommended for suppressing this evil.20
The Massachusetts Society for the Suppression of Intemperance was organized at the State House in Boston on February 5, 1813, “to discountenance and suppress the too free use of ardent spirits, and to encourage and promote temperance and general morality.” This was one of the first temperance societies organized in the country, and its chief promoters were Unitarians. Dr. John C. Collins, who published the records of the society, said of the year 1827, when he became a member, that “Channing, Gannett, and others were the most active men at that time in the temperance cause.”21 Dr. Abiel Abbot was the first corresponding secretary of the society, and on the council were Drs. Kirkland, Lothrop, Worcester, and Pierce. Among the other Unitarian ministers who were active in the society were Charles Lowell, the younger Henry Ware, John Pierpont, and John G. Palfrey. Among the laymen were Moses Grant, Nathan Dane, Dr. John Ware, Stephen Fairbanks, Dr. J.F. Flagg, William Sullivan, Amos Lawrence, Samuel Dexter, and Isaac Parker.22 Auxiliary societies were organized in Salem, Beverly, and other towns; and these gave to the temperance cause the activities of such Unitarians as Theophilus Parsons, Robert Rantoul, and Samuel Hoar.23
Of the more recent interest of Unitarians in questions of temperance reform there may be mentioned the thorough study made by the United States Commissioner of Labor, and printed in 1898 under the title of Economic Aspects of the Liquor Problem.24 This investigation was ordered by Congress as the result of a petition sent to that body by the Unitarian Temperance Society. Probably few petitions have ever been sent to Congress that contained so many prominent names of leading statesmen, presidents of colleges and universities, bishops, clergymen, well-known literary men, and other persons of influence. The Unitarian Temperance Society was organized September 23, 1886, in connection with the meeting of the National Conference at Saratoga. Its purpose is “to work for the cause of temperance in whatever ways may seem to it wise and right; to study the social problems of poverty, crime, and disease, in their relation to the use of intoxicating drinks, and to diffuse whatever knowledge may be gained; to discuss methods of temperance reform; to devise and, so far as possible, to execute plans for practical reform; to exert by its meetings and by its membership such influence for good as by the grace of God it may possess.” It has held annual meetings in Boston, and other meetings in connection with the National Conference; it has published a number of important tracts, temperance text-books, and temperance services for Sunday-schools; and it has exerted a considerable influence on the denomination in shaping public opinion in regard to this reform. The presidents of the society have been Rev. Christopher R. Eliot, Rev. George H. Hosmer, and Rev. Charles F. Dole.
The subject of temperance reform has been before the National Conference on several occasions and in various forms. At the session of 1882 a resolution offered by Miss Mary Grew was adopted:—
That the unutterable evils continually wrought by intemperance, the easy descent from moderate to immoderate drinking, and the moral wrecks strewn along that downward path, call upon Christians and patriots to practise and advocate abstinence from the use of all intoxicating liquors as a beverage.
In 1891 a series of resolutions recommended by the Unitarian Temperance Society were adopted as expressing the convictions of the Conference:—
First, that the liquor saloon, as it exists to-day in the United States, is the nation’s chief school of crime, chief college of corruption in politics, chief source of poverty and ruined homes, chief menace to our country’s future, is the standing enemy of society, and, as such, deserves the condemnation of all good men.
Second, that, whatever be the best mode of dealing with the saloon by law, law can avail little until those who condemn the saloon consent to totally abstain themselves from the use of alcoholic drink for pleasure.
Third, that we affectionately and urgently call on every minister and all laymen and women in our denomination—our old, our young, our rich, our poor, our leaders, and our humblest—to take this stand of total abstinence, remembering those that are in bonds as bound with them, and throw the solid influence of our church against the influence of the saloon.