JOURNAL OF STUDIES ON ALCOHOL, VOL. 39 (9), 1591-1606, 1978. THE INSTITUTIONAL PHASE OF THE WASHINGTONIAN TOTAL ABSTINENCE MOVEMENT A Research Note Leonard U. Blumberg SUMMARY. Many of the practices and beliefs of the Washingtonian Total Abstinence Movement were adopted by reformatory homes for "drunkards" that were established in Boston, Chicago and Philadelphia in the mid-1800s. IN A BALTIMORE TAVERN on 5 April 1840 the Washingtonian Total Abstinence Movement began as a working-class anti-alcoholism and temperance movement. As a distinct social movement the Washingtonian Total Abstinence Movement had a relatively short life; it had largely lost its dynamic qualities in most parts of the country by late 1844 or early 1845. Within those few years it had a growth curve that may be characterized by the following stages: 1. The movement had a "gestation" period in Baltimore of about 6 to 9 months. Such an inconspicuous beginning and an initial slow development are typical of social movements. The early development was along friendship networks; the six founders of the group agreed that at the next meeting after they established themselves as a society they would each bring two friends who were also drunkards or heavy drinkers. 2. This was followed by a growth spurt and the group held a public meeting in November 1840. To date no newspaper announcement or broadsheet has been located, so that while we know that the Washington Total Abstinence in Baltimore "went public" we do not know the exact mechanism which linked the society with its projected public. But clearly a second component had been added to the way that the group reached out to find those relevant to its concern; this probably included the press (both newspapers and broadsides) as well as the existing temperance organizations in Baltimore. 3. There followed a period of relatively rapid expansion to the major population centers of the United States during 1841 and 1842. This expansion from Baltimore was initiated by the existing temperance societies which wrote to the Baltimore Society and asked for speakers. The Baltimore group facilitated the process by sending "missionaries" to New York, Boston (by way of Worcester), Philadelphia and elsewhere. One of the most prominent of these early missionaries was John Hawkins, a hatter who had become a drunkard and then had been persuaded to stop drinking by the Baltimore Washingtonians; he proved to be a persuasive speaker and his story of his "experiences" was melodramatic (1). Hawking was a star on the temperance-prohibitionist lecture circuit for many years, having been ordained as a Methodist minister with the understanding that he would specialize in temperance work. There were others such as John Gogh, who were caught up in the movement, became powerful speakers and also achieved middle-class status as a consequence. 4. A high point was achieved during the spring and summer of 1842. The expansion into the major cities was quickly followed by a tendency toward regionalization. That is, Washingtonian missionaries were invited to small towns and villages of a region; they went because they were filled with the zeal that was created by their own conversion and by the Washingtonian caring philosophy. Local temperance groups provided both publicity and places to meet. It was during this dynamic period that locally and regionally prominent persons, such as Abraham Lincoln, were called upon (and found it expedient) to give speeches at the Washington Is Birthday and Independence Day parade-picnic-demonstrations that were sponsored by the local Washingtonian Total Abstinence Society. The theme of these speeches was the denunciation of "King Alcohol" and an analogy between the declaration of independence from the British crown and a declaration of independence from King Alcohol. Often there was a rallying cry for the mobilization of the army of the righteous against King Alcohol, for alcohol was not only anthropomorphized, but a devil figure as well. The excitement about the Washingtonian Movement was sufficiently great within some localities that the local temperance societies (which were probably never very large in numbers in that period despite their vociferousness) were no longer able to function. In Boston, for instance, the local temperance society was unable to conduct its affairs during this period and discontinued its monthly meetings, the members having voted to join and become active in the Boston Washingtonian Total Abstinence Society. (While aimed primarily at drunkards and heavy drinkers, the Washingtonian societies were open to all persons who signed the pledge.) Thus, the local temperance organizations not only provided the previously existing network of relationships for the rapid expansion of the Washingtonian Movement, a phenomenon suggested by others, but, to use political language, the previously existing temperance societies "co-opted" the Washingtonians and colonized the Washingtonian societies also. 5. There followed a curve of decline into obscurity; most local groups apparently became moribund in the succeeding years, but there is reason to believe that Washingtonian societies continued in Boston (at least into the 1860s), Worcester and possibly in Illinois into the 1870s. Although a social movement my be highly controversial and may even be objectively a "failure" because it did not completely convert the populace to its program, nonetheless more conservative elements of the population may adopt programmatic elements or "fragments" of a movement. Once these programmatic elements become institutionalized as autonomous entities outside the movement organizations, they have their own course of development which eventuates in programs which are quite different from the methods or concerns of the movement. Thus, Hawkins and Gough, who started as Washingtonian moral suasionists, became prohibitionist speakers, although they continued to be strongly sympathetic to drunkards. The Sons of Temperance, a fraternal order, continued the warm fellowship of the Washingtonians, and Christian temperance revivalists continued "telling experiences"; but they had Protestant church support and thereby undercut the anti-clericalism of some of the Washingtonians (and other temperance-prohibitionist) speakers. In the 1870s the Reynolds and the Murphy ribbon campaigns, while different in important aspects from the Washingtonian Movement, emphasized a missionary approach, telling experiences, the pledge and total abstinence. Reynolds was a physician and Murphy was a former saloon-keeper; both were former drunkards who had had conversion experiences. The best recent treatment of the Washingtonian Movement is Maxwell's 1950 article (2). His summary of the movement I s practices and ideology includes the following points: (1) alcoholics helped each other; (2) the needs and interests of alcoholics were kept central; (3) there were weekly meetings of members of the various societies; (4) the fellowship of the group and its members was always available to fellow alcoholics, whether members of the local Washingtonian society or not; (5) there was a sharing of "experiences," that is, alcoholics told each other of their past lives, how they had bested King Alcohol, and the good things that had come of it (in a way that Americans have come to label a "Horatio Alger" success story); (6) there was a reliance on the power of God; and (7) total abstinence from alcohol was advocated as the only way to meet the problem. To these should be added the following: (8) advocacy of moral persuasion rather than prohibition legislation or condemnation of liquor dealers as the means to fight King Alcohol; (9) heavy emphasis on a total abstinence pledge; (10) a style of spreading the "good news' through traveling delegations that followed the biblical model of the Apostles' going two-by-two to spread the gospel and convert the sinners; (11) organizational decentralization - the basic unit was the local society, although within several years, at least in the Boston area, some country organizations and a state convention also evolved; and (12) a distinct working-class appeal, although persons of the middle classes also joined and often were prominent at the country and state conventions. Since the movement had a short life, these higher organizational levels were not widespread.   SOURCES OF INFORMATION The discussion which follows is based on a synthesis of materials which vary considerably in completeness and are not equally available for all institutions. The single most important type of source was the annual report; the annual runs were more complete for some periods and institutions than for others. These reports, as well as various ephemeral publications, are available at the Boston Atheneum, the Library and Archives of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, the Massachusetts Historical Society, the Chicago Historical Society, the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, the Rhode Island Historical Society, the New York Public Library, the New York Historical Society, and the Countway - Harvard University Medical School Library. Some more recent annual reports as well as some minutes of Boards of Directors' (Executive Committee) meetings were made available by administrators or staff members of the Boston Washingtonian Hospital and the Martha Washington Hospital in Chicago. Information about the Boston Washington Hospital in the early 1940s has also been obtained from the Merrill Moore manuscript collection in the Archives Collection of the Library of Congress. Some records of the Franklin Reformatory Home are on deposit with the Pennsylvania Historical Society. Records and annual reports of the Women Is Prison Association are available at the Isaac T. Hopper Home in New York City. A number of ephemeral publications about the Boston and Chicago institutions were made available by institutional administrators or staff members. In addition to these more or less internal documents, there were occasional references to these institutions in the Quarterly Journal of Inebriety and the Journal of the American Temperance Union. In addition, a number of commentaries and bits of legal testimony throw some light on how the institutions and their leadership were perceived. This investigation has involved the following kinds and sources of materials: (1) The American Association for the Study and Cure of Inebriety, Proceedings and Journal, 1870-1917; (2) annual reports and Journal of the American Temperance Union, 1837-62; (3) New Washingtonian (monthly newspaper of the Washingtonian Rome of Chicago) 1876-93; (4) Maine Temperance Gazette and Washingtonian Herald, 1840s; (5) Washingtonian speeches, Washington's Birthday and Independence Day, 1842, by Abraham Lincoln (from the Sangamo Journal) and by others; (6) all available annual reports of the institutions discussed; (7) archival materials such as minutes, day-books and ledgers, correspondence and memoranda (mostly of the Boston Home and Hospital) but also of the Chicago Home and Hospital; (8) relatively current materials in organization files, pamphlets, board minutes and miscellaneous reports (mostly of the Boston Home and Hospital, the Chicago Home and the Hopper Home); and (9) interviews with executives of institutions and agencies in Boston, Chicago and New York. In addition to the Washington Total Abstinence Societies, which met weekly or oftener, there also developed residential institutions that were at first called "asylums" and later called "homes" (or "reformatory homes"). While briefly mentioned in Maxwell's 1950 article, the best published description of the Washingtonian reformatory homes is Arthur's description in 1877 (3). The present report is intended to extend Maxwell's work and, in doing this, to describe the institutional phase of the Washingtonian Movement and its organizational transformation in the years that followed Arthur's ascription. The Washingtonian homes were residential facilities for persons with serious alcohol problems. In those days "drunkard" was the commonly used term, though medical specialists and other professionals sometimes referred to the condition as "oenomania" (pronounced "winomania") and "dipsomania"; "alcoholic" later came into vogue. The first Washingtonian residential facilities in Boston were purely ad hoc. The Washington Total Abstinence Society of Boston was organized in April 1841. There was an early concern for the "reformed men," and a few committed temperance workers offered to take care of them for a few days until they could take care of themselves. But this proved too burdensome and the society rented some rooms near Marlborough Chapel, where they held their meetings. This also proved too expensive for the society and was given up (4, 1860). The funds that had been solicited for an "Asylum Fund" were used otherwise: "After much thought various calculations were made, it was found to be the cheapest and the best course to pursue the system of boarding out those who might be thrown upon their [the society's] hands, and thus save the expense of house-rent, furniture, keeper, and help in the house, fuel, and many other heavy expenses. They accordingly selected three good boarding-houses, kept by discreet members of the Society, who have thus far given entire satisfaction: charging no more than the actual time the boarders have remained" (5,p.4). In addition, the reasoning of the Boston Washingtonians was that those so boarded were aware that it cost money, and this was believed to be a pressure to find work and be self-supporting. There was no "treatment" program because those who were cared for undoubtedly were expected to take full part in the activities of the Washington Total Abstinence Society under whose care they were. This set of arrangements did not last very long. In 1844 the society rented a former museum as a meeting hall and in the basement "fitted up accommodations for men who were drunkards and had no homes to go to. It was a rough, rude place- bunks built up by the side of the wall, cheap but strong - the bedding clean, yet very plain - the table made of an old chest which contained the cast off clothes begged by the society - the dishes, what few there were borrowed from an adjacent eating house - a small stove and kettle to heat water, and tin cup or two, constituted the principal fitting up of the place" (4, 1867). The society was unable to raise enough money to support its asylum and it was closed in 1845. A somewhat similar development took place in New York which had "houses of refuge" where "miserable inebriates were taken out of the gutter, and washed, and clothed, and lodged, and fed, and kept until they came to their right mind; when they were suffered to depart in peace, often having some regular employment provided for them" (6, p.58). These houses of refuge did not last through 1842. The Washington Total Abstinence Society lingered on in Boston until at least 1860, although its principle of moral suasion was substantially eclipsed by the now invigorated absolutist prohibitionist branch of the temperance movement. There seems to have been no organized continuity between the Washington Society's Asylum, which closed in 1845, and the Home for the Fallen which opened in Boston in November 1857. There was ideological continuity, however. The Home for the Fallen was organized at the urging of Reverend Phineas Stowe, minister of the Mariners' Bethel in the North End of Boston. Four of the officers of the home, including Stowe, had been active in the Washington Total Abstinence Society in the 1840s. The plan to establish a "Retreat for Inebriates"initially received little support from "old and tried friends of the Temperance cause [who] looked askance at the movement as utopian in its character, and destined to a speedy failure" (4, 1860). A one-term Massachusetts legislator, and longtime superintendent of the home, Albert Day, was instrumental in getting the attention of other legislators; the temperance prohibitionist legislators were organized into the Massachusetts Legislative Temperance Society, a quasicaucas, and a group of "reformed men" from the Home for the Fallen "addressed their meeting with much power" (7, p.64). The legislature incorporated the home in 1859 as The Washingtonian Home and gave the institution a small grant-in-aid for about 12 years (8). It is not clear why the legislature changed the name at the time of incorporation, but presumably it was because the name that Reverend Stowe had chosen suggested that it was an institution for "fallen women"; the Washingtonian label, by the same token, was self-explanatory during that period. The Washingtonian Home in Boston went through a variety of vicissitudes and still exist today as the Washingtonian Center for Addictions - a medical and psychiatric center for alcohol and drug addicts. While it proudly upholds the name, the Washingtonian ideology and practices disappeared from the institution many years ago. At this point it is necessary to consider a conceptual problem that these data have inadvertently raised. All the currently available evidence indicates that, with a few possible exceptions, the Washington Total Abstinence societies had disappeared into the temperance - prohibitionist movement by the time of the Civil War. There is no evidence of organizational continuity between the Washingtonian societies of the 1840s and the Washingtonian reformatory homes, despite the fact that both in the Boston Worcester area and in Illinois there continued to be Washingtonians after the homes were established. Duis (9, pp.368-375) argues that by the time of the Civil War the term "Washingtonian" had come to be the generic term for drunkard reform. If one takes his approach, the homes are to be regarded simply as manifestations of the temperance - prohibitionist movement. Since the Chicago home was started and received its earliest support from the temperance prohibitionists, this is a reasonable conclusion. But reference group theory suggests an alternative one, and it is that alternative position that is taken in the present discussion. Reference group theory makes a distinction between membership groups, i.e., groups to which one belongs at a particular time and place, and groups which are referents for one's behavior and attitudes. One need not be actively affiliated with a reference group to adopt its principles and practices; indeed, the reference group may no longer exist. That is, one may be unconnected with a reference group in both time and place. One "belongs" to a reference group as evidenced by identification, by behavior, and by the statements that one uses to justify one's behavior. Thus, if we assert that the Washingtonian reformatory homes were the institutional phase of the Washingtonian Total Abstinence Movement, we are saying that the homes had the movement as a reference group. According to Sosensky (10) we are thereby asserting an analogy and, he argues, analogies must be demonstrated by a statement of "respects," i.e., in what respect are the two elements in the equation the same or similar? The closer the respects, the more nearly the analogy is correct until we approach the final case where the two elements are identical. The fewer the respects, the more inappropriate the analogy. The assertion of a reference group relationship, then, is the assertion of an analogy, and, in the present case, rests on the fact that the first nine aspects of the Washington Total Abstinence Movement's practices and ideology that are listed above were also applicable to reformatory homes in their earlier years. Not only is the Washington Home in Boston the oldest such institution in the United States but it was the model or principal influence for the others that subsequently developed. Thus, on Sunday evening, 31 January 1864, at a public meeting (that is, one open to nonresidents as well as residents) Albert Day, superintendent of the home in Boston, announced that another Washingtonian Rome had been started in Chicago. The Washingtonian Home in Chicago had opened earlier in the month, and its prime mover, Rollo A. Laws, a printer and publisher of temperance materials, may well have been in the room when Day made his announcement. Laws visited the Boston Washingtonian Home about that time and it would have been peculiar for him to have gone all that distance and not to have stayed for the weekly public meeting at the Boston Home. A committee was appointed and subsequently an "address" was prepared and sent: "The Graduates and Inmates of the Washingtonian Home, Boston, to the inmates of the Washingtonian Home, Chicago, Men and Brethren: - We have heard, with profound emotions of gratitude and pleasure, that a Washingtonian Home for the cure of drinking habits has been established in the great city of Chicago; and it has appeared to us meet and proper that we send greetings and congratulations to you upon a fact so encouraging" (11). The address then goes on to recite the principles of the Washingtonians reform including moral suasion and total abstinence. ("Beware the first glass! It is that which does the mischief. Beware the first glass. It contains the seeds of death. Beware the first glass, and you are safe. No power can make you a drunkard again, if you are resolute to refuse the first glass.") It ends with a claim of fellowship with the Chicago Washingtonian inmates, and a hope that the "peace of God rests upon the Washingtonian Home of Chicago." The inmates of the Washingtonian Home of Chicago wrote a response which began: "Words will fail to express the depth of gratification we have felt on receiving your cordial welcome. Separated though we may be by hundreds of miles, yet we feel we are one in purpose, one in determination. To accomplish the great work upon which we entered, required, as you well know, a powerful and active exercise of the will, and a spirit of self-denial unknown to those who have never become wedded to the Use of intoxicating liquors." Several years later, when the Chicago Washingtonian Home ran into financial difficulties and began to solicit lifetime memberships, Albert Day became a member of the Chicago Washingtonian Home. While there were differences between the Boston and Chicago institutions, it is clear that at the very beginning the inmates and administrators identified with each other and with the Washingtonians Movement and perceived themselves as manifestations of that movement. Over time the circumstances of the two as well as differences in practice and interpretation had radical consequences. Although women occasionally stayed at the Boston Washingtonian Home, it remained essentially a men's institution. On the other hand, the need for facilities for women was recognized early by the Chicago Home. In the annual report for 1867 of the Chicago Washingtonian Home there is a recommendation that a women Is unit be opened, and in June 1869 rooms were made available in the home of Charles J. Hull, a prominent Chicago merchant. (This building was given to Jane Addams in 1889 and under the name of "Hull House" became the center for her social welfare activities.) In May 1870 the Female Department of the Washingtonian Home of Chicago was moved into the east end of the Madison Avenue building which also housed the Men Is Department. The Female Department was discontinued sometime between 1872 (when the great fire of 1871 led the City Council to withhold its grant-in-aid) and 1875 (the old wooden Bull's Head Hotel, which had been converted into the Washingtonian Home facility, was torn down and replaced with a new brick building). There was discussion of the reestablishment of the Female Department in 1878, but it was decided to postpone that step because the Board of Directors was still $25,000 in debt for the new building. Finally, in 1882 the board purchased the 10-acre campus of a former boys' military academy in northwestern Chicago for $15,000 and reopened a woman's unit well away from the Madison Avenue location, which, after the fire, became the area in which Chicago's Skis Row developed. The Women's Department, known as the Martha Washington Home, continued to operate as a separate facility until the mid-1920s when both the men's and women's work were combined at the campus location and became the alcoholism treatment unit of the Martha Washington Hospital, a general hospital serving the neighbouring community. The Franklin Reformatory House for Inebriates in Philadelphia was organized in the Spring of 1872. The original plan had been to establish a reading room for temperance men and to "afford [daytime] temperance shelter for inebriates. However, the discussion quickly turned to a residential institution and the group was organized within several months. During this initial formative period the "Committee of 1511 who undertook the project were in correspondence with Dr. Albert Day, who is quoted as saying "Hire a house in some convenient neighbourhood; place it in the charge of one who has the heart and soul for the work and trust to Providence, time and experience for the rest" (12, p.108). (By this time Day had drifted somewhat away from the Washingtonian position, and this was reflected in his advice.) The committee of 15 also had in hand copies of annual reports of the Washingtonian Home in Boston as they framed the Franklin Home's constitution and bylaws. The delegates from the Franklin Reformatory Home who went to the annual meeting of the American Association for the Cure of Inebriates in early October 1872 in New York City were readily classified as "Washingtonian" home delegates along with those from Boston and Chicago. Thus, Dr. Theodore L. Mason in his presidential address to the 1876 annual meeting of the association (in which he tried without success to smooth over the schism which by that time had developed between the Franklin Reformatory Home and the other members of the association) observed that "The [Boston] Washingtonian Home has been the pioneer for that class of asylums in cities, as those in Chicago and Philadelphia, which, although situated in dense populations, do not profess to use physical restraint as a means of cure, but seek to control their patients by the moral influence of kindness, cheerful associations and amusements, by intellectual occupations, and by the powerful influence of religious sentiment" (13, p.10). In short, not long after they began, these institutions were perceived as similar in their therapeutic ideologies and practices. But why wasn't the Philadelphia institution labeled by its directors the "Washingtonian Reformatory Home for Inebriates," if that is the case? Those who know Philadelphia will find the following explanation plausible: Given the practice of naming moral reform societies after cultural heroes, Benjamin Franklin was a greater hero than George Washington in Philadelphia. There were political overtones, as well, for Washington was a Federalist in his sympathies and Philadelphia for many years was a Democratic-Republican city. Thus, during the height of the Washingtonian Movement in the early 1840s, Philadelphians chose to honour Jefferson as their model rather than Washington. The Franklin Reformatory Home disappeared as an operating institution in 1935, merging with the Sunday Breakfast Association, a Skid Row gospel Mission which was a competitive "spin-off" from the Franklin Home in the 1880s. Aside from the Female Department of the Washingtonian Home of Chicago, there was one institution for women which warrants inclusion as a "Washingtonian" institution. The New England Home for Intemperate Women was opened late in January 1879 in Boston. In 1881 it was incorporated as the Massachusetts Home for Intemperate Women, and its annual report at the end of that year says that "The object is to do a work for women similar to that of the Washingtonian Home for men, and from the first the institution has been filled, a proof of the need for it" (14). Over the years the Massachusetts Home for Intemperate Women had major financial and community relations difficulties similar to those of the men's institutions. The institution's official transformation took place when the name was changed to the Massachusetts Home and Hospital in 1917; under that name it undertook long-term (a year minimum) treatment of women alcoholics and drug addicts. This was a transitional development for in 1920 the name was changed again and it became the Massachusetts Home. Since that official label apparently needed some clarification, the institution was identified still further in the Boston City Directory as "for Elderly Ladies"(1927-31), "for Needy Worthy Elderly Ladies" (1932-35), and "for Needy Worthy Women (1936-58). Unlisted thereafter, the corporation that was legally responsible for the Home was dissolved in 1964. The Massachusetts Home for Intemperate Women originally identified itself as Washingtonian, but its administration found it necessary to compare its work defensively with that of other institutions, and the initial impression that one gets is that these were also Washingtonian. It is necessary, therefore, to clarify the issue before we "close the books" on this inventory of the Washingtonian institutions. The 1888-1889 annual report of the Massachusetts Home for Intemperate Women (14) mentions similar institutions in Chicago, New York, Providence and New Hampshire, and observes that "All of these homes follow the plan we have found so successful in drawing women from habits of intoxication into better living, the combination of home influences with regular habits of life and through industrial training for the work to which they are adapted." The report goes on to say that, "although we meet with many discouragements in our work, we find upon comparison with reports from similar institutions that our results make very favourable showings, notably in connection with the Martha Washington Home in Chicago and with the Isaac Hopper Home in New York. Our income exceeds theirs, notwithstanding the fact that these homes have every facility for work, while our work is accomplished within the limits of a house built for a private family." The Isaac T. Hopper Home in New York began as the "Tempor,3rv Home" of the Female Department of the Prison Association of New York and was reorganized and renamed in 1858 as the residential unit of the Women's Prison Association of New York. Although it began just as the Washingtonian Movement died back, and for many years most of those cared for by the Women's Prison Association had been jailed for public intoxication or on "drunk-and-disorderly" charges, the program of the Womenlls Prison Association of New York was not Washingtonian. Neither its annual reports nor its other records refer to the Washingtonian ideology or to the Washingtonian practices. The orientation was to crime and delinquency rather than drunkenness, for the association and its home developed out of a concern for crime prevention, prison reform and the rehabilitation of women rather than for temperance or prohibition; it was a manifestation of the great 19th-century Moral Reform. (there was, of course, a great deal of overlap between participants in various elements of the Moral Reform.) The comparison between the Massachusetts Home and the Hopper Home apparently was based on the fact that at the time both institutions served women who were heavily involved with alcohol and both had an "industrial" program in which the women inmates worked in the institution's laundry, both as a kind of job training and as a way to pay for their keep. Both institutions also placed women in private homes as housekeepers, cooks and seamstresses. It appears that the similarity between the two institutions was superficial rather than fundamental. The unnamed institution in Providence referred to in the above quotation from the Massachusetts Home annual report was probably the Sophia Little Home. Initially this was the project of the Women's Society for Aiding Released Female Prisoners, which was an auxiliary of the Prisoner's Aid Society of Providence. The group found it necessary to organize separately because the Prisoners' Aid Society was divided on the subject; however, once the home was underway and the initial financial hurdles crossed, the opposition was sufficiently mollified to permit the consolidation of the two groups in 1883. (This never happened in New York.) The leadership was strongly religious and oriented toward the temperance prohibition movement but apparently was not Washingtonian: "The last few years have witnessed a rapid increase in the agencies employed to remedy evils of intemperance and other vices. Public sentiment has become more widely and intelligently aroused. The truth is likewise become everywhere accepted that the Gospel offers the only sure and effective method of securing the restoration of victims bound by fetters too strong to be broken without Divine aid. It is to this end that the truths of the Gospel are daily sought in our Home; not with reference to any creed, but simply a heart-belief in the Lord Jesus Christ manifested by obedience to his command" (15, 1886). Although the Franklin Reformatory Home also had a strong religious emphasis, there is no evidence of a Washingtonian orientation in the annual reports of the Sophia Little Home. By 1894 the concerns of the Sophia Little Home had begun to shift: "[from] helping released female prisoners and other women desiring reformation, we have come to feel that our work should include not only those who have grown old in evil doing and who would otherwise be sent to State Farm or Prison, but to young girls to whom wrong is yet new - to those who, having sinned once, would find here a safe refuge, and who after a stay in an atmosphere of moral purity, strengthened and fortified, could go into the world better prepared to fight its evils and live correctly. Each one who comes to us pledges herself to stay a year, for a shorter time we realize would avail little or nothing" (15, 1894). In 1915 this shift in orientation was made official; thereafter the Sophia Little Home was chiefly interested in delinquent girls, a large number of whom were unwed mothers. It is the current orientation of the home, which still operates in Providence. Despite the fact that Sophia Little, the founder of the home and a major figure in the establishment of the Prisoners' Aid Society was active in a local Martha Washington society in the 1840s the available annual reports suggest that, although the home and the society were partial attempts to bridge Sophia Little's concerns for prisoners and the temperance - prohibition movement, the Home itself was not conceived as Washingtonian in ideology or practice. This does not deny that there was some minimal Washingtonian influence; the annual report for 1886 mentions a visit to the Massachusetts Home by the leadership of the Sophia Little Home (15, 1886). As in the case of the Women's Prison Association and the Hopper Home in New York City, the Sophia Little Home was initially oriented to female "delinquents" (who often were heavy drinkers); it, too, was a manifestation of the 19th-century Moral Reform rather than a part of the institutional phase of the Washingtonian Total Abstinence Movement. The identity of the institution in New Hampshire alluded to in the 1888-89 annual report of the Massachusetts Home for Intemperate Women remains unknown. No record of an institution bearing the Washington label in New Hampshire has yet been found, and we are left in an even more speculative position than in the Providence case. Mercy Home (now Boylston Home) in Manchester is the likeliest candidate. It was established in 1889-90 under the care of the New Hampshire Woman's Christian Temperance Union; it was oriented to homeless and friendless girls, and it apparently had an industrial program. While the Boylston Home seems not to have been oriented to Washingtonianism, further research is needed. In summary, there were four identifiable Washingtonian institutions located in Boston, Chicago and Philadelphia. While they had a common identification as "Washingtonian," there were differences between them almost from the very beginning with respect to the application of the Washingtonian ideology to residential therapeutic practice. Over time the ideologies and social characteristics of the leadership, the populations they sought to serve and the professional beliefs and practices of physicians involved in their programs led to the further differentiation of these institutions. As with all institutional settings, their activities had a tendency to become routinized, but organizational routines were upset by conflicts involving the clientele that the homes sought to serve as well as by members of the board and the administrators. In addition, there were fundamental challenges to the viability of the organizations as a consequence of changes in the concept of drunkenness (dipsomania, alcoholism), changes in the public support of the homes as treatment facilities, and, above all, by major events such as the Eighteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and the Depression of the 1930s. The organizational transformation of the homes was accompanied by an ideological drift so that the institutional phase of the Washingtonian Movement has died out even though the Washingtonian name is still carried by the two remaining institutions in Boston and Chicago. REFERENCES   1. Hawkins, W.G. Life of John Hawkins. Boston; Dutton; 1863. 2. Maxwell, M.A. The Washingtonian Movement. Q.J. Stud. Alcohol 11: 410-451, 1950. 3. Arthur, T.S. Strong Drink; the curse and the cure Philadelphia; Hubbard; 1877. 4. Washingtonian Home. Annual Reports. Boston; 1860-. 5. First quarterly report of the auditor of the [Parent] Washington Total Abstinence Society with address of the president. Boston; Lewis; 1841. 6. Journal of the American Temperance Union, 22 April 1858. 7. Journal of the American Temperance Union, 23 April 1859. 8. Clapp, 0. Prevention, as a means of reducing the material, social and moral burdens and devastations of intemperance; address to the Corporation of the Washingtonian Home at the annual meeting. 29 April 1872. Boston; Wright & Potter; 1872. 9. Duis, P. The saloon and the public city; Chicago and Boston, 1880 - 1920. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Chicago; 1975. 10. Sosensky,I. The problem of quality in relation to some issues in social change. Boston; Houghton Mifflin; 1964. 11. Graduates and Inmates of the Washingtonian Home, Boston. Address to the inmates of the Washingtonian Home, Chicago, with a response. 1884. 12. Godwin Association of the Franklin Reformatory Home of Philadelphia. The life of Samuel P. Godwin. Philadelphia; Traegar & Laub; 1889. 13. Mason, T.L. Anniversary address. Q.J. Inebr. 1: 1-24, 1876. 14. Massachusetts Home for Inebriate Women. Annual reports. Boston; 1881-. 15. Sophia Little Home. Annual reports. Providence, R.I.; 1886-. JOURNAL OF STUDIES ON ALCOHOL, VOL. 41,(L), 1980.   THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE ALCOHOL PROHIBITIONISTS FOR THE WASHINGTON TEMPERANCE SOCIETIES With Special Reference to Paterson and Newark, New Jersey Leonard U. Blumberg* SUMMARY. The establishment and activities of the Washington Temperance societies in Paterson and Newark are described, and the role of the temperance-prohibitionists in their decline is analyzed. THE WASHINGTON TEMPERANCE SOCIETIES of the 1840s used a self help conversion approach to drunkards and heavy drinkers, assuring them that they could once again become prosperous and respectable members of the community, reassume their socially mandated responsibilities for their wives and children, liberate themselves from their subservience to King Alcohol, relieve themselves from the terrible fate of eternal damnation and renew the prospect of heavenly salvation if they would only sign the pledge that, as gentlemen, they would no longer drink intoxicating beverages. Maxwell (1) and Blumberg (2) have noted the similarities between Alcoholics Anonymous and the Washingtonians. However, the fact that they developed in different societal contexts may explain the greater stability, success and significance of Alcoholics Anonymous compared with the Washingtonians. The Washingtonians were associated with the nineteenth-century moral reform movements, especially the temperance - prohibition movement,* while A.A. has articulated with the medical profession in its mental health and public health manifestations. The present essay deals with the significance of the temperance - prohibitionist groups of the 1840s for the rise and decline of the Washingtonian societies. It is the thesis of this paper that, while a number of other elements were involved in the decline of the Washington temperance societies, a major factor was the relationship between the Washington temperance societies and the temperance - prohibitionists.** * Usually referred to as the (alcohol) temperance movement, the movement by the 1840s had become committed to prohibition. The present paper emphasizes this prohibitionism rather than personal abstinence from alcohol. ** The thesis is similar to the conclusion of Tyler (3,pp. 338-346). Tyler's conclusion is undocumented, however, and must be regarded as hypothetical. The advocates of temperance had already conducted a considerable agitation campaign by 1840, and the Washingtonians may be regarded as one of the major results of the efforts by the temperance advocates to define the consumption of alcohol in their own terms. Thus, the Baltimore Washingtonian Temperance Society developed after a discussion among six friends as Chasels Tavern about an announced temperance lecture; two of their number agreed to go and hear the speaker and to report back (4). They discussed the matter further and agreed that they would give sobriety and total abstinence a try - but on their own terms. In its organizational beginnings, therefore, the Washington Temperance Society of Baltimore was autonomous from the local temperance societies in Maryland; it was working-class oriented, while the temperance societies were middle-class in origin and predominantly in composition; it was dominated by artisans, while the temperance societies were dominated by ministers. Further, the Washingtonians pledged themselves to exclude politics and religion from their meetings (in order to minimize the sectarian divisiveness of the era and to keep attention focused on the enemy - alcohol), while the temperance societies made a considerable effort to create a link between their cause and religion. From the 1840s on, the temperance societies advocated governmental intervention in the sale of alcohol in order to protect the community and to preserve the family. The founders of the Washingtonian Temperance Society of Baltimore decided to use the practice of telling their "experiences" as the basic agenda (i.e., they witnessed to the destructive effects of alcohol and how abstinence had been beneficial both financially and in terms of respectability) and thereby provided a basis for the rapid spread of Washingtonianism among a population that was ready for it. This growth was facilitated by the recruitment procedures of the Washingtonians from the earliest meetings in Baltimore, it was agreed that members would seek out other drunkards and heavy drinkers and tell them about the society and how it had helped them. From this evolved a missionary or evangelistic style; delegations of at least two would go to other cities and towns to tell the story of how others could be saved from drunkenness and degradation. While a New Testament model is suggested by these practices, it is just as reasonable to suggest that the Washingtonians went in pairs as a way of helping each other over the rough spots of total abstinence. Further, traveling in pairs made it easier to certify that neither had been drinking privately (although it did not guarantee it); the temptation was overpowering at times and alcohol was omnipresent during the period. Sometimes the Washingtonian missionaries operated as itinerant moral reformers who came into town and began telling their experiences to anyone who would listen; in the bigger towns and cities, however, they were usually invited by local residents who had heard them elsewhere or who had read about them in the local or temperance press. The audience was often sympathetic to begin with. In addition, a number of curious heavy drinkers and "rum sellers" would come, some to scoff and jeer and some hoping to be convinced and converted. The persons who invited the Washingtonian missionaries were deeply involved in the local temperance organizations - they were already committed to a moral cause, which, from their point of view, was of the first magnitude. As committed people they seized upon the Washingtonians as an opportunity to broaden their impact on the community. This was especially important because in the late 1830s the temperance movement was divided as the consequence of a rift between the relativists (who objected only to the use of distilled spirits) and the absolutists (who were against any use of alcohol.) Their network existed in the cities and towns, and they seized upon this chance to mobilize a population that they had been unable to reach - the drunkards and heavy drinkers. By the time the Washingtonian movement began to fade, the absolutists had captured the temperance movement (with the help of the Washingtonians) and had converted it into a prohibitionist movement. An organizational approach is useful in the analysis not only of the diffusion of the Washington phenomenon, but also of its decline. Whatever their socioeconomic backgrounds, the heavy drinkers and drunkards who were recruited into the local Washingtonian total abstinence societies were not respectable, although they could gain or regain respectability, while the temperance - prohibition advocates who joined the Washingtonian societies were eminently so. That is, one way to view what happened after November 1840, when the Baltimore Washingtonians began to have meetings which were open to the general public, is that a substantial number of temperance - prohibitionists came to the meetings. The temperance - prohibitionists chose to define their activities with respect to the Washingtonians as "lending support;" in political language we might say that the respectables had "infiltrated" the Washingtonian societies. While in the early period it is clear that they did not "take over," the temperance prohibitionists did seek to influence the attitudes of the converted drunkards and heavy drinkers as well as the policies of the societies. I will examine the process as it took place in two north New Jersey societies, pointing out how the temperance prohibitionists sought to shift the emphasis of the Washingtonian temperance societies from "moral suasion" to "legal suasion.11 Further, when it became possible to do so, the temperance - prohibitionists bypassed the Washingtonians and thereby accelerated their decline. While the discussion that follows will focus on Newark and Paterson, New Jersey, it is necessary to begin with some attention to the beginnings of the Washington Temperance Benevolent Society of New York, for the origins of the Newark and Paterson societies were both related to the missionary activities of the New York society. As reported in the Journal of the American Temperance Union, we can trace the beginnings of the New York Washington Benevolent Society to news about events in Baltimore. In a letter to the editor in the January 1841 issue of the Journal of the American Temperance Union, John Zug reports that from 5 April to 12 December 1840 the membership of the Washington Temperance Society of Baltimore grew from the original 6 founding members to about 300 members, two-thirds of whom were said to have been "reformed drunkards." In the same issue of the Journal there is a report of a speech by a Mr. Pollard at a Maryland Temperance Convention held late in 1840. We know now that Pollard was a Washingtonian, but the editor of the Journal, apparently unaware of this fact, made no connection between the reference to Pollard and the letter by Zug, which was printed several pages later. In the February 1841 issue of the Journal of the American Temperance Union, an unsigned letter from Baltimore dated 19 January 1841 states that "Benevolence, philanthropy, patriotism and piety have united in the erection of the proudest monument which has ever graced the most favored city of Christendom. Men, women and children fired with a holy seal, are employed assiduously in collecting materials for this noble work, whose base shall rest upon the rock of truth and whose top, though not expected to 'reach to heaven, I shall be guided by the unclouded rays of truth, and glitter in the effulgence of a 'sun that shall go down no more. The author of the letter adds that there had developed in Baltimore (by inference as a consequence of the Washingtonian activity) a network of "local and auxiliary associations...formed on the aggressive principle, and meet every, and some of them twice in each week, where crowded assemblies, with an enthusiasm rarely seen on any subject, listen to and applaud their deliberations and plans of operations, which hundreds are coming forward, anxious to participate in the honors of this bloodless triumph." This, then was the dramatic news from Baltimore to New York where the Journal of the American Temperance Union was published. By late February or early March the Baltimore Washington Temperance Society had grown to 1200 members with several auxiliaries numbering about 1500 more. These data are taken from a circular letter of the Baltimore Washington Temperance Society that was published in the March 1841 issue of the Journal of the American Temperance Union Announcing plans for a grand temperance celebration on 5 April 1841, the first anniversary of the Baltimore society. Among the members were drunkards, habitual drinkers, moderate drinkers and those previously committed to total abstinence who were part of the organized temperance movement. Further, we know from the letter of 19 January 1841, cited above, that the membership included juveniles as well as adults. It seems evident, then, that once the Washington Temperance Society of Baltimore "went public" in November 1840 there were substantial numbers of persons involved in the society who were not drunkards or even heavy drinkers. We must, therefore, regard the report of the New York Herald of 1 February 19841 that the Washington Temperance Society of Baltimore had a thousand members "consisting entirely of reformed intemperate individuals" as an exaggeration, an exaggeration that was repeated in the Journal of the American Temperance Society in the report on events in New York City. The reports of the activity in Baltimore excited the interest of the Executive Committee of the New York Temperance Society, and they invited the Washington Temperance Society of Baltimore to send a delegation of reformed men (5). The visit began on 26 March and continued for more than a week; more than 20 meetings were held in the largest churches in the city and in the park; nearly 2000 persons signed the total abstinence pledge for the first time, and on 29 March 1841 the Washington Temperance Benevolent Society of New York City was formed. By 4 October 1841, it claimed to have 2263 members, 4 city auxiliaries with 600 members and 4 "country" auxiliaries with 1280 members; in that 6-month period it had sent out 62 speakers. Several of these speakers went to Paterson and Newark. Clearly, the New York City temperance society was able to mobilize energy and talent for its cause on a much greater scale than had ever been done before, and this activity was directed not only to the city but to the surrounding areas as well. PATERSON The response to the efforts of the New York Washingtonians was rapid. The "friends of temperance" in Paterson met in the Second Baptist Church on 16 April and that "The Committee appointed to wait on the Delegation from Baltimore," report that "they are now in Boston" (6). (1)Among these "friends of temperance" were Joseph Perry (Schoolteacher) and Alex H. Freeman (sheet metal and stoves), both of whom were later active in the organization of the Washingtonians in Paterson. (2) The senior partner and editor of the Paterson intelligencer, D.H. Day, who was sympathetic to the cause, seized the opportunity to keep interest alive by reprinting an article from the Boston Journal which described, in glowing terms, the visit of the Baltimore delegation (7): "Our friends in the country will be rejoiced to know that there never has existed so much healthy excitement on the subject of temperance, in our city, as at the present moment. - Meetings are held every evening and are crowded to overflowing," it reported. "The mass of people listen with breathless attention to the speakers, and every man goes away with a new zeal in the prosecution of the holy enterprise...Mr. Hawkins, at the Bethel [North Square, Boston] spoke for one hour with tremendous power, and carried his audience captive at his will. Now a deep and solemn silence pervaded the house; now was heard the hushed sob; and now again the outpouring of acclamation, like a cataract's roar. Mr. Wright spoke with more interest and power than he had yet done in our city; and this saying much. After his address four hundred and fifteen came forward and signed the pledge!"So it is no surprise that when Hawkins and Wright (2 of the original Baltimore delegation to New York City), along with several speakers from the New York Washington Temperance Benevolent Society, conducted a series of meetings in Paterson that May they were well received. The Paterson Intelligenc6r commented (8) the "the lectures had formerly been, according to their own statements, drunkards of the worst sort, and the accounts they gave of their own sufferings, and the sufferings of their families, were painful beyond description. Their lectures were strictly practical, and therefore had a greater effect upon the minds of the hearers than all the temperance addresses by persons who knew nothing of the subject from experience" As a consequence, 300 people signed the Washingtonian pledge; on 10 May the Paterson Washington Temperance Benevolent Society was formed by 30 of those who had signed the pledge, using both the name of the New York Society and its constitution (9). ("Temperance Benevolent" was the New York style, in contrast with Baltimore's "Temperance" and Boston's "Total Abstinence.") The Paterson Intelligencer (8), in its comments on the initial formative meetings in Paterson observed that "The ardor of the new fledged total abstinence is truly exhilarating; it seems to them that nothing has hitherto been done in the glorious cause; instead of opposing, as hitherto, they now will take the lead, and as old soldiers turn aside, as a relieved corps, they will go on to certain victory." Ultimately, the "old soldiers" found this enthusiasm a source of irritation as well as satisfaction, because the temperance-prohibitionists had been "labouring in the vineyard" for a long time and wanted what they regarded as their justly deserved reward of community recognition. At the time, however, all were caught up in a glowing and expansive enthusiasm that is evidenced in the report from Paterson printed in the Newark Daily Advertiser of 1 July 1841: "We have known many plans devised for the prosperity and improvement of our towns; laws enacted, companies formed, and new projects to facilitate business carried out - but they all sink into insignificance, both in moral and pecuniary point of view, by the side of the work we are now speaking of." Such dynamism and exaggerated expectations are not atypical of movements for social change in their early growth periods. In its original form, the Baltimore Washingtonian pledge read as follows (4): "We, whose names are annexed, desirous of forming a society for our mutual benefit, and to guard against a pernicious practice, which is injurious to our health, standing and families we do pledge ourselves as gentlemen, not to drink any spirituous or malt liquors, wine or cider." The pledge used by the New York and Paterson societies reflected the influence of the temperance prohibitionists (10): "We, whose names are hereunto annexed, believing that the use of Intoxicating Liquors as a beverage, is not only needless, but hurtful to the social, civil and religious interests of men - that it tends to form intemperate habits - and that while it is continued, the evils of intemperance will never be done away - do, therefore , pledge ourselves that we will not drink any spirituous or malt liquor, wine or cider, and that in all suitable ways we will discountenance the use of them through the community." While this pledge seemed to support nonpolitical moral suasion (the Washingtonian position) its wording also provided the opening wedge for an explicit legal suasion - prohibitionist position. The same dynamism that galvanized the Baltimoreans, the New Yorkers and the Bostonians was immediately evident in Paterson. During the first quarter-year, the Paterson Washingtonians conducted 9 mission meetings, which led to the formation of 3 new societies in nearby communities. We know the name of only 1 of these, the Manchester Washington Temperance Benevolent Society, which continued through the years to have a close relationship with the Paterson group. Their activity increased during the second quarter, when 39 mission meetings were held, and continued at least to the middle of June 1842, when delegates were sent to towns in Rockland County, New York, some 20 miles away. Street meetings were held from time to time in Paterson during the same period. A special delegation was even sent to "Cheap Josey's," a tavern "situated between Paterson and Bloomfield ... where shoemakers, tailors, pacemakers, cotton and woolen factory boys, and farmers, met together to drink, gamble and fight" (11,p.5). This dynamism was also manifested in the personal lives of the artisans and workingmen who signed the pledge and joined the Washingtonians. For instance, John Broughton, a tailor, advertised that he had taken the pledge of "total abstinence from all that intoxicates and in consequence am restored to my sober senses again," and he appealed to his fellow townsmen to give him their "confidence and esteem as a consequence of his constant and sober application to his craft"(12). The enthusiasm was also evidenced organizationally. By 23 June 1841, there was a [Boys] Juvenile Washington Temperance Benevolent Society of 50 members (13), who recited the following form of the pledge: A pledge we make, By drinking gin; No wine to take, Hard cider, too Nor brandy, red, Will never do. To turn the head, Nor brewer's beer, Nor whiskey hot, Our hearts to cheer, That makes the sot, O quench our thirst, we always bring Nor fiery rum, Cold water, from the well or spring. That ruins home; So here we pledge perpetual hate. Nor will we sin, To all that can intoxicate.(3) The junior society had about 130 members by the time of the Independence Day celebration. The Fourth of July was a time of special significance to the Washingtonians because in the past it had been the occasion for drunken sprees which disrupted the annual civic parades and embarrassed the respectable citizenry who saw it as a quasi-religious occasion for rededication to freedom and morality. Thus the Independence Day celebration in 1841 was different from previous ones; in the morning the town's Sunday School students paraded, and in the afternoon members of the Paterson Washington Temperance Benevolent Society marched in procession to the Congregational Methodist Church and were presented with a banner by the women church members which read "Total Abstinence from all that Intoxicates." They proceeded to what is now known as Totowa and then to an island in the Passaic River where they heard orations, most of which were by local ministers and ministers from New York (who, we may infer, were temperance-prohibitionists). The brass band of the Passaic Guards, a local voluntary militia group, played music, After a collation, the group met in the Second Presbyterian Church, where some Washingtonian experience speeches were given and some pledges were taken. The Washingtonians were, of course, celebrating their freedom from bondage to alcohol; the temperance-prohibitionist preachers were exhorting their listeners to free the country from its bondage to the rum sellers and rum makers; the contrast with past Independence Day celebrations was stark indeed! Another sign of vitality was the existence of an active relief committee. The society's constitution provided that when they found a "poor drunkard in distress, from poverty, and unable to provide for his immediate necessities, to furnish him with food, rainment and shelter, or any of them, at his own discretion or if need be, with medicine and medical advice, provided always, that such relief shall in no case be granted unless there be reasonable grounds to believe that such poor drunkard will sign the pledge and reform...11 (10, Art.VI). The relief committee was active in the town although its actual cash resources were very limited. It's work was supplemented by that of the Martha Washington Temperance Benevolent Society, which in the quarter ending 3 August 1842 handed out $7.72 in cash, 23 articles of clothing and sundry provisions to families of reformed inebriates. The first directress at that time was the wife of Joseph Perry, the school-teacher who was also active as a temperance-prohibitionist. By mid September 1841, the Paterson Washingtonians felt strong enough to call for a countrywide mass temperance meeting. The meeting was held on 19 November; had there not been a snowfall of several inches, the Martha Washingtonians of Paterson would have marched in the procession under their banner with a slogan that made their position quite clear: "Total abstinence or no husband! 11 Forty years later, the Woman's Christian Temperance Union used a similar slogan: "Lips that touch wine will never touch mine." Finally, membership and financial data give us an additional assessment of the strength of the Paterson Washingtonian society in its formative period, although it is certainly not a clear one. By the end of the first quarter year of its existence, the Paterson society had 290 members and had gotten 1245 pledges, including 230 from the junior society. During the second quarter, the recording secretary claimed that 504 had joined the society, making a total of 1730 members. (4)These membership statistics must be viewed with caution because it seems probable that the distinction between members of the Paterson society and those who had signed the society's pledge had been obfuscated; it seems more likely that the 504 reported new members were those who had signed the pledge during the quarter and that 1730 was the total number of persons who had signed the pledge up to that time. Later data supported this interpretation: in March 1842 it was reported that the Paterson society had 2572 members; during the ensuing week 77 persons signed the pledge, and there was then a report of 2649 members. This confusion makes it impossible to assess the significance of membership statistics. Nevertheless, there is little doubt that through mid-1842 the Paterson society continued to grow; what is in doubt is the rate of growth and the numbers during this period of maximal growth. The financial data also gives us a mixed picture of the vitality of the Paterson Washingtonians. In the first quarter, the society had a cash income of $28.35 and an expenditure of $19.56 for the use of a local Presbyterian church as a meeting place and for the relief of "poor drunkards." But, with a cash balance of $8.69, the society also had "accounts receivable" (my term) of $54, some of which was due from members and the balance of which had probably been given as loans rather than as cash grants to drunkards. The financial problem continued into the second quarter when the recording secretary commented in his report that the society was having problems collecting fees and dues owed to it; he recommended the formation of a special committee and also that a collection be taken at each meeting. By November 1842, a resolution was adopted "that some means may be devised to liquidate the debt of the Society, and report some plan to keep out of debt in the future..." (15). The procedure apparently adopted was one common for the period, subscriptions (regular contributions) were solicited among the citizens of Paterson. The Washington Temperance Benevolent Society of Paterson continued to have considerable vitality at least through Independence Day. In May, the first anniversary of the society was celebrated with a public parade attended by delegates from Manchester, Aquackanonk, Hackensack, Godwinville, New Prospect, Jersey City, Newark, Boonton, Morristown and Mattewan. A company of Washington Temperance Guards with its own band came from New York City. Several weeks later, a group from New York City Hose Company Number 33 came to Paterson "with a view of giving our citizens a Specimen of Temperance song singing," and there was "an overflowing meeting assembled to hear this celebrated company exercise their vocal powers. Their performance was received with great eclat by the audience and gave universal satisfaction. One of them related his experience of the sad effects of drunkenness, and several of our cold water army made short addresses..."(16). They also successfully persuaded the members of the Paterson Company Number 3 to sign the pledge as a group. Sometime in April a group of Temperance Guards, including a choral group that sang regularly at the meetings of the society, was formed in Paterson.The combined Independence Day celebration of the Paterson and Manchester societies went well and was the major celebration in the town. The Washingtonians apparently continued to perceive themselves as the leaders of the temperance movement, judging by the toast to "Reformed Drunkards" (17), which went as follows: "The great Pioneers, who in front of the army of truth, are now successfully cutting the way through the Alcoholic wilderness of inequity and crime ..." The last pledge of the celebration, however, reflected both the continued concern for heavy drinkers and a recognition that the bloom had begun to fade: "To Backsliders - We pity them - May they again sign the pledge, and 'beware of the first glass."' This note of realism contrasts with the congratulatory tone of the recording secretary's comments at the close of the second quarterly report of the Paterson society (18): "Before closing this Report, it seems proper to notice the fidelity and perseverance with which the reformed have kept their pledge, and the blessed results to which this conduct has led, whether considered in reference to their own characters, the comfort and well being of their families, their influence in society, or their business affairs; also to invite the temperate and moderate drinker to cooperate with us in the endeavor to put an end to drunkenness." At this time Nathaniel Lane (sheet metal worker and stove merchant) was president of the society and his partner, Alex H. Freeman, was a member of the standing (executive) committee. (Lane was elected town tax collector on the Whig ticket in 1844. Joseph Perry was treasurer and John K. Flood, a storekeeper who short became town clerk, had been recording secretary and was now corresponding secretary. In addition, the arrangements committee included David H. Day, publisher of the Paterson Intelligencer, Abraham Van Blarcom, a temperance-prohibitionist, and John Avison, shoemaker, who was an activist in antislavery politics, a temperance-prohibitionist, and the town post-master. There can be no doubt that the temperance-prohibitionists were in positions of dominance in the society at this time. By that summer, however, the new recording secretary commented in the quarterly report (19) that "There has been for a short time past, at least it seemed to me, a suppression of spirits among our veteran troops of this town; nor indeed with a reflecting mind is this to [be] wondered at, for preparatory to the great and glorious battles of the 10th of May and the 4th of July last, both resulting in signal victory over the enemy, their exertions, both physically and mentally, was excessive from exercise; marching, countermarching, raising and manning batteries, with a thousand or more etceteras, together with pains of scars (for their were no lives lost on the side of the Temperance Army) which are consequent to the battlefield." He continued, "Our spirits and wounds now healed up, let the victories of the past encourage to redouble our exertions, in not only guarding against the insidious movements of the deadly foe, but in making secure preparations for the next pitched battle, which will be fought on May 10th, 1843." Still using military language, he urged the society, "not to retire to our camps in the flush of victory... 11 and to "stand aloof from all political manoeuvring" for he observed that the society was being wooed by "wiley politicians" whom he called "wolves in sheep's clothing." The latter history of the society suggests that he was referring to the "respectables" who had joined the society. Civic life during this period was intensely political, and there can be little doubt that efforts were made to manoeuvre what seemed to be a strong and vital group to express positions favourable to the election of Whig, Anti-Slavery or Loco-foco (Democrat) candidates. The recording secretary had pointed to what proved to be a recurring problem for the society. In contrast to his predecessor in the post, the recording secretary, who warned his fellow Washingtonians of the dangers of alcohol and the need to continue to fight, apparently had an alcohol problem of his own; he was unceremoniously dropped from office on 28 October 1842 because he had broken his pledge, a fact that he acknowledged in a written communication that he requested be placed in the minutes of the society. Other incidents of recidivism began to receive attention, and there was an occasional report in the Paterson Intelligencer. Such a case was that of a 33-year-old man who after 18 months of abstinence, went on a spree and, despite the best efforts of a representative of the society (similar to Twelfth-Stepping in Alcoholics Anonymous), finally drowned himself in the Passaic River. The annual report of the Manchester Washington Temperance Benevolent Society (20), published just before Christmas, 1842, indicated that the falling off of interest and "backsliding" were not unique to Paterson. The Manchester Society claimed 102 members when it was organized, some having dual membership in the Paterson society. Participation apparently had never been heavy, even among those who signed the pledge and were considered members, but with the help of the Paterson society, the total number had grown to 642. Two of the three taverns in Manchester had closed down, all 4 of the town's grocery stores had stopped selling spirits, and reclaimed members were now observing the Sabbath in church. Notwithstanding this, Benjamin Geroe, the recording secretary and an active temperance-prohibitionist, commented that some of the officers as well as some of the members "have not paid that attention to so good a cause as they might have done, and probably through their inattention in a measure, may be ascribed the cause of some falling away or returning to their cups." He concludes, nonetheless, with the hopeful statement that "of late a new impulse appears to be given to the standard of Teetotalism, as if they were determined on nothing less than complete victory." Meanwhile the society rapidly became routinized; its meetings apparently were about the same week after week and much of the early excitement dissipated. Some of the extra-organizational efforts of the society were given up. Both the Junior Washington Temperance Benevolent Society and the Temperance Guards projects were abandoned sometime after the Independence Day celebration. Appeals were made to "make some extra efforts to produce a more lively interest in the cause of Temperance"(15), and a week-long series of meetings, similar to those held in the formative period of the society, was organized. Prominent speakers from New York and Philadelphia were "engaged" for these meetings; special meetings were held as often as possible to hear popular "Washingtonian lectures," for a degree of specialization had begun to emerge. That comment that "If the above named gentlemen do not draw full houses, we don't know who can" (21), makes clear that recruitment was uppermost in the minds of the sponsors. A drift away from Washingtonian practices appears to have begun; at the last meeting in November 1842, a motion was passed that thereafter the pledge would not be circulated at meetings but would be available for those who wished to sign. Evidently most of those who now came to the meetings had signed the pledge; for all practical purposes, the membership recruitment process had reached its peak and only a few who were eligible to sign the pledge were now coming to the meetings. Further, "experience meetings," which were a central feature of Washingtonian practice, had apparently fallen off during mid-1842, because a motion was passed to hold experience meetings "in order to bring out new speakers to keep up the interest of the meetings" (22). But these experience meetings were to be held on Thursday nights while the regular meetings were held on Friday nights (both were held in the basement of the Methodist Episcopal church). A trial of King Alcohol was scheduled for February 1843 in order to pique the interest of persons who might not otherwise be attracted to the meetings. For a time the weekly meetings were dropped, but they were begun again in the hope that they would attract more members and greater participation. The second anniversary celebration of the Washington Temperance Benevolent Society of Paterson, on 10 May 1843, was a more subdued affair than the previous one, although there was a procession through Paterson and Manchester. The Independence Day celebration that year included the Washingtonians, but they did not dominate it as they had in the two previous years. The incoming president, Samuel A. Van Saun, was a grocery store keeper, a member of the Township Poor Committee, and a warden of the Paterson Fire Association; the incoming recording secretary was Dr. J. Nightingale; the treasurer was William Moyle, a public accountant and bill collector, who was also an active antislavery advocate; and John Avison was on the standing committee. Given this kind of top leadership in the Paterson society, it is not surprising to find that on 18 June 1843 there was a lecture by Reverend Warren, agent of the New Jersey State Temperance Society, and that on the next day Warren suggested organizing a juvenile band to be coordinated with the activities of the Washington Society. That is, the temperance-prohibitionists now proposed to pick up the juvenile program that the Washingtonians had abandoned. The liaison with the temperance-prohibitionists intensified in 1844. Until this time, the Paterson Washingtonians had largely ignored the meetings of the county and state temperance societies, but now a delegation was appointed to attend the State Temperance Convention to be held in Trenton on 17 January 1844. Among the delegates were Benjamin Geroe the longtime recording secretary of the Manchester society (which was now an auxiliary of the Paterson society), Nathaniel Lane, Samuel A. Van Saun and Horatio Moses, the incoming president of the Paterson society. The third anniversary celebration of the Paterson Washingtonians on 10 May 1844 was a relatively subdued evening service held in the Methodist Episcopal church. "The audience was large and respectable, "said the Paterson Intelligencer, (23), "principally ladies, whose presence and strict attention, enlivens and cheers a meeting of any description.', One of the principal speakers was the Reverend E. Cheever, of Newark, secretary of the Essex County Temperance Society, who gave an address "well calculated to invigorate teetotalers with new life and to reward action." Horatio Moses was the new president; Samuel A. Van Saun was now treasurer, John Avison and Benjamin Crane, an antislavery activist, were members of the executive committee and Wright Flavell, also an antislavery activist, was on the relief committee. The speaker at the 9 August 1844 meeting was the Reverend Mr. Wise, agent of the New England Temperance Society, whose subject was "the moral character of the traffic in intoxicating liquors; in which he showed by convincing arguments, that it could not be carried on in obedience to the divine commandments, but was productive of much injury to mankind, producing crime, disease, degradation, and death to a great extent" (24). This was followed by a speech on 30 August 1844 at which a Mr. Root spoke "of the necessity of Christians aiding the Temperance Cause" (25). Root also discussed his theory that evil spirits exert influence over men suffering from delirium tremens (26), which is referred to as a "disease" in the newspaper report. All of this built to a meeting on 15 November at which the members of the society were asked to circulate a petition to the legislature calling for prohibition of the sale of alcoholic drinks on the Christian Sabbath; the members of the Washington Temperance Benevolent Society of Paterson had now been brought around to political activism contrary to the original Washington stance and in line with the temperance-prohibitionist political strategy of incrementalism. The principal speaker, the Reverend Mr. Russell, further "spoke of the influence of Public Sentiment in Republican governments, and showed that in order to sustain good laws we must continue to sow the seeds of truth and thus get public sentiment right in regard to the subject of Temperance, that it will sustain good laws" (27). His speech, in conjunction with those of other recent speakers, provided the basis for a justification of political temperance activity-prohibitionism. From this point on, reports of the Washington Temperance Benevolent Society become more and more sketchy. The affiliation with the state temperance society had become regularized is suggested by the fact that three of the four delegates sent to the January 1845 convention had also been to the 1844 convention. Informal ties were developed with the Ancient Order of Rechabites, a temperance fraternal order. In March 1846 the Paterson Washingtonians moved another step, toward the temperance- prohibitionist approach with the passage of a resolution stating "That in the opinion of this Society, the Court of Common Pleas, at its present session in granting licenses, have not only violated the strict letter and spirit of the law, but have shown themselves destitute of common morality" (26). This resolution, ostensibly a commentary on who should or should not receive licenses, moves close to prohibitionism when it denounces the members of the court as "destitute of common morality"; only by a refusal of all licenses would the court have been in accordance with the concept of "common morality," which the group now seemed to espouse. The Paterson Washington society was almost moribund by 1846, but there was still enough life in it for a major controversy, one which illustrates that, for all practical purposes, it had been absorbed into the temperance-prohibitionist camp. This was so, despite the fact that on 18 March 1846 it published a resolution to the effect that it was neutral with respect to moral, political or religious questions and that it did not attempt to control the individual acts of its members in any respect outside of its business in the Temperance Hall. This was obviously in anticipation of a letter printed in the Paterson Intelligencer of 25 March 1846 by S. Tutle, a member of the executive committee of the society, in which he tendered his resignation from the committee on the grounds that the society had become political. "There were some," he wrote, "who were slow to embrace the principles of Total Abstinence, and Washingtonians, forgetting the secret of their success (moral suasion), resorted to political action, to force those men into compliance with their principles. From that time to the present, a shameful course of hypocrisy and double-dealing has been pursued by many of the professed friends of Temperance. They care no more for the progress of Temperance principles than they do for the religion of Mohamet; and they only mount the Temperance hobby, hoping to ride over the ruins of the Whig party." Tuttle went on to point out that at a recent county temperance meeting called at the behest of the Paterson Washington society a resolution was adopted that "we, as lovers of the principles set forth in the previous address [i.e., temperance-prohibitionist principles], will not give our suffrage to any persons who is not pledged to Total Abstinence," thereby proscribing every unpledged candidate and raising up a powerful opposition to the temperance cause. Tuttle argued that the Paterson Washington society had called the meeting and that the resolution had been passed unanimously, and so the Paterson Society, was inconsistent in now claiming that it had not taken a political position. Tuttle further claimed that one of the objects of the meeting was to take action to support the formation of a temperance ticket for town officers at the ensuing town meeting. Tuttle argued that such a ticket could not win but could only lead to the defeat of the Whigs. To which some participants of the convention reportedly replied "God speed" before Tuttle could point out that the major consequence of the plan would be the election of the Democratic slate. When he did point that out and offered a counterrevolution, he was voted down by those who were committed to political action. He charged that "The Society has now sanctioned the political juggling of its members, by telling them in effect, that it will have nothing to do with politics, and that they may come into their Hall and hold a Temperance Benevolent meeting, and then go right into the next room, or any other place and hold a Temperance Political meeting, and it will be all right; and if any man charges the Society with political movements, then he is an artful and designing man! I think, sir, that the Temperance Society, as a body, is secretly in favour of these political movements, and therefore I have declined acting as one of its Business Committee." He goes on to say that after the meeting one member admitted that he wanted the Whig party to lose at the next election and that he was a Loco-foco (Democrat). An unsigned reply the following week argued that Mr. Tuttle had intruded into a private meeting called expressly to form a caucus (and, by inference, that was not a Washingtonian meeting) and so he was out of order. Efforts were made to resolve the serious disagreement that had arisen within the Paterson Washington Temperance Benevolent Society but they were not very successful. The society went on with its annual meeting and the Independence Day celebration was conducted in conjunction with the Rechabites and the Sons of Temperance. At one meeting in June not enough members were present to provide a quorum. The struggle came to a head when, at the mid-August meeting, Abraham Van Blarcom, a temperanceprohibitionist, offered a resolution that the society support a local option license law similar to the one in New York State and that the members of the society would not support anyone who was "not known as the open and decided friend of such a law" (29). The motion was tabled, to be brought up at the mid-September meeting. Tuttle offered an amendment to strike out the clause about withholding the vote, and the support of local option licensing passed. There ensued an indecisive struggle between the advocates of withholding the vote and those opposed. The resolution of this struggle was not publicly reported, but it is clear that the temperance-prohibitionist position in favour of legal suasion had been accepted even by those who were opposed to withholding the vote; the struggle was over the next steps of political activity rather than the principle that Washingtonians would refrain from efforts to prevent the consumption or sale of alcoholic beverages through legislation. That the Paterson Washington Temperance Benevolent Society was now largely irrelevant to the temperance movement in Paterson is evidenced by the fact that in early November 1847 a series of temperance meetings were announced in the various churches in town - the Methodist Episcopal, Baptist and Free Presbyterian. The meetings were strongly legalistic and linked morality to a legislative approach. The Washingtonian society was not a sponsor of these meetings; it had been bypassed. There is even some question as to whether the organization any longer existed except in a nominal sense, for reports of its activities were no longer published in the Paterson Intelligencer, which had been strongly supportive from its very inception. NEWARK On 21 July 1841 the Paterson Intelligencer made the following proud commentary on the effect of the Washington temperance reform, which was then in its triumphant first flush in Paterson (30): "We question whether there is now a town in the state which can boast of a more sober, quiet and industrious population than our own. Nearly all who but a short time since spent most of their time in idleness about taverns and other places of resort, have become steady industrious citizens, and are busily employed in their daily vocations, while their families, who formerly suffered for the want of the necessaries of life, are now made comfortable and happy." Paterson was a rapidly growing industrial town, and this was a frank statement of the values of its dominant manufacturing and merchant class of this period. These were also values of the temperance-prohibitionists, who used the Washingtonian phenomenon for their own purposes. This statement of civic pride implied that Paterson was the moral leader of the State, that it was ahead of Newark. This contrast to Newark was made explicit by the editor, who went on to say that "In Newark the subject of Temperance has been permitted to sleep, until within a week or two back, when a deputation from New York held a meeting in one of the churches in the city, at which one hundred and sixty attached their names to the pledge." On 12 July 1841, A Washingtonian Temperance Benevolent Society was founded with 119 members. While the Washingtonian missionaries came to Newark about 2 months later than to Paterson, the editor of the Newark Daily Advertiser, who was also a "friend of temperance," was already mobilizing his readers for the temperance reform. And, while he gave little attention to it during the Washingtonian period, the editor was prepared to accept the fact that the substantial Catholic Total Abstinence Movement, which was also growing during that period, was another valid approach to temperance. For the period, this was surprisingly broad-minded, but a perusal of the Journal of the American Temperance Union in the early 1840s will show that the temperance-prohibitionist leadership highly esteemed and fully reported the work of Father Theobald Matthew in Ireland, England and (later) in the United States. "I had heard much during the week of the triumphs of the Temperance cause, or rather total abstinence, among the people who "worship" at an unnamed local Roman Catholic church, he wrote (31). "I confess that owing either to my Protestant prejudices or some other cause, I previously felt misgivings as to any permanent good likely to result from the pushing of the multitude under what I supposed a mere temporary excitement to 'take the pledge.' But the scene I there witnessed entirely dissipated all my fears ... The clergyman officiating ... preached of Temperance and Righteousness, and Judgments to come. I have heard many temperance addresses, but none I think that could exceed the impressive, fervid, and thrillingly eloquent appeals to his auditory, in the strength of God, to fly the destroying angel - Intemperance. 11 He continued, "The effect was powerful. Upon countenances could be traced sore indications of judgements convinced; and the calm and deliberate manner in which they surrounded the alter, and there solemnly pledged themselves to Total Abstinence from all that intoxicates, gave pleasing proof of the deep and sincere convictions that they would be kept faithful to their high resolve..." That there are few if any reports in the Newark Daily Advertiser in subsequent years, given the fact that the editor had abandoned his prejudices with respect to Catholics (in this respect, in any case), suggests that local parish priests did not seek publicity. Perhaps the rising controversy over public education, religious education, Catholic education and the use of public funds soured the situation. In any case, the editor had come around to the view that taking pledges of total abstinence was perhaps not as useless as he had believed and he was, therefore, prepared to receive the Washingtonians in a positive manner. There is good reason to believe that he was aware of the Washingtonians by mid-May, for on 12 May there was a report about the meeting of the American Temperance Union which was held in Newark that year (32). Theodore Frelinghuysen, lawyer, former U.S. senator, chancellor of the University of New York, soon to be nominated for vice president of the American Temperance Union, gave the major speech. In it, Frelinghuysen not only mentioned the total abstinence movement in Ireland and in Europe, but the "strong, and in good degree, successful efforts of the drunkards themselves in various cities of the U.States to emancipate themselves of intemperance." He also reported that 15,000 drunkards had been reformed in the country within the last 6 months - probably an exaggeration. The following week there was a favourable review of a pamphlet by Dr. David Reese entitled "Plea for the Intemperate," which argued that intemperance is a disease" and that the subject should be treated, not harshly, but medically and with great kindness" (33). (This was not an uncommon medical view during the period.) The reviewer went on to say that "Mr. Hawkins confirms this view of the matter in his effective practical addresses, and in the plea of Dr. Reese we find a medical man of large experience sustaining the same position, and arguing the question like a man of sense as well as a physician." The reviewer also remarked on the number "reclaimed" in Baltimore, New York, Boston and "cities farther east" due to the efforts of drunkards, along with "friends of the cause," who were encouraged "to extend an encouraging voice and benevolent hand to the reclaimed." He contrasted this with the past when drunkards were simply given up as lost. "Now they are becoming not only temperate, but the preachers and ministering agents of the cause." On 5 June 1941 reports from the Baltimore Transcript summarized in the Newark Daily Advertiser (34) noted that "no idea can be formed of the enthusiasm which pervades that city on the subject of Temperance. It is the all-pervading topic, and the moral revolution which has been effected mainly by the drunkards themselves, is almost past belief." So it came as no surprise to the readers of the paper when it was announced that there would be a meeting to promote the temperance cause on Friday evening, 9 July 1841, in the Free (Second) Presbyterian Church, and that a delegation of reformed drunkards from the Washington Temperance Benevolent Society of New York would attend: "Friends of Temperance and persons addicted to drinking habits and the drunkard, dealers and vendors of liquor, are respectfully invited to attend" (35). The New York Washingtonians continued to have a close relationship with the Washington Temperance Benevolent Society of Newark after it was formed on 12 July 1841; speakers from New York frequently came to Newark. Wright, Pollard and Hawkins of the Baltimore society also visited Newark when they were in New York. When the Newark society called a convention of Washington temperance societies for 17 September 1841, speakers from Paterson, New York and Brooklyn came; the Newark society reciprocated when it attended en masse a Washingtonian convention in New York City on 13 October 1841. When the Newark society dedicated its own hall on 9 December 1841, a speaker from the New York City society was among those who addressed the meeting. When a banner was presented to the North Ward Washingtonians on 28 July 1842, the presentation speech was made by Dr. Reese of New York and the acceptance speech for the Washingtonians of Newark was made by Reverend E. Cheever, of Newark, who was Secretary of the Essex County Temperance Society and pastor of the Free (or second) Presbyterian Church. Information about the Newark Washington Temperance Benevolent Society and its auxiliaries is Sketchy and sporadically available because there evidently was an editorial policy against reporting the activities of local groups. There seemed to be such a policy in Paterson also, but the owners apparently contributed space in the announcement section and also published an occasional article of interest; the Newark Daily Advertiser was less generous. What we have then, are bits and pieces that are suggestive but often not definitive. Available evidence suggests that the Newark Washingtonians quickly evidenced the same kind of organizational activity that developed elsewhere. We have substantial information on the Martha Washington Temperance Union which was formed on 14 August 1841. In addition to an address by a missionary from the Baltimore society, speeches and prayers were offered by the minister of the Newark Mariners' Bethel, Reverend Pilch, and the minister of the First Presbyterian Church, Reverend Ansel D. Eddy. From the very beginning, the society had close ties to the churches; the board of managers was composed of members of 11 different churches. This was done, said the report of the meeting (36), in order to be "empathically a UNION of all classes and denominations throughout the city. Its object is two-fold. By pledging its members to abstain from using, as a beverage, aught that can intoxicate, it gives the weight of its example; by procuring and making up clothing for the families of reformed inebriates, it extends to them the hand of sympathy and encouragement. 'In union is strength.' The Board respectfully invite the cooperation of every lady in this city who has a heart to pity or hand to relieve. 11 Plans were also made for the organization of a Junior Martha Washington Society. In the first quarter-year of activity, the Martha Washington Temperance Union had completed 89 articles of clothing, including 6 bed quilts; in addition, 70 articles had been repaired, 80 garments had been given out and 106 had been handed over to the president of the Washington temperance society for distribution. The society had gotten 156 persons to sign their pledge and, with an income of about $56.81, had paid out about $37.17. Clearly their money-raising efforts had been more successful than those in Paterson. By the time the second annual report was made in 1843, there were 4 women's temperance societies in the City of Newark - The Martha Washington Temperance Union, the Junior Martha Washington Society, the Lady Warren and the Relief. In the past year, the Martha Washington Union had assisted 44 families, made 160 garments and repaired 107; 375 items had been distributed by the members and 108 had been presented to the president of the men's group for distribution among needy men. The union had received about $51.87 and disbursed about $52.62, so that there was now a slight deficit. (Later reports seem not to be available.) Another sign of organizational vitality was the participation of the Newark society in a convention of delegates from all Washington Temperance Benevolent societies in Essex County that was originally scheduled to be held on 25 December 1841. Since there was an Essex County temperance-prohibition meeting on 22 December, this suggests that the two groups had little to do with each other and perhaps were in competition. The selection of Christmas Day for the meeting can be considered nothing less than a flouting of the religious proprieties of the period, and it is little wonder that the convention actually took place on 25 January 1842. There were 54 delegates from societies in Newark, Elizabeth, Springfield, North Belleville, Westfield, Orange, Union, Belleville and West Bloomfield. An Essex County Washington Temperance Benevolent Society was formed, with Abner Campbell of Newark, a manufacturer of looking glass (mirrors), as interim president, Wickliffe Woodruff, also of Newark, a coachsmith, was one of the interim secretaries of the county society. The Reverend Mr. Pilch, pastor of the Newark Mariners I Bethel, addressed the group. When the Essex County group met again in February, one of the Newark leaders, J.P. Joralemon (locksmith), was on the nominating committee, and Jacob Johnson (coffee and spice dealer), also of Newark, was elected corresponding secretary of the Essex County society. Interest in Washingtonianism continued unabated in 1842. A "great temperance meeting" was held on 2 February in the Third Presbyterian Church. "No falling off - no lack of interest was perceptible on this occasion - the work goes bravely on. A more crowded house has seldom been convened on any occasion. The addresses were listened to with deep interest, and the intelligence of the progress of the good cause in other places was hailed with thrilling delight. At the close of the meeting great numbers of both sexes, who had hitherto kept aloof, gave their names to the pledge. There were also some pretty hard customers came up to the scratch. Indeed the influence is like a mighty current - it carries every thing before it" (37). It seems reasonable to conclude that while some of those who signed the pledge were drunkards, a substantial proportion of the signers were moderate-to-light drinkers or were already total abstainers. By Independence Day, 1842 there were three Washingtonian societies in Newark; in addition to the original (or "parent" society) there was also a North Ward society and a Bethel society. The three societies agreed to plan a celebration based on temperance principles. The planning committee included John P. Joralemon (locksmith), Joseph Burr (painter and glazier), John C. Howell (shoe manufacturer), William B. Donninqton (grocer), Isaac Dennison (carman) and Abner C. Campbell (looking-glass manufacturer) from the parent society, John Rutan (blacksmith), John Scofield (caster) and William Smith (blacksmith and hatter) from the North Ward society, and Garret Ketcham (shoemaker) and Benjamin N. Van Sickell (blacksmith) from the Bethel society. There were, then, a few middle-class persons in this group which was made up mostly of artisans. A conflict between the Washingtonian committee and the self-appointed General Community Committee immediately arose. Three Washingtonian representatives J.P. Joralemon, W.B. Donnington and William L. Meeker (carpenter) met with the General Community Committee, and a compromise was finally reached in a controversy viewed as unseemly by some elements of the population; the compromise was for everyone to march in the same procession and for the two elements of the parade then to go to different churches for the balance of the ceremonies. The nontemperance orator was Senator William L. Dayton; on the Washingtonian side, Thomas M. Woodruff, of New York, gave the oration. "The oration was pronounced with great propr3ety, deliberation, and force, and a better address it has seldom or never been my lot to listen to," wrote the editor of the Newark Daily Advertiser. "The allusions to former and even present habits - the practice of drinking and enticing others, were kind but perfectly withering to the guilty" (38). In another comment on the celebration, it was noted that there was "less vice and fewer cases of injury... than on previous anniversaries. There was certainly less drunkenness - a gratifying proof of the progress of the Temperance enterprise"(38). The Independence Day celebration was shortly followed by a "Grand Temperance Celebration" of the first anniversary of the Washington Temperance Benevolent Societies in Newark on 12 July. Again there were quite a few delegates from New York, and the main speaker was Joseph Perry (school teacher and antislavery activist in Paterson). The evening concert in the Free (Second Presbyterian Church was given by members of Hose Company No. 33 of New York City. We also have a report of a series of meetings for the promotion of "Humanity and Temperance" held in Newark late in November of 1842. Again there were speeches by representatives from New York city as well as by F.L. Beers, the local Washingtonian who apparently was regarded as particularly effective. The Liberty Fire Engine Company No. I appeared in uniform, several members of Relief Fire Company No.2 signed the pledge, and there was a brass band recital. As a result an additional 24 constitutional members and 55 pledged members joined. So 1842 in Newark must be considered a highly successful year for the Washingtonians. The Fifth Annual Report of the Essex County Temperance Society, the principal agency of the temperance-prohibitionists in the Newark area, noted that "No year of our history has ever been so propitious for this cause as the last. Every thing which has been attempted has been successful and secured to the cause new advantages. The movements of the Army of Washington men have been steady, and they are now gaining ground. Tis true, like the Army of the Father of his country as it marched across our soil, there may have been a few unhappy occurrences. But it would have required a miracle to have prevented them. And it is almost a miracle that there have been so few desertions and mutinies. Upon this Army very much (under the guardianship of Heaven) may yet depend"(39). The report then goes on to say that public sentiment is now stronger against making, vending or using intoxicating beverages and that the public is now beginning to treat such making, vending or using as an immoral act. It states, too, that a proposal had been made to prohibit the sale of "strong drink" in public houses on Sunday, but that a favourable report was not expected out of committee this year. The executive committee of the Essex County Temperance Society also reported that the county had been divided into districts with a committee assigned to each. "The object of this movement has been to collect more accurate accounts of the condition of this enterprise, and to convince the members of the Washington societies everywhere, that we are seeking their benefit and success, and as their prosperity did from the beginning depend upon the strong healthful pulse which beat in the public body, so their future prosperity will depend upon the aid and control of the intelligent in the old ranks. We can help one another. And no class can injure either of us, as we can ourselves." The report cautioned that "No youth or reformed man is safe if he withhold his foot from...the benign influence of religion... Let it be the controlling power and we have nothing to fear. Omit or despite this, and we have every thing to fear, even from our success. This is the cause of humanity, of morals, of common safety, of our country, of the world, and of God." This statement cannot be called conspiratorial because it was presented to the public, but it does lay out the claims to dominance and leadership of the temperance-prohibitionists, the middle-class respectables, especially the ministers, who were the most influential element of the Essex County Temperance Society. It also makes it clear that the temperance-prohibitionists had organized throughout the country to develop more effective controls over the Washingtonian societies. That the temperance-prohibitionists were now rejuvenated and were looking forward beyond the Washingtonians to the future id further evidenced by the call in January from the executive committee of the state temperance society to form juvenile temperance societies in the public schools to supplement the existing plans and activities in the Sunday schools. The temperance-prohibitionists clearly sought to capture the entire younger generation, a project that would occupy them in one way or another for many years to come. But if 1842 was a triumphant year for the Washingtonians, 1843 gave evidence that the perfervid atmosphere had begun to cool. The New Jersey Eagle commented on the fact that the Washington's Birthday celebration had been widely observed but "by more simple methods, better corresponding with the times on which we have fallen"(40). The Independence Day celebration in 1843 was not disrupted by the insistence on a temperance emphasis; the community group had it all to themselves. However, the Washingtonians held a very well-received celebration of their anniversary on 13 July. The planning committee included among others Hiram McCormick (shoemaker(, Jacob May (hatter), Caleb Thayer (painter), Thomas Corey (coach lace maker), Joseph Burr (painter and glazier), J.P. Joralemon (locksmith), David G. Doremus (grocer), John H. Landell (rigger), Jacob Johnson (coffee and spice dealer), James B. Hay (foundry operator), Wickliffe Woodruff (coach smith) and James Cox (book and job printer). While artisans predominated, some middle class persons were also involved in planning the program, especially in raising funds for the event. Among the groups participating in the celebration were Fire Engine Company No. 1, the Lafayette Guards, the clergy of the city and the members of the Essex County Juvenile Temperance Band, who attended at the request of their chief director, Reverend Ebenezer Cheever, despite the fact that his chief aids publicly advised against it because, they said, it was too hot for the children. The children were mainly from Bloomfield, Orange and Newark. The oration was by the Honorable Aaron Clark, ex-mayor of New York City. The fraternal ties of the Newark Washingtonians with nearby groups continued. Thus, when the Bloomfield Washington Temperance Society celebrated its first anniversary on 22 August 1843, the various Newark societies were represented and George Dunn of Newark (railing and dash manufacturer) read the Drunkards Declaration of Independence. The principal speaker was the Honorable William Halstead, ex-congressman from New Jersey, who took a forthright stand for legal prohibition of alcohol sales on Sundays. But these brave celebrations could not obscure the fact that a decline had set in. In September, the Newark Washington Temperance Benevolent Society made the following announcement (41): "TO THE PUBLIC: The glaring increase of intemperance within the last few months makes it imperative that the friends of temperance, more particularly the Washingtonians, should do all in their power to eradicate the growing evil. Grog shops are multiplying in all parts of the city, and drunkards and drunkenness increase in the same ratio. And unless something be done to check its onward march, the same dreadfully heart-rendering scenes which formerly disgraced our city must again be witnessed among us," it warned. "This being the case, it becomes the friends of Temperance to be energetic in their efforts to destroy the pestiferous influence of the already annihilated millions of the human family. In order to accomplish this object, the members of the Washington Temperance Benevolent Society at their last meeting, came to the determination to hold a public meeting on Friday evening next, Sept. 15th..." At that meeting a speaker from Jersey City "made some excellent remarks, in which he attributed the ill success of Washingtonianism to an apathetic feeling on the part of Temperance men. He said that the best way to bring grog sellers to their senses, when moral persuasion fails, is to apply the strong arm of the law; this method had been adopted in Jersey City, and had received the sanction of all right minded men. He advised the Washingtonians of Newark to pursue a similar plan" (42). A resolution was then passed stating that the City council should deny licenses for the sale of intoxicating liquors. A second resolution was passed that called for visiting all persons selling alcohol and trying to persuade them to abandon its sale. Some of the members of the committees of visitation were William T. Meeker (shoemaker), H.T. McCormick (shoemaker), Charles Prout (coach maker), James B. Hay (foundry operator), John C. Howell (shoe manufacturer), William Backus (tinware and stove dealer), Abner Campbell (looking-glass manufacturer), David Pierson (coach lace weaver), John P. Joralemon (locksmith), Jacob Johnson (coffee and spice dealer), and the Reverend Mr. Warren. Another large public meeting was held in November 1843 at which the principal speaker was the Honorable George S. Catlin, member of congress from Connecticut, a reformed man and a Washingtonian. He attacked, among other things, "Rum drinking and rum drinkers of every grade from the fashionable wine drinker to the degraded gutter-drunkard; and proved that the former although now perhaps boasting of his ability to take care of himself, was on the downward road, and would ere long, unless he changed his vicious course, sink to the miserable condition of the latter"(43). He also attacked rum sellers: "Avarice," he said, "drove men to offer to their fellows, this liquid damnation, though they Knew at the same time that they were carrying ruin and death to their neighbour's dwellings." Catlin then went on to say that "it was the duty of all to endeavor to roll back the tide of intemperance and make our country what in truth she professed to be the "land of the free, and the home of the brave'; then might we enjoy all those blessings and comforts which it was man's inherent right to enjoy, unalloyed, and should become a happy, benevolent and prosperous people." This was typical Washingtonian fare, for the most part. But then a circular which included an appeal to the legislature to forbid the sale of intoxicating liquors on Sunday was read by Jacob May from the executive committee of the Temperance Society of the Sate of New Jersey. James Cox (book and job printer), corresponding secretary of the Newark Washingtonians commented that "The memorial is a well written document, and cannot fail to convince those who are willing to be convinced of the enormity of trafficking in ardent spirits at any time, and more particularly on the Sabbath!" It is clear from the records of these meetings that the Newark Washingtonians, while still committed in some measure to a moral suasion approach, had also begun to subscribe to the legal suasion stance of the temperance-prohibitionists. By October 1843 signs began to appear that the Washington Temperance Benevolent Society of Newark was having difficulties. The recording secretary, John H. Landell (rigger), complained that the committee appointed to visit the various parts of the city in an effort both to persuade and to collect statistics had been negligent, though another committee had gathered the information anyway. Landell voiced his complaint in strong language: "I will here state that the progress of the Society is somewhat dampened by some of our members, who, not content with being idlers themselves, seem to delight in finding fault with every one who refuses to be as idle, and is well-known that there is an immense deal of labor necessary to the success of an association of this kind, and where this labor falls upon a few, as is often the case, they must neglect other duties or let the Society suffer; therefore idlers should not find fault"(44). He added, "There is yet another subject which I wish to direct your attention to. It appears there is yet a disposition shown by a great number of our constitutional members not to pay their regular monthly dues, which are the main support of the Society, and now that the inclement season is approaching, it is their especial duty to be more punctual. There is yet a great number of poor inebriates to be looked after, and perhaps many of our own members may need assistance, and if the regular dues are paid we will be able to meet any emergency..." Landell continued, "The operations of this Society are confined to the reformation of the drunkard, and as far as its influence has extended, it has answered the purpose intended." Apparently, he believed that members had kept the pledge even though they had not been attending the business meetings. His remarks make clear that certain classical organizational problems had begun to emerge - failure of members to pay their dues, failure of members to attend the meetings, failure of committees to complete their assigned tasks, a perception by those who continued to be active in the organization that other less active members were carping and criticizing and not "pulling their weight." Landell was one of those who was still committed to the original Washingtonian concern for drunkards rather than to the emergent interest in governmental intervention. Landell complained again about lack of membership activity in his next quarterly report in January 1844 (45): "It appears that many who were most active in our meeting but a short time since have now lost all their activity and are generally the first to complain of the Society's proceedings." He went on to say that "there appears to be a retrograde movement with some of our pledged members who, I am sorry to say, have broken the pledge, and again sunk into their old habits. I would urge upon all the members to take the old path, and visit such as have been unfortunate." Finally, Landell commented that "There is, Sir, another evil to which I wish to direct your attention: that is, to the low, disgusting, Jim-along-Josey songs, which are occasionally sung at our public meetings, to the no small annoyance of the respectable part of the audience," calling attention to the fact that some of the members of the society were repelled by the lack of respectability of the behavior of the rest. (There is little doubt that the "Jim-along-Josey" songs came out of the popular drinking culture of the day.) We have a few useful membership statistics for this period. The Newark society distinguished between persons who merely signed the pledge and those who signed the society's constitution and committed themselves to paying dues. Landell (45) struck out at the constitutional members for not fulfilling their obligation to participate and at the pledged members for their tendency to "backslide" into drinking. There 3657 pledged male and female members of the Newark Washingtonian Society in mid-October 1843 and 3849 pledged members in mid-January 1844 - a growth of 192 persons. There were 356 constitutional members in mid-October 1843 and 366 constitutional members in mid-January 1844, a growth of 10. Statistics on the Washingtonian conversion of drunkards, however, must be regarded as grossly exaggerated and should be viewed in part as propaganda tools; in societies that did not differentiate between pledged and constitutional members probably about 10 could be regarded as constitutional members and not all these were ex-drunkards or heavy drinkers. It seems likely that some of the failure in participation by the members may have been due to the fact that temperance fraternal orders had become organized in Newark. In July 1843 the Independent Order of Rechabites announced the existence of a chapter in Newark and invited participation by all those of "good moral character" between the ages of 18 and 50. The Rechabites were a beneficial as well as a benevolent society. "The benefits accruing to persons who belong to this order are not confined to sickness - they are more extensive. If a brother be unfortunate, and at the same time deserving, his necessities will be relieved; and if he come from a distance, or be traveling, like assistance is afforded him should he need it"(46). The order was open to total abstainers only. The notice was signed by Abner Campbell and James Cox, both of whom had been active in the Newark Washingtonians. The Sons of Temperance had also been active among the Newark Washingtonians. The sons of Temperance had begun to organize in September 1842 in New York City, and in November, 20 persons from Newark joined the New York Division Number 1 on the understanding that as soon as feasible they would organize Division Number 1 of New Jersey. The final organizational meeting of the Sons of Temperance took place in New York City on 10 December 1842, and at that meeting the charter of Newark Division Number 1 of New Jersey was confirmed. The Sons of Temperance was formed expressly to recruit Washingtonians, and so there can be little doubt that most, if not all, of its early Newark members were Washingtonians. Among those I have been able to identify were James Cox, William L. Meeker (carpenter), William B. Donnington (grocer) and James B. Hay (foundry operator). The Sons of Temperance, a beneficial and fraternal society which required total abstinence of its members, quickly became a much larger order than the Rethabites. One of the appeals of the Sons of Temperance undoubtedly was the fact that at the local or division level, new officers were elected every 3 months, giving everyone an opportunity to participate. By 21 November 1843, when Newark Division Number 1 of New Jersey celebrated its first anniversary, it had 90 members. Though there can be little doubt that the fraternal orders absorbed the energies of many members of the Newark Washington society, some persons were active in several organizations. James Cox, for instance, was active in the leadership of the Washingtonians, the Sons of Temperance and the Independent Order of Rechabites. By then end of the year, the Washingtonians of Newark were clearly on a downward slide. In addition to the dynamics of membership participation and the diversion of members into fraternal orders, there was also a theory offered by the temperance-prohibitionists to account for this decline. The Sixth Annual Report of the Essex County Temperance Society (47) commented that "The movement of the Washington Associations are less active than last year. Those among them, who from the beginning were opposed to religious addresses being made in their meetings, begin sadly to experience the unhappy effects of such opposition, and the friends of Religion and Temperance are more than ever convinced that we have no perfect security for a reformed or pledged man, or youth, but in deep implantations of religious principles." While cast in terms of religious belief, the temperance-prohibitionist clergymen argued that only if the Washingtonians provided the temperance-prohibitionist leadership easy access to their meetings could drunkard reform be successful. But we know that thetemperance-prohibitionist leadership advocated not only religious faith (and the Protestant variety, at that), but also political policies which were directly at variance with the original Washingtonian principles of strict moral suasion. The downward slide of the Newark Washingtonians was hastened by an internal power struggle (48-51). The immediate focus of attention was on accusations that Joseph Burr, then president of the society, had abused his position and either taken advantage of or absconded with some of the money of the young ladies, of the Lady Warren Society which was engaged in a fund-raising project for the Washingtonians. There was a nasty charge that Burr had manipulates the situation so that the money was to be given to him "as a token of appreciation for his work as president of the Washington Temperance Benevolent Society" rather than dedicated to charitable purposes as advertised. Burr attested that both charges were incorrect. At the next meeting of the Washingtonians in February 1844, despite objections, Burr was again declared president. Whereupon the following members offered their resignations as officers of the society: C. Thayer (painter), Jacob May (hatter), Hiram McCormick (shoemaker) and J.H. Landell (rigger). The faction also included Thomas Corey (coach lace weaver), J.R. Jilson (hatter), James Cox, J.P. Joralemon, Reverend James Gallagher (pastor, Universalist Church), David Pierson (coach lace maker) and F.L. Rogers (printer). Apparently in anger, Burr then resigned and new officers were elected. These included Angus Campbell, D.G. Doremus, W.H. Backus (tin dealer), John C. Howell (shoe manufacturer, Nelson Prout (coach maker), Philo Sample (harness maker), Henry Force (saddler) and John Roff (shoemaker). Campbell was an opposition sympathizer but did not yet play his hand. On 25 April there was a rump meeting of the dissident faction at the house of Caleb Thayer, at which a resolution was passed. "That the members of the Washington T.B. Society proceed to the Temperance Hall (formerly occupied by them) tomorrow evening and reassert their rights, and henceforth endeavor, by all honorable means, to re-establish the society on a pure "Washingtonian basis"(52). The next night the group proceeded to the hall where Campbell took the chair and called the meeting to order; then there was a resolution that the proper officers of the society take their seats, whereupon Campbell stepped down and Caleb Thayer took the chair as first vice president, there being at the moment no person whom the Washingtonian strict constructionists recognized. John P. Joralemon was then elected president of the society. In their published statement (signed by James Cox, David Pierson, F.L. Rogers and J.H. Landell) the group summed their grievances as follows (52): "It is unnecessary to recur to the causes which have been the means of impeding the progress of the Washingtonian reform, as they are too well known to need repetition here. Suffice it to say that the Washingtonians, who formerly carried on the work, were unceremoniously driven from their hall by overpowering numbers, by men who seldom or never lent them their aid, and whose views in reference to the true Washingtonian spirit were in direct opposition to their own. The Washingtonians left the society entirely free from debt, and also with a surplus of 30 or 40 dollars in the treasury. They gave their opponents a fair chance to try the experiment, that the public might be enabled to see how the thing would work in their hands; and the result has been (as we knew it would be) an entire failure. They have left the society in debt and in a measure broken up. Consequently, at the earnest solicitations of the friends of Temperance, (and more particularly of the ladies) the Washingtonians have determined to rally in their strength; and they do so with the conscientious belief that the Glorious Cause which they advocate cannot possibly prosper in any other hands; and also with a full knowledge that the public will not give their countenance and support to any fictitious abortion which may raise its head under the honored garb of Temperance. Relying then, on the benevolence of the public, together with their own exertions, they have, as will be seen by the above proceedings, come to the determination of pushing forward the work to perfection. It is time something was done, for during the late season of inactivity, drunkenness has been alarmingly on the increase, and many who might have been saved by timely assistance, have probably sunk so low in degradation that it will need desperate effort to redeem them." For all practical purposes, the activities of January through April 1844 were the signal for the abandonment of the Washingtonians as a significant force in Newark. The notice of the May meeting, signed by James Cox, does not mention the name of the society (it is incorrectly referred to as the "annual meeting"); the third anniversary celebration in July was apparently conducted with its usual procession and oratory, but it must have been a hollow shell - the society simply dropped from sight and there are no further reports of it. Meanwhile, we have some evidence that the Washingtonians had been bypassed. In the spring of 1844 a general temperance meeting was announced (53) at which there would be a lecture displaying Dr.Sewall's plates, drawings much used by the temperance-prohibitionists showing the effects of alcohol on the internal organs of the body. The sponsors of the lecture included the following: E. Cheever, A.D. Eddy, John S. Porter )pastor, Reformed Church), William R. Weeks (pastor, Fourth Presbyterian Church), William Bradley (pastor, Central Presbyterian Church), H.H. Brinsmade (pastor, Third Presbyterian Church), James Scott (pastor, Reformed Church), William Roberts (builder), Lyndon Smith (physician), Asa Whitehead (attorney and counselor), Fred T. Frelinghuysen (attorney and counselor-nephew and adopted son of Theodore Frelinghuysen), William B. Kinney (editor, Daily Advertiser), William Penrrington (Governor of the State of New Jersey), Silas Condit (president of a local bank) and the Honorable Joseph C. Hornblower (Chief Justice of New Jersey). Clearly, the temperance-prohibitionists respectables were pushing ahead with their own program and no longer needed the Washingtonians; the disappearance of occasional mention of the society may be specifically related to the fact that the editor of one of Newark's principal papers at the time was a temperance-prohibitionist. Finally, we have one last sign that the Washingtonians had lost their ability to influence events in Newark. On 4 June 1844 a temporary planning committee was announced for the upcoming Independence Day celebration. For the first time that decade, the names of the committee members were appended-presumably to demonstrate that it had the overwhelming support of the citizenry and perhaps as a kind of defiant statement directed to the temperance-prohibitionists. (The planning meeting was held in Stewart's saloon.) As the following list of committee members, representing 20 of the total, makes clear, the opposition included a goodly number of the middle-class persons as well as some artisans: James Miller (carpenter), D.P. Woodruff (clerk), E.T. Hillyer (attorney and counselor), Stephen G. Sturges (slater), O.S. Boyden (machinist), E.G. Faitout (grocer), Robert Trippe (druggist), Joel W. Condit (grocer), Horace E. Baldwin (jeweller), Ira Merchant (sash and blind), Isaac Baldwin (builder, Ebenezer Francis (currier), Charles Spinning (carpenter), John C. Little (merchant tailor, Stephen Conger (physician), Henry Duryea (hatter), A.0. Boylan (attorney-at-law), Stephen K. Ford (coal dealer), Theodore S. Jacobs (clerk), William A Baldwin (sheriff), Charles T. Day (clothier), Edwin Ross (baker), Timothy B. Crowell (editor, New Jersey Eagle), James Tucker (currier), Alexander Dougherty (leather), Stephen G. Crowell (dry goods), William S. Pennington (attorney-at-law, not the Governor), and David D. Dodd (cap manufacturer). (It seems likely that the sides taken by the editors of the two newspapers reflect their politics - the Daily Advertiser was a Whig paper and the Eagle was probably a Democratic paper. ) Thus, some respectable citizens opposed the temperanceprohibitionists in this matter; whether the basic difference between the two sets of antagonists is interpretable in terms of "status politics" as Gusfield (54) and Donald (55) argue is beyond the scope of this paper. DISCUSSION As a therapeutic social movement, the Washingtonian Movement originally focused its attention on drunkards themselves rather than on changing the sociopolitical situation; this was in contradistinction to the emergent temperance-prohibitionist movement which became strongly politicized. The Washingtonians placed strong emphasis on the acceptance of social practices that had previously been rejected by the drunkards and heavy drinkers. While it is true that if all drunkards had been convinced and converted there would have been a major shift in the social practices of the period, effecting such a major social change was not the manifest intent of the Washingtonians when the movement began. This major shift in social practices was more or less latent in the beginning and only became evident during the course of a close association with the temperance-prohibitionists. One of the striking characteristics of therapeutic social movements is that the demand for change is focused on the individual, who must reform if he is to be "cured." Thus, the Washingtonians were inner-directed, while the temperance-prohibitionists were outer-directed. If the term "discontent" is used in a general way, it could be said that in a therapeutic social movement the person is discontented with himself rather than society and accepts the blame or responsibility as his own. Put another way, the person "protests" his own behavior, his own inner condition, the way that he perceives that he is perceived by others and, if there is to be a change, adopts a method for securing satisfaction of his protests about himself. Clearly, one of the elements of the "cure" is his awareness of how others perceive him, his acceptance of others' perception of him as his own perception of himself and his awareness that there is a way to bring himself into conformity with the norms that he has accepted. However, many persons are unable to choose the therapeutic strategy which logically best fits their own situations and, consequently, never do achieve a "cure" or a satisfactory solution to their protest about themselves. The case of alcoholism is notorious in this respect, and the core element of self-help cures (such as Washingtonianism) rests on persuading the alcoholic that he can alleviate the symptoms and arrest the alcoholic condition. The key lies in persuasion, and the drunkards and heavy drinkers of the time of the Washingtonian movement more readily accepted the argument of the Washingtonians that "it works for me and it should work for you" than the exhortations of the temperance-prohibitionists. That this self-help approach can be the basis of a successful therapeutic social movement is evidenced by the wide acceptance and influence of Alcoholics Anonymous. But the Washingtonian Movement, a therapeutic social movement based on essentially the same principles, "failed" in the 19th century, and I have attempted to explore the significance of the temperance-prohibitionists in the "failure" in Paterson and Newark, New Jersey. This is not to suggest that there were not other factors that contributed to the decline of the Washington temperance societies. In large measure, the Washingtonians and the temperance-prohibitionists agreed on the importance of self-help in the "cure" of alcoholism, although they did differ in ways that will not be discussed in the present essay. Where they were in conflict was on the issue of reliance on moral suasion as opposed to political (or state) intervention. The consequence of these different commitments was that the Washingtonians were concerned about drunkards for their own sake they were therapeutic - while the temperance-prohibitionists wanted to change the political system - they were a political reform movement, although they had a strong concern for the destructive effects of alcohol on individuals and their families. In recent years there has developed what may be called the "organizational approach" to the analysis of social movements. Those who advocate this approach suggest that we abandon any special consideration of social movements, that there is simply organizational behavior. As McCarthy and Zald (56) point out, the organizational approach to the study of social movements emphasizes both the societal support and constraint of social movement phenomena. It examines the resources that must be mobilized, the links between social-movement organizations and other groups, the dependence of social-movement organizations on external support for success and the tactics used to control or influence socialmovement organizations by those external to it. The present study of the Washingtonian temperance societies of Paterson and Newark has used an organizational approach. While from time to time it has been necessary to engage in the analysis of the ideologies of Washingtonianism and prohibitionism, this has been incidental to what happened to the Washington Temperance Benevolent Societies themselves. I do not suggest that the case studies of two societies in two communities are definitive; rather they should provide scholars with the basis for future research. They should also provide the basis for additional research into a central issue in the study of social movements - the study of the opposition; sometimes the sponsors and friends of the nascent movement also turn out to be a part of the opposition.   REFERENCES 1. Maxwell, M. A. The Washingtonian movement. Q. J. Stud. Alcohol 11: 410- 451, 1950. 2. BLUMBERG, L. [U.] The ideology of a therapeutic social movement; Alcoholics Anonymous. J. Stud. Alcohol 38; 2122-2143, 1977. 3. TYLER, A. F. Freedom's ferment. New York; Arno Press;1944. 4. [Zug J.] The foundation, progress and principles of the Washington emperance Society of Baltimore, and the influence it has bid on the temperance movements in the United States. Baltimore; Toy; 1842. 5. AMERICAN TEMPERANCE UNION. Permanent temperance documents. Vol. 2.New York; American Temperance Union; 1852. 6. Paterson Intelligencer, 21 April 1841. 7. Paterson Intelligencer, 28 April 1841. 8. Paterson Intelligencer, 12 May 1841. 9. Paterson Intelligencer, 18 August 1841. 10. Constitution and by-laws of the Washington Temperance Benevolent Society of the town of Paterson. PatersonDay and Waaen; 1843. 11. (HAYDOCK, C.] Incidents in the life of George Haydock, ex-professional woodsawyer, of Hudson. 4th ed. Hudson [N.Y.]; Stoddard; 1847. 12. Petersen Intelligencer, 21 June 1841. 13. Paterson Intelligencer, 23 June 1841. 14. WINSKILL, P. T. The temperance movement and its workers., Vol. 2. London; Blackie; 1891. 15. Paterson Intelligencer, 16 November 1842. 16. Paterson Intelligencer, 25 May 1842. 17. Paterson Intelligencer, 6 July 1842, 18. Paterson Intelligencer, 1 December 1842. 19. Paterson Intelligencer, 17 March 1842. 20. Paterson Intelligencer, 21 December 1842. 21. Paterson Intelligencer, 14 December 1842. 22. Paterson Intelligencer, 28 December 1842. 23. Paterson Intelligencer, 15 May 1844. 24. Paterson Intelligencer, 14 August 1844. 25. Paterson Intelligencer, 4 September 1844. 26. RWT, J. The honors of delirium tremens. New York; Adams; 1844. 27. Paterson Intelligencer, 20 November 1844. 28. Paterson Intelligencer, 11 March 1846. 29. Paterson Intelligencer, 19 August 1846. 30. Paterson Intelligencer, 21 July 1841. 31. Newark Daily Advertiser, 8 March 1841. 32. Newark Daily Advertiser, 12 May 1841. 33. Newark Daily Advertiser, 24 May 1841. 34. Newark, Daily Advertiser, 5 June 1841. 35. Newark Daily Advertiser, 8 July 1841. 36. Newark Daily Advertiser, 17 August 1841. 37. New Jersey Eagle, 8 February 1842. 38. Newark Daily Advertiser, 7 July 1842. 39. Newark Daily Advertiser, 29 December 1842. 40. New Jersey Eagle, 28 February 1843. 41. Newark Daily Advertiser, 14 September 1843. 42. Newark Daily Advertiser, 16 September 1843. 43. Newark Daily Advertiser, 30 November 1843. 44. Newark Daily Advertiser, 14 October 1843. 45. Newark Daily Advertiser, 13 January 1844. 46. New Jersey Eagle, 11 July 1843. 47. Newark Daily Advertiser, 23 December 1843. 48. Newark Daily Advertiser, 24 January 1844. 49. Newark Daily Advertiser, 26 January 1844. 50. Newark Daily Advertiser, I Febmary 1944. 51. Newark Daily Advertiser, 24 February 1844. 52. Newark Daily Advertiser, 29 April 1844. 53. Newark Daily Advertiser, 22 March 1844. 54. CUSFIELD, J. R. Symbolic emmde; status politics and the American temperance movement. Urbana, III.; Univenity of Illinois Press; 1966. 55. DONALD, D. Toward a reconsideration abolitionists. Pp. 13-23. In; Gusfield, J.R. Protest, reform, and revolt. New York; Wiley; 1970. 56. McCARTHY, J. D. and ZA@, M. N. Resource mobilization and social movements; partial theory. Am. J. Sec. 82: 1212-1241, 1977. GRAPEVINE ARTICLES JULY 1945 HISTORY OFFERS GOOD LESSON FOR A.A. . A.A.s need to warn each other about becoming too confident. Overconfidence can have sorry consequences. Individual A.A.s need to take the warning to heart; A.A. as an organization of individuals can also profit from it. All of us, attending meetings of our various groups, have heard, and taken part in, conversations like this: "D'ja see that story about A.A. in this week's Squint?" "Not yet, but Joe was talkin' about it. Any good?" "Yeah, a pretty good piece. You know, those editors must think we got somethin'." Sure, they wouldn't be giving us space, what with the war and all, if they didn't think a lot of their readers wanted to know about us." Rosy contentment settles over speakers and listeners. How many of the readers of The Grapevine have heard about the Washington Temperance Society? It was quite an organization in its time - in the 1840's. Its organizers called themselves "reformed drunkards" and they set about "reforming" other drunkards. Does the idea seem familiar? CLAIMED 100,000 IN 3 YEARS They did all right, too, They got going in the spring of 1840, in Baltimore. In early 1843, they were claiming that they had persuaded 100,000 habitual drunkards to sign the pledge. Older temperance organizations had to stand aside - or climb onto the bandwagon. The new society was getting the headlines. It organized a mass meeting in City Hall Park in New York City in 1841 that attracted more than 4,000 listeners - the speakers stood on upturned rum kegs - and it had 1,800 new members when it closed its campaign in that city. There were triumphal parades in Boston - where historic Faneuil Hall was jammed to the doors to hear the speaker - and in other eastern cities, Speakers toured the West and South. The Press of the day gave the society uncounted columns of publicity. The society petered out. The "why" contains a lesson - and a moral - for A.A. There was no ONE reason, of course. A reason was that older temperance organizations hired some of the society's better speakers. That reason couldn't have wrecked the society if it had had its feet solidly on the ground. Another reason was that politicians looked hungrily at its swelling membership. Some of them climbed aboard the wagon (there is inference that in those times, at least, some politicians could qualify for membership) and they helped to wreck local groups through their efforts to line up votes. The Abolition movement was gaining strength and there was division within groups as men took their stand on the issue of slavery. The Washingtonians were confident. They rebuffed overtures of older temperance organizations, they scorned old methods. Local groups went their separate ways, made their own mistakes, learned their own lessons. Some, with larger membership, dipped into their treasuries to finance their own publications. There was no overall direction of educational policy. Editors of local society publications got into squabbles with editors of other temperance papers. FACTORS WITHIN There was division, in those times, among the older organizations. Some of them plumped for total abstinence as a rule of conduct; others hedged and wanted to direct their efforts against use of spirituous liquors, accepting use of wines and beers as normal conduct. Some of the more hardy souls already were clamouring for legislation that would outlaw the traffic in beverage alcohol. All of these factions pulled and hauled on the society's members. Older temperance organizations were finding it increasingly difficult to interest the public in their aims. The Washingtonians with their unique methods - their missionary work among drunkards, their open-air parades and mass meetings, their "experience" programs that afforded a thrill-seeking public the opportunity of enjoying vicariously the degenerate experiences of sodden sinners - were stealing the show. The older organizations borrowed Washingtonian speakers and methods to draw larger audiences to their meetings. Because the Washingtonian movement, in its beginnings, was concerned only with the reclaiming of drunkards and held that it was none of its affair if others used alcohol who seemed to be little harmed by it, the makers and sellers of alcoholic beverages looked upon the new movement with a tolerant, even approving eye. The habitual drunk was no more welcome in the nineteenth century grog-shop than he is in the present day cocktail lounge.   ONE FATAL OMISSION But in its zeal to increase its membership as rapidly as possible, the society pledged many persons to total abstinence who were intemperate drinkers, probably, but who were not alcoholic in the present-day definition of the term. The Washingtonian movement might have survived, however, might have triumphed over its mistakes, and its enemies (and well wishers), except for one fatal omission. Its organizers believed they could got along without a Higher Power. It wasn't a particularly religious time. And inebriates, then as now, had generally lost touch with Him. Many of them, in fact, were outspoken in their denunciations of all of His works, especially as demonstrated in the activities and attitudes of so-called Christian folk. The meetings of the society's groups were conducted usually without reference to Him. Washingtonians were not atheists; it just hadn't occurred to them that God as we understand Him could help them to stay sober. In fact, some of them believed that if they invited God into their councils, sectarianism also would push its way in, and their movement would be taken over by one or another of the churches. The society wasn't on God's side and, consequently it disintegrated. SOURCE OF STRENGTH An editor of that day wrote: "That the exclusion of all religious forms and the entire abstraction of religion from temperance, was necessary for the reclamation of the drunkard, we have never believed.... The drunkard may have felt hostile to religion while in the bar-room and amid the fumes of liquor, and he may feel so after he has reformed and been taught to believe that he is better than a Christian, but never did a poor drunkard go up in sincerity to sign the pledge, without feeling himself a prodigal, commencing a work of return to his Heavenly Father, and needing that Father's help: and who would not have gratefully knelt and listened to a prayer for that help on his new endeavors. And we believe that if the hundreds of thousands of signatures in our country had been accompanied with prayer and some religious enforcement, their power and efficiency would have been incomparably stronger."(5) Is it necessarily true that there's nothing new under the sun," or that "history repeats itself?" A.A. is new, a new partnership with God in a useful endeavor. History NEED NOT repeat, in the case of A.A., the sorry story of the Washingtonians, rise and fall. There are, however, lessons to be learned from history. C.H.K., Lansing, Mich AUGUST 1945 MODESTY ONE PLANK FOR GOOD PUBLIC RELATIONS By Bill W During its brief few years in the public eye, Alcoholics Anonymous has received hundreds of thousands of words of newspaper and magazine publicity. These channels have been augmented recently by radio commentators and, here and there, A.A. sponsored radio broadcasts. Hardly a word of criticism or ridicule has ever been uttered about us. While our publicity has sometimes lacked a certain dignity we can scarcely complain of that. After all, drinking is not such a dignified business! We surely have reason for great gratitude that multitudes of writers, editors, clergymen, doctors - friends of every description - have continued so sympathetically and so enthusiastically to urge our cause. As a direct result of their efforts, thousands of alcoholics have come to A.A. It is a good record. Providentially good, when one considers how many mistakes we might have made; how deeply, had other policies been followed, we might now be involved. In the "wet - dry" controversy for example. Conceivably we might even have fallen out with our good friends, religion and medicine. None of these things have happened. We have been unbelievably fortunate, thank God. But by the Grace of God While this makes fine success story reading, it is not, to our way of thinking, any reason for self-congratulations. Older A.A.s who know the record are unanimous in their feeling that an Intelligence greater than ours has surely been at work, else we would never have avoided so many pitfalls, could never have been so happily related to our millions of friends in the outside world. Yet history records the rise, and let us not forget, the fall of any number of promising and benign undertakings - political, religious and social. While some did outlive their usefulness the greater part died prematurely. Something wrong or unsound within them always became apparent without. Their public relations suffered, they grew no more; they bogged down to a dead level or fell apart. Personal glorification, overweening pride, consuming ambition, exhibitionism, intolerant smugness, money or power madness, refusal to admit mistakes and learn from them, self-satisfaction, lazy complacence - these and many more are the garden varieties of ills which so often beset movements as well as individuals. While we A.A.s, as individuals, have suffered much from such defects, and must daily admit and deal with them in our personal lives if we are to stay sober and useful, it is nevertheless true that such attitudes have seldom crept into our public relations. But some day they might. Let us never say, "It can't happen here." It Did Happen Then Those who read the July Grapevine were startled, then sobered, by the account which it carried of the Washingtonian movement. It was hard for us to believe that 100 years ago the newspapers of this country were carrying enthusiastic accounts about 100,000 alcoholics who were helping each other stay sober; that today the influence of this good work has so completely disappeared that few of us had ever heard of it. Let's cast our eyes over that Grapevine piece about the Washingtonians and excerpt a few sentences: "Mass meeting in 1841, at City Hall Park, New York City, attracted 4,000 listeners. Speakers stood on upturned rum kegs." "Triumphal parades in Boston. Historic Faneuil Hall jammed." (Overdone self-advertising - exhibitionism? Anyhow, it sounds very alcoholic, doesn't it!) "Politicians looked hungrily at the swelling membership ... helped wreck local groups through their efforts to line up votes." (Looks like personal ambition again, also unnecessary group participation in controversial issues, the hot political issue was then abolition of slavery.) "The Washingtonians were confident ... they scorned old methods." (Too cock-sure, maybe. Couldn't learn from others and became competitive, instead of cooperative, with other organizations in their field.) Like A.A., the Washingtonians originally had but one object: "Was concerned only with the reclamation of drunkards and held that it was none of its affair if others used alcohol who seemed little harmed by it." But later on came this development: "There was division among the older local organizations - some wanted wines and beers - some clamored for legislation to outlaw alcohol - in its zeal for new members many intemperate drinkers, not necessarily alcoholic, were pledged." (The original strong and simple group purpose was thus dissipated in fruitless controversy and divergent aims.) Editorial Squabbles And again, "Some of the Washingtonian local groups) dipped into their treasuries to finance their own publications. Editors of local papers got into squabbles with editors of temperance papers." (Apparently the difficulty was not necessarily the fact they had local publications. It was more due to the refusal of the Washingtonians to stick to their original purpose and so retrain from fighting anybody, also to the obvious fact that they had no national public relations policy or tradition which all members were willing to follow.) We are sure that if the original Washingtonians could return to this planet they would be glad to see us learning from their mistakes. They would not regard our observations as aimless criticism. Had we lived in their day we might have made the same errors. Perhaps we are beginning to make some of them now. So we need to constantly scrutinize ourselves carefully, in order to make everlastingly certain that we always shall be strong enough and single purpose enough from within, to relate ourselves rightly to the world without. Now then, does A.A. have a public relations policy? Is it good enough? Are its main principles clear? Can it meet changing conditions over the years to come? Now that we are growing so rapidly into public view, many A.A.s are becoming acutely conscious of these questions. In the September Grapevine I'll try to briefly outline what our present public relations practices are, how they developed, and where, in the judgment of most older A.A. members, they could perhaps be improved to better cope with our new and more pressing problems. May we always be willing to learn from experience!   SEPTEMBER 1945 "RULES" DANGEROUS, BUT UNITY ON PUBLIC POLICIES VITAL TO FUTURE OF AA. By Bill (Second in a series of articles presenting basic AA. policies for discussion.) Does Alcoholics Anonymous have a public relations policy? Is it adequate to meet our present and future needs? Though it has never been definitely formulated or precisely stated, we certainly have a partly formed public relations policy. Like everything else in A.A., it has grown up out of trial and error. Nobody invented it. Nobody has ever laid down a set of rules or regulations to cover it, and I hope no one ever will. This is because rules and regulations seem to be little good for us. They seldom work well. Were we to proceed by the rules, somebody would have to make them and, more difficult still, somebody would have to enforce them. "Rulemaking" has often been tried. It usually results in controversy among the "rule makers" as to what the rules should be. And when it comes to enforcing an edict - well, you all know the answer. When we try to enforce rules and regulations, however reasonable, we almost always get in so "dutch" that our authority disappears. A cry goes up, "Down with the dictators, off with their heads!" Hurt and astonished "Control Committee" after "Control Committee," "Leader" after "Leader" makes the discovery that human authority, be it ever so partial or benign, seldom works long or well in our affairs. Alcoholics (no matter if ragged) are yet the most rugged of individualists, true anarchists at heart. Of course nobody claims this trait of ours to be a sterling virtue. During his first A.A. years every A.A. has had plenty of the urge to revolt against authority. I know I did, and can't claim to be over it yet. I've also served my time as a maker of rules, a regulator of other people's conduct. I too, have spent sleepless nights nursing my 'wounded" ego, wondering how others whose lives I sought to manage could be so unreasonable, so thoughtless of "poor" me. I can now look back upon such experiences with much amusement. And gratitude as well. They taught me that the very quality which prompted me to govern other people was the identical egocentricity which boiled up in my fellow A.A.'s when they themselves refused to be governed!   Non - A.A. Questions A non-A.A. reader can be heard to exclaim, "This looks very serious for the future of these people. No organization, no rules, no authority? It's anarchy; it's dynamite; it's 'atomic' and bound to blow up. Public relations indeed! If there is no authority how can they have any public relations policy at all? That's the very defect which ruined the Washingtonian alcoholics a hundred years ago. They mushroomed to 100,000 members, then collapsed. No effective policy or authority. Quarreled among themselves, so finally got a black eye with the public. Aren't these A.A.s just the same kind of drunks, the same kind of anarchists? How can they expect to succeed where the Washingtonians failed? Good questions these. Have we the answers? While we must never be too sure there is reason to hope that we have, because forces seem to be at work in A. A. which were little evident among our brother alcoholics of the 1840s. For one thing our A.A. program is spiritually centered. Most of us have found enough humility by facing the fact that alcoholism is a fatal malady over which we are individually powerless. The Washingtonians, on the contrary, thought drinking was just another strong habit which could be broken by will power as expressed in pledges, plus the sustaining force of mutual aid through an understanding society of ex-drunks. Apparently they thought little of personality change, and nothing at all of spiritual conversion. Mutual aid plus pledges did do a lot for them but it wasn't enough; their individual egos still ran riot in every channel save alcohol. Self-serving forces having no real humility, having little appreciation that the penalty for too much self will is death to the alcoholic, having no Greater Power to serve, finally destroyed the Washingtonians. Unity Thus Far When, therefore, we A.A.s look to the future, we must always be asking ourselves if the spirit which now binds us together in our common cause will always be stronger than those personal ambitions and desires which tend to drive us apart. So long as the positive forces are greater we cannot fail. Happily, so far, the ties which bind us have been much stronger than those which might break us. Though the individual A.A. is under no human coercion, is at almost perfect personal liberty, we have, nevertheless, achieved a wonderful unity on vital essentials. For example, "The 12 Steps" of our A.A. program are not crammed down anybody's throat. They are not sustained by any human authority. Yet we powerfully unite around them because the truth they contain has saved our lives, has opened the doors to a new word. Our experience tells us these universal truths work. The anarchy of the individual yields to their persuasion. He sobers up and is led, little by little, to complete agreement with our simple fundamentals. Ultimately, these truths govern his life and he comes to live under their authority, the most powerful authority known, the authority of his full consent, willingly given. He is ruled, not by people, but by principles, by truths and, as most of us would say, he is ruled by God. Now some might ask, "What has all this to do with an A.A. public relations policy?" An older A.A. would say, "Plenty." While experience shows that in A.A. no policy can be created and announced full blown, much less effectively enforced by human authority, we are, nevertheless, faced with the problem of developing a public relations policy and securing for it the only authority we know - that of common understanding and widespread, if not universal, consent. When this consent is secured we can then be sure of ourselves. A.A.s will everywhere put the policy into effect as a matter of course, automatically. But we must at first be clear on certain basic principles. And these must have been tried and tested in our crucible of experience. In forthcoming articles I shall therefore try to trace the development of our public relations from the very first day we came to public notice. This will show what our experience has already taught us. Then every A.A. can have a real background for constructive thinking on this terribly vital matter - a matter on which we dare not make grave mistakes; upon which, over the years, we cannot afford to become unsound. Flexibility Is Vital One qualification, however. A policy isn't quite like a fixed truth. A policy is something which can change to meet variable conditions, even though the basic underlying truths upon which it is founded do not change at all. Our policy might, for example, rest upon our 12 Steps for its undedying truths, yet remain reasonably flexible so far as the means or method of its application is concerned. Hence I earnestly hope thousands of A.A.s start thinking a great deal about these policy matters which are now becoming so important to us. It is out of our discussions, our differences of opinion, our daily experiences, and our general consent that the true answers must finally come. As an older member I may be able to marshal the facts and help analyze what has happened so far. Perhaps I can even make some suggestions of value for the future. But that is all. Whether we are going to have a clear-cut public relations policy will finally be determined by all of us together - not by me alone! (To be continued in the October GRAPEVINE) JULY 1947 LEST WE TRAVEL PATH OF WASHINGTONIANS From Outwood, Kentucky As a member of A.A. for two years I have enjoyed and received much help from The A.A. Grapevine. Bill's articles are always tops. I would like to add my humble opinion to certain questions which are discussed in our publication. 1.We must keep our anonymity as far as possible if we expect to be effective. 2.Stay clear of those who wish to popularize A.A. in such a way that eventually may lead to its becoming a racket. We do not need to appeal to the public in any way for funds. To commercialize A.A. is to destroy it. 3.Avoid as much as possible holding meetings in churches or any religious houses. The average alcoholic cannot be won through any creed or sect. He is skeptical of religion. 4.We are not out to dry up the world. As alcoholics we are sick people. The vast majority of people can still take their liquor or leave it. Those people do not need A.A. and may never need it. Let's be tolerant with the nonalcoholic. As long as we "stick to our knitting," live by our 12 Steps, and offer our help only to those who are powerless over alcohol and whose lives have become unmanageable and who are willing to go to any extreme to obtain sobriety, just so long will A.A. be effective. We do not wish to travel the same road as the Washingtonians. It is gratifying to see how A.A. has grown. I think this is due to its sincerity, the nonprofit motive, and the fact that most A.A.s are trying to live the 12 Steps. There is a heap of brother- hood in this organization which could be destroyed by commercialization in the very minutest form. E.K.D.   DECEMBER 1948 WASHINGTONIANS BY Richard Ewell Brown (THE FIRST IN A SERIES) IT was Friday evening, April 3rd,1840. Six men, tipplers all, were gathered about a table at Chase's Tavern on Liberty Street in Baltimore. To the casual passerby, there was nothing unusual about them; just another bunch of harmless drunks. From the way they talked, one might gather that they were old friends, that this was no casual meeting but one made familiar through long repetition. Among them were two blacksmiths, a tailor. a carpenter, a coach-maker and a silversmith. At least that's what they were when they set down. But when they left the bar that night, they were pioneers in a new field; the originators of an idea for the scientific rehabilitation of chronic alcoholics that was destined to sweep the country. WITH the founding of the first temperance society at Litchfield, Conn, in 1789, the early Nineteenth Century found the United States enjoying (or enduring, depending on the viewpoint) a wave of temperance reform. Baltimore was no exception. On the evening of which we speak, a well known temperance lecturer was scheduled to hold forth at a church not far from Chase's Tavern. One of our six drinkers suggested they send a delegation to hear what he had to say - just for the record, of course. Four of their number blearily volunteered, and when these intrepid adventurers returned, quite a dispassion ensued as to the value of temperance. At that moment, the landlord came in with another round. "What's all this about temperance?" he asked jovially. "It's not such a bad idea," said John F. Hoss, the carpenter, thickly. "Temperance speakers are all fools and hypocrites," angrily replied the landlord. "Of course, it's to your interest to cry them down," argued William K. Mitchell, the tailor, and soberest member of the party. "That's absolutely right," cried McCurley, the coach-maker. "Think of all the money we spend here, while our poor families-" For the moment emotion got the best of him, and he sought relief from his glass. "I know what we ought to do," shouted Anderson. "We oughta form our own temperance society." Everyone except the landlord burst into roars of inebriated approval. But the next day, after they'd sobered up, the idea somehow stayed with them. Realizing they were no longer able to drink in moderation, they made up their minds "to drink no more of the poisonous draft, forever." BEFORE taking this drastic step, they met again two nights later at the tavern for their last bout. It was agreed that Mitchell should draw up a total abstinence pledge, and they would all sign it. Just before closing time on that same evening, one of them held up his glass. "This," he said, "will be our last drink." Believe it or not, it was. They decided to convene nightly at their various homes and each man promised to bring a friend with him to the next meeting. By recounting their experiences as reformed drunkards, they hoped to induce the new members to join them in signing the pledge. Thus started the Washington Total Abstinance Society. The movement spread like wildfire, and branches were soon set up in various parts of the city. In March 1841, a delegation was sent to New York where thousands flocked to the meetings. A Boston chapter was organized in April. and by the end of the year the organization had a total membership of something like two hundred thousand. Reformed men, as they were called, like John B. Gough and John Hawkins, were in demand all over the country as speakers for the various groups. IN Baltimore, a grand procession was held with "six or eight thou- sand" in the ranks, led by John Hoss and fifty mounted marshals "with their various insignia. Speakers and other dignitaries rode in open barouches drawn each by four grey horses", while bands and banners added gaiety and color to the occasion. In the meantime, in Dedham, Mass., a Mr. Thompson proved himself such an eloquent speaker that the entire town joined the Washington movement. The leading liquor merchant gave up his business, signed the pledge and was made President of the village society. "Amid the cheerings and rejoicing of the populace," the newly elected Washingtonian official supervised the disposal of his entire stock of liquor "by pouring it upon the ground." (To he continued) JANUARY 1949 WASHINGTONIANS By Richard Ewell Brown (CONCLUSION) WHAT was the valuable secret that the Washingtonians had stumbled upon and why was the movement such a success? To begin with, they were the first to discover the now widely admitted fact that no one is quite so well equipped to help the chronic alcoholic as the ex-drunk. Here is no superior person, short on sympathy and long on advice, but a fellow sufferer who has been through the mill and knows all the answers. "An inescapable symbol of the successful escape from pain" - to quote Professor Selden Bacon of Yale University. SECONDLY. the Washingtonians avoided all the time-honored pitfalls that beset the early Nineteenth Century reformer. Heretofore the drunkard had been generally regarded as an object of contempt, de-nunciation, or ridicule. The new society considered him a sick rather then a sinful man. Religious diatribes and denunciations had no place on the Washington program. According to an early member, self-righteous exhortations or scorn were "calculated to drive him (the drinker) to madness and despair by drinking deeper...(and) embitter his heart." Modern science puts it a little differently. Professor Bacon says: "The effect of such exhortation is to reenforce the person's feeling of inferiority and self-depreciation" and to increase his "hostility." Criticism, as the Washingtonians realized, was one thing the chronic alcoholic couldn't take. To make sure that new members would not be frightened away, the Washington charter provided that only ex-drunks could address the meetings. Thus the "benefits of experience spoken in burning words from the heart" were made available for all to bear. If ordinary mortals wished to speak, they had to have permission "by common consent of the members." Debates, lectures and speeches were definitely out, and matters of business were limited to "as few remarks as possible". Ministers were not barred, but if they spoke "they were desired to lay aside their pontificals . . . abandon their sermons . . . and speak as men." Not that the Washingtonian were anti-religious. Dr. Albert Day of that most successful institution for the regeneration of chronic alcoholic, the Washington Home in Boston, had this to say in 1877: "We cannot ignore the religious element in the treatment of inebriety. Let the excellent and heaven-born truth taught by Jesus of Nazareth underlie all our teachings. But let them be shorn of all their dogmatism and taught in all their beautiful simplicity. (The drinker's) eyes should be opened to new truths," Although this was said many years after the founding of Washingtonianism, it reflects the beliefs of the earlier members. ALONG with religious affiliation, the founders of the Washington society wished to avoid any suspicion of political bias so common to other temperance groups. Politics and denominational religion were both taboo as topics of discussion. Every effort was made to prevent the society from encroaching on anyone's prejudices, so that all people would feel free to join the organization. One purpose and one purpose only, was held in mind: to rescue men from the toils of drink. To that end, the founders tried to make Washingtonianism, in the words of Father Mathew, "a green spot in the desert life where all could meet in peace and harmony." "Moral suasion" was their weapon, and sympathy their keynote. There was no censoring of erring members. If a man broke his pledge, he was forgiven "not seven times, but seventy times seven:' Another favorable aspect of Washingtonianism was its simplicity. Responsibility was divided equally, rather than among a few officers. The society constituted a grand committee of the whole, and everyone was kept busy doing missionary work, bringing new members to the weekly meetings and helping old members who had slipped back into former habits. This doing for others had as much therapeutic value for the giver as for the receiver, and accounted to a large degree for the Washington success. DESPITE the tremendous popular approval which crowned the so- called maiden efforts, however the Washington movement finally met its Waterloo in the conflicting aims of its members. The early Washingtonians bad no desire to stop the liquor traffic by legal means, improve public morals or punish wrongdoers. Why, then, was the organization unable to stick to its original platform? The founders had made one grave error which not only proved a stumbling block for future work among alcoholics, but which eventually led to the disintegration of the society as such. Stipulating that only ex-victims of intemperance could speak at meetings was a step in the right direction, but it didn't go far enough. If the rule had been that only exalcoholics could be eligible for mem- bership, the society might well be in existence today. As it was, the distinction between a temperance organization and a society for the regeneration of alcoholics was never understood. The Washingtonians didn't realize that in their therapeutic program they had something that was far more important than all the temperance ballyhoo before or since their time. They had discovered an oyster; the pearl, if they'd only known it, was inside. The nonalcoholic member soon grew tired of listening to an endless chain of ex-drunks expatiate on an experience that, in the final analysis, had no meaning for anyone but another alcoholic. It must have been hard, at times, for him to hide his boredom. Sympathy requires understanding. TO make matters worse, many of the "cures" proved to be of a somewhat less than permanent nature. For the non-alcoholic, there was only one answer: close down the bars and bistros. Many tried to dominate the meetings for sectarian or political purposes. Failing in these attempts, they left the organization to heckle from the outside. As early as September, 1842, a large group of Washingtonians formed a new society, The Sons of Temperance dedicated to the complete suppression of the liquor traffic, as well as to personal abstinence. Thus, torn by dissent from within, and opposed by rival organizations from without, it is not surprising that the Washingiton movement did not live up to its early promise. FEBRUARY 1953 A GRAPEVINE MILESTONE REPORT WASHINGTON, LINCOLN & TEMPERANCE IN THEIR TIMES IT is perhaps fitting this new February to consider that the month's two most celebrated sons can be curiously -identified with the first movement in the United States which brought about a large scale rehabilitation of alcoholics. The movement was the "Washington Temperance Society," known most widely as simply the "Washingtonians." The name was taken to honor President George Washington, deceased some forty-one years previously, and was selected only after a hassle among founding members who had originally preferred the name "Jeffersonians." The Washingtonians, founded in 1840, came of age and stature in February, 1841, when they branched out from the first group in Baltimore and began an amazing growth that resulted in a membership variously claimed to be between 100,000 and 6oo,ooo. Abraham Lincoln, himself a lifelong teetotaler, joined the movement and on February 22nd, 1842 made a memorable address in the society's behalf. "YOUR HEALTH, GENERAL WASHINGTON!" The posthumous use of Washington's name for an alcoholics' movement was solely a mark of honor for his military and political achievements. That the hero of the cherry tree incident was temperate is generally projected by his biographers; that he would espouse total abstinence for his colonial compatriots is doubtful. His own taste for good wines was known far and wide; he usually took "four or five glasses of Madeira for dinner and finished off with a draught of beer and a small glass of punch." His journals list large expenditures for "arrack, wine and punch." He had apparent distaste for rum, writing to Comte de Moustier in 1788 . . . "rum . . . is in my opinion, the bane of morals and the parent of idleness."Of George's taste for whisky we are told in a letter of 1794: ". . . as the President will be going into the Country of Whiskey, he proposes to make use of that liquor for his drink." There is a modern barroom legend that is wont to rise on February 22nd (when the cup has aptly marked the holiday) that "George Washington mushta been alc'holic . . . who elsh would stand up in a boat?" Another contemporary celebrant remarked that "Washington musta had a problem or he wouldn't have thrown a dollar away just for the water in a river!" There are no reasons to consider these patent fancies as historical. In point of sober fact, there were no maxims, no gems of guidance for the temperance society in our first presidents writings. To add reason to the name of the Washingtonians, an early orator found these quotes for use in membership campaigns: "We do not need wine to fire our blood. . .," from Washington's young days as a colonel of British provincial troops; and, "Labour to keep alive in your breast that little spark of celestial fire,-conscience" from one of the general's diaries. LIQUOR SURROUNDS MR. LINCOLN That the "reform" and temperance movements came of age in Abraham Lincoln's own time of coming of age is duly recorded by newspapers of the early 1830's. A thousand units of the American Temperance Society had a total of 1oo,ooo members by 1832. Politicians were taking notice of the temperance tide as it surged in. By 1835, there were 5,000 societies, a million members. Effective literature and temperance newspapers were rolling off presses. The Reverend Dr. Lyman Beecher had already proclaimed that intemperance was not merely drunkenness, but "the daily use of ardent spirits." In the midwest of young Abe, whisky was the beverage of a heman. Up the Mississippi from New Orleans came other potables ... Holland gin, French cognac, Teneriffe, Malaga and Scotch whisky. There were "men of distinction" in the prairie states, too! A Dayton, Ohio paper reported "whisky, twelve cents a gallon. Eight thousand have signed the temperance pledge in Cincinnati, a fact which has had some effect in lowering the price of whisky." "Martha Washington " societies were appearing . . . to "reclaim the intemperate of their own sex." But along the Sangamon river, whisky flowed as placid as the fishbare stream. The Sangamon Hardshell Baptist church refused to take a stand against whisky. Mentor Graham, Lincoln's friend who taught the school, joined the "temperance movement and found himself immediately suspended by the church trustees! To even things up, the trustees then suspended another member who had gone blind drunk. LAWYER LINCOLN DEFINES TEMPERANCE By New Year's, 1842, Abraham Lincoln was the foremost member of the Springfield, Illinois Society of Washingtonians. He had never taken whisky, but he had seen his business partner John Berry overcome by it. His law partner, Mr. Herndon, was often in "the likes of being a liquorhead" Such an enemy as whisky needed a strong foe, and Mr. Lincoln was the natural choice for the Washington's Birthday temperance meeting in the Second Presbyterian Church. Services proper for the occasion were sung by the choir, augmented by Methodist singers. Then, A. Lincoln, Esq., orator of the day, took the platform to deliver an address on "Charity in Temperance Reform." "The warfare hitherto waged against the demon intemperance has somehow or other been erroneous" Mr. Lincoln said. "Either the champions engaged or the tactics they have adopted have not been, the most proper. These champions for the most put have been preachers lawyers and hired agents. They are supposed to have no sym- pathy of feeling or interest with those very persons whom it is their object to convince and persuade" The best of temperance crusaders, Lincoln told the large audience, is the reformed drunkard. "When one who has long been known as a victim of intemperance appears before his neighbors 'clothed and in his right mind,' a redeemed specimen of long-lost humanity, and stands up, with tears of joy trembling in his eyes, to tell of the miseries once endured, now to be endured no more forever; of his once naked and starving children, now clad and fed comfortably; of a wife long weighted down with woe, weeping, and a broken heart, now restored to health; and how easily it is all done, once it is resolved to be done; how simple his language! --there is a logic and an eloquence in it that few with human feelings can resist. They cannot say he is vain of hearing himself speak, for his whole demeanor shows he would gladly avoid speaking at all; they cannot say he speaks for pay, for he received none and asked for none. In my judgment, it is to the battles of this new class of champions, that out late success is greatly, perhaps chiefly, owing." Prohibition and denunciation of dram-sellers and dram-drinkers was "both impolitic and unjust." The reason? "Because it is not much in the nature of man to be driven to anything; still less to be driven about that which is exclusively his own business; and least of all where such driving is to be submitted to at the expense of pecuniary interest or burning appetite." A "Twelfth Step" instruction from lawyer Lincoln: "A drop of honey catches more flies than a gallon of gall. If you would win a man to your cause, first convince him that you are his sincere friend." The lanky orator spoke of whisky, commodity of trade, in his own forefathers' time. "Even then it was known and acknowledged that many were greatly injured by it," Lincoln asserted. "But none seemed to think the injury arose from the use of a bad thing, but from the abuse of a very good thing. The victims of it were to be pitied and compassionated, just as are the heirs of consumption and other hereditary diseases. Their failing was treated as a misfortune and not as a crime, or even as a disgrace." In the audience was the drunkard law partner, Herndon. Perhaps to him Lincoln continued: "If we take habitual drunkards as a class, their heads and their hearts will bear an advantageous comparison with those of any other class. There seems ever to have been a proneness in the brilliant and warm-blooded to fall into this vice--the demon of intemperance ever seems to have delighted in sucking the blood of genius and of generosity." And in conclusion, Mr. Lincoln seemed to speak directly to the reformed drunkards of the Washington Society . . . "In my judgment such of us as have never fallen victims have been spared more from the absence of appetite than from any mental or moral superiority over those who have." As a code for the success of the Washingtonians in bringing new feet to the path of sobriety, Mr. Lincoln used simple phrases . . . "go for present as well as future good . . . labor for all now living, as well as all hereafter to live . . . teach hope to all, despair to none. As in Christianity it is taught, so in this teach, that 'While the lamp holds out to burn, the vilest sinner may return.'" It was five score less seven years before Alcoholics Anonymous that the man who freed other men from bondage and slavery spoke to a church room full of reformed drunkards, and people come to hear, and people come to scoff. Lincoln was never again recorded as speaker on temperance from alcohol. . .but there were to come many words to be graven in men's hearts and immortalized on granite. Words that had great meaning in the dark and confusion and desperate illness of a whole nation ... words that are still comfort, and light and milestones for faith for those today who through AA are winning their own civil war ... who are uniting their own house that it may stand righteously and honestly and undivided. Listen to that homely voice, leaving these words for the ages: "As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master." "It is difficult to make a man miserable while he feels he is worthy of himself and claims kindred to the great God who madehim." And, from the Second Inaugural Address, perhaps the most sublime phrase of Lincoln's rich gifts to America ... a message to a nation sobering up from the dreadful nightmare of four years' bloodshed . . . a message for our use today ... "With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right . . ." A MESSAGE HE MUST CARRY It was the second month of the new year, and those to whom he had brought a new way of life, a new belief, were now far away. He could not know if they still kept the faith, if they practiced in their living the simple principles of honesty, of humility and of helpfulness to others that he had found for himself and had, in turn, given to them. He had lived the long first of his own life quite differently. Born to wealth and position he had scorned those who did not share his own sophistication. And then troubled and weary of the old ways within himself, there had come to him a vision, a sort of spiritual experience that changed his whole pattern of living and gave him the courage and the peace that he later described as "passing all understanding." That others might know the new way, he traveled far and wide, speaking to such little groups as would hear him . . . telling them simply of the change within himself. 'And many said to him: "This will not work, this loving one's neighbors and making amends for past misdeeds and finding answers to the hard business of daily living in such vague ways as meditation and prayer." And they turned him out of their meeting places and he despaired that anyone should believe him and follow where he led. But he had a message, and he kept on with it. And in the second month of the year 53 AD. this man Paul wrote to those he had sponsored in a place called Philippi. This was his message-just 1900 years ago this 1953: "Brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if them be any praise, think on these things" S.H., Montclair, N.J. OCTOBER 1962 BEFORE THEY HAD AA HOW SOME BASIC AA IDEAS WERE TRIED OUT NEARLY A CENTURY AND A QUARTER AGO ... The Washingtonians: An AA colleague recently dropped by at the Grapevine office to leave a tattered and watermarked volume, nearly a century old, called "Six Nights With the Washingtonians." Thought we might like to look through it, he said, and see how close drunks had come to hitting on AA therapy that long before 1935. We began to read. In the spring of 1840, the author, T.S.Arthur, relates,"there were assembled in a drinking-house in this city (Baltimore) six men, well advanced in years, who had for a long time been confirmed drunkards, so wedded to the love of strong drink as to have found it almost impossible to live without daily resort to it." Though they met accidentally, and had gone there to drink, there was, that day, "in the mind of each a strong desire to get out of his enslaved and wretched condition." They talked. "Soon the feelings of each became known to the others, and they felt a sudden hope spring up in their minds-a hope in the power of association. Sad experience had proven to each that alone he could not stand. But together . . . they would conquer!" They organized a society, called it The Washington Temperance Society, and "determined that they would increase in number." What happened to them? By an AA "coincidence" there arrived at the Grapevine the same week an excerpt from a scholarly treatment of "The Washingtonian Movement" written by Milton A. Maxwell, Ph.D. and published in the Quarterly Journal Of Studies on Alcohol. The Washingtonians, Dr. Maxwell points out, had certain notable features later incorporated into AA: (1 ) Alcoholics helping each other (2) Weekly meetings (3) Shared experience (4) Fellowship of a group or its members constantly available (5) A reliance upon the Higher Power (6) Total abstinence from alcohol. Unfortunately, the movement eventually was torn apart in the political and doctrinal warfare associated with the temperance and abolition movements. Also, The Washingtonians lacked vitally important features of AA, among which Dr. Maxwell lists: (1) a program for personality change (2) anonymity (3) a steady flow of new ideas into the groups from outside their local memberships, and (4) avoidance of causes and controversies. Dr. Maxwell sounds a solemn warning as to the vital importance of unabated, energetic Twelfth Step work: "Whenever, and as long as, the Washingtonians were working hard at the reclamation of drunkards, they had notable success and the movement thrived and grew. This would support the idea that active outreach to other alcoholics is a factor in therapeutic success, and a necessary condition for growth-and even for survival." The following pictures (not included), taken from the Arthur book, are typical of 19th Century efforts to scare people sober. They indicate that old J. Barleycorn hasn't changed much in the past hundred years.   FEBRUARY 1964 ABRAHAM LINCOLN ON ALCOHOLISM The profound insight of the great President into the dilemma of the habitual drunkard From Lincoln's address to the Washington Temperance Society, Springfield, Ill. February 22 1842 "IN my judgment such of us who have never fallen victims have been spared more by the absence of appetite than from any mental or moral superiority over those who have. Indeed, I believe if we take habitual drunkards as a class, their heads and their hearts will bear an advantageous comparison with those of any other class." "When one who has long been known as a victim of intemperance bursts the fetters that have bound him, and appears before his neighbors 'clothed and in his right mind,' a redeemed specimen of long-lost humanity, and stands up, with tears of joy trembling in his eyes, to tell of the miseries once endured, now to be endured no more forever: of his once naked and starving children, now clad and fed comfortable; of a wife long weighed down with woe, weeping, and a broken heart, now restored to health, happiness, and a renewed affection; and how easily it is all done, once it is resolved to be done-how simple his language! Human feelings cannot resist." "I have not inquired at what period of time the use of intoxicating liquors commenced; nor is it important to know. It is sufficient that, to all of us who now inhabit the world, the practice of drinking them is just as old as the, world itself-that is, we have seen the one just as long as we have seen the other." "Those who have suffered by intemperance personally, and have reformed, are the most powerful and efficient instruments to push the reformation to ultimate success. It does not follow that those who have not suffered have no part left them to perform. Whether or not the world would be vastly benefited by a total and final banishment from it of all intoxicating drinks seems to me not now an open question." "The victims of it (alcoholism) were to be pitied and compassioned, just as are the heirs of consumption and other hereditary diseases. Their failing was treated as a misfortune and not as a crime, or even as a disgrace." "There seems ever to have been a proneness in the brilliant and warm blooded to fall into the vice-the demon of intemperance, ever seems to have delighted in sucking the blood of genius and of generosity. What one of us but can call to mind some relative, more promising in youth than all his fellows, who has fallen a sacrifice to his rapacity? He seems ever to have gone forth like the Egyptian angel of death, commissioned to slay, if not the first, the fairest born of every family." "Happy day when-all appetites controlled, all passions subdued, all matter subjugated-mind, all-conquering mind, shall live and move, the monarch of the world. Glorious consummation! Hail, fall of fury? Reign of reason, all hail! And when the victory shall be complete-when there shall be neither slave nor drunkard on the earth-how proud the title of that land which may truly claim to be the birthplace and the cradle of both those resolutions that shall have ended in that victory. How nobly distinguished that people who shall have planted and nurtured to maturity both the political and moral freedom of their species." "For the man suddenly or in any other way to break off from the use of drams, who has indulged in them for a long course of years and until his appetite for them has grown tenor a hundred-fold stronger and more craving than any natural appetite can be, requires a most powerful moral effort. In such an undertaking he needs every moral support and influence that can possibly be brought to his aid and thrown around him." "It is an old and a true maxim that 'a drop of honey catches more flies than a gallon of gall.' So with men. If you would win a man to your cause, first convince him that you are his sincere friend." "Is it just to assail, condemn, or despise them? The universal sense of mankind on any subject is an argument, or at least an influence, not easily overcome. The success of the argument in favor of the existence of an overruling providence mainly depends upon that sense; and men ought not in justice to be denounced for yielding to it in any case, or giving it up slowly, especially when they are backed by interest, fixed habits, or burning appetites." "Another error, as it seems to me, into which the old reformers fell, was the position that all habitual drunkards were utterly incorrigible, and therefore must be turned adrift and damned without remedy in order that the grace of temperance might abound, to the temperate then, and to all mankind some hundreds of years thereafter. There is in this attitude something so repugnant to humanity, so uncharitable, so cold-blooded and feelingless, that it never did nor ever can enlist the enthusiasm of a popular cause."   FEBRUARY 1971 THE WASHINGTONIANS A brief history of the organization that grew strong helping suffering alcoholics and then withered away when it lost track of its primary purpose ONE THURSDAY evening, April 2,1840. nearly 100 years before the advent of Alcoholics Anonymous, six good drinking buddies were gathered at Chase's Tavern on Liberty Street in Baltimore, Md. The more they drank, the more their discussion centered on temperance, which was one of the most popular topics of the day. This meeting and subsequent discussions led to the formation and brief, spectacular life of the Washingtonian movement, which grew in membership to over 400.000 "reformed drunkards" and then destroyed itself overnight and dropped out of sight. The story of the Washingtonian movement brings sharply into focus the importance of the Twelve Traditions of Alcoholics Anonymous as guidelines of group behavior designed to protect us again- st a similar fate. To take our Traditions for granted or to ignore them should at least justify a check mark on the debit side of our inventory charts. Until the time of this meeting at Chase's Tavern, it was the prevailing opinion that nothings could he done to help the drunkard. (The terms "alcoholic" and "alcoholism" were not yet in general use.) The few occasions when drunkards did reform did not erase the general pessimism over the possibility of rehabilitating drunks. Since alcohol was assummed to be the cause of alcoholism, many temperance movements of that day were aimed solely at keeping the nonalcoholic from becoming alcoholic. The rallying cry was: "Keep the temperate people temperate; the drunkards will soon die and the land be free!" On April 5. 1840, our six good drinking buddies once again gathered at this same tavern around another jug of spirits and were liberally toasting the great advantages of temperance and condem-ning the curse of drink. Although a number of active temperance groups was already in existence, none was acceptable to our friends Good drunks that they were, they decided to form a group of their own. They elected officers and drew up a pledge of total abstinence: "We, whose names are annexed. desirous of forming for our mutual benefit and to guard against a pernicious practice which is injurious to our health, standing, and families, do pledge ourselves as gentlemen that we will not drink any spiritous or malt liquors, vine or cider." They chose the name Washington Temperance Society in honor of George Washington, and a membership fee of twenty-five cents was established, together with monthly dues of twelve and a half cents. With fond embraces they parted, each agreeing to bring one new member to the next meeting at the tavern. And they stayed sober! In response to membership growth and at the frantic urging of the tavern owner, the group eventually rented its own hall and decided to meet weekly. At these meetings, a unique format developed. Each speaker told his own story: "what I used to be like - what happened - and what I am like now." The idea was greeted with explosive acceptance. It gave new impact to the entire temperance movement. Total abstinence had created the miracle of the man at the podium! In November 1840, the group held its first public meeting. Newspaper editors were liberal with coverage, complete with names of members. The audience was standing-room-only. Both alcoholics and nonalcoholics - all who pledged themselves to total abstinencewere welcomed into the group. Five months later, Washingtonian membership claimed over 1,000 "reformed drunkards" and 5,000 members who were not sure whether they were drunkards or not, but were also pledged to total abstinence, plus thousands of temperance advocates who welcomed the Washingtonians crusade. Newspaper editors were liberal with coverage, complete with names of members Enthusiastic promoters that they were, members of the group organized and marched in a parade. It flaunted bands and banners and was witnessed by more than 40,000 spectators in Baltimore. Following the parade, there was a great open-air park meeting to spread the Washingtonian "Twelfth Step" message: "Drunkard! Come up here! You can reform. I met a gentlemen this morning who reformed four weeks ago and was rejoicing in his reformation. We don't slight the drunkard. We love him! We nurse him as a mother does her infant learning to walk!"Tears flowed freely around the secretary's table as hundreds moved to the platform and signed the pledge of total abstinence. The emotional atmosphere was saturated with contagious salvation. Religious groups embraced the program. Samuel F. Holbrook, the first president of the society, thundered of God's part in reclaiming drunks: "The reeling drunkard is met in the street or drawn out from some old filthy shed, taken by the arm, spoken kindly to, invited to the hall, and with reluctance dragged there or carried in a carriage if not too filthy; and there he sees himself surrounded by friends and not what he most feared . . . police officers. Everyone takes him by the hand; he begins to come to and when sober signs the pledge and goes away a reformed man. And it does not end there. The man takes the pledge and from his bottle companions obtains a number of signers who likewise become sober men, Positively these are the facts."Now, can any human agency alone do this? All will answer 'No!'; for we have invariably the testimony of vast numbers of reformed men who have spoken in public and declared they have broken off a number of times, but have as often relapsed again; and the reason they give for doing this is that they wholly rely on the strength of their resolution without looking any higher, Now they feel the need of God's assistance, which having been obtained, their reform is genuine. Praise God!"The Washingtonian manifestation of miracles could not be contained geographically. Members were sure it was within their power to meet widespread, pressing needs. The reclaimed drunks active in the movement proved by their example that drunkards could be helped, and they had an overwhelming drive to carry their message of hope to other drunks who still suffered. This drive spilled over into a desire to prevent such suffering by persuading those not addicted to insure their sobriety through total abstinence. Influential temperance leaders of the day needed salesmen to sell this message of prevention, and the Washingtonians provided a waiting list of available manpower.New York City beckoned. In March of the following year, Washingtonians and spectators gathered at the Methodist Episcopal church on Green Street. During the very first speech, a young man in the gallery staggered to his feet and cried out, "Is there no hope for me? God in heaven! Is there no hope for me? Will you help me?" He was helped to the platform and "pressed his willingness and readiness to bind himself from that hour to total abstinence. Others followed. Some were young men; others were old and gray-headed. The Washingtonians embraced them all. An organization of woman within the group, known as Martha Washington Societies, fed and clothed the poor and reclaimed the intemperate of their own sex. Members were sure it was within their power to meet widespread, pressing needs In less than four years from the first meeting of our alcoholic friends at Chase's Tavern, Washingtonian membership hit its peak. At that point, it is commonly computed, the movement included at least 100,000 "reformed common drunkards," 300,000 "common tipplers" who also became total abstainers, and untold thousands who were simply enthusiastic temperance advocates.   And then came oblivion. By 1848, all that remained of the organization's spectacular power as a method of treatment was its Home for the Fallen in Boston. That institution has undergone a number of changes in name and policy, now functions as the Washingtonian Hospital, and eng-ages in the treatment of alcoholism by modern medical and social techniques. Otherwise. the movement destroyed itself completely arid dropped out of sight. With it went the hope it had held out for thousands of drunks of that day. Against this brief background, it is possible to make a limited comparison between the Washingtonian movement and Alcoholics Anonymous and to reflect on the possibility of AA's suffering a similar fate. The similarities between the earlier movement and AA might be listed as follows: 1. Alcoholics helping each other. 2. Weekly meetings. 3. The sharing of experiences. 4. Constant availability of fellowship with the group or its members. 5. Reliance upon a Higher Power. 6. Total abstention from alcohol. Although it is obvious that this program of the Washingtonians was incomplete and possessed only limited opportunity for personality change, as compared with AA's Twelve Steps, it did provide the tools for at least short-lived sobriety for thousands of drunks. But it failed to provide any standards at all that were comparable to AA's Twelve Traditions. Because there were no such safeguards for the movement as a whole, it died. Most of the Washingtonians' problems lay in areas now covered in our Traditions: 1. The AA Preamble and Tradition Five advise us to protect our singleness of purpose; Tradition One cautions us to protect our unity. Without these guidelines, the Washingtonian movement developed into a three-headed monster. First was the program of reclaiming suffering alcoholics. Second was the call to the general public for temperance through moral suasion. Third was the call for temperance through legal suasion. Influential men controlled the action of each head, and it was not long until the heads were fighting each other. 2. The carnival tactics for promotion and the lack of any spiritual principle of anonymity created an atmosphere for spectacular growth -but also led to battles among personalities competing for prestige and power. One hundred years later, AA adopted Traditions Eleven and Twelve, which guide us to base our public-relations policy on attraction rather than promotion; always to maintain personal anonymity at the level of press, broadcasting, and films; and to regard anonymity as our "spiritual foundation . . . ever reminding us to place principles before personalities." 3. Nothing can divide and destroy groups more quickly than theological and political controversy. Tradition Ten states that AA "has no opinion on outside issues" and that "the AA name ought never be drawn into public controversy." Without this Tradition the Washingtonians walked right into a Donnybrook. A few key church leaders heard Washingtonian reformed drunks proclaiming among other things, they were living Christ's program - not just giving it lip service, like a lot of pastors they knew. In retaliation, the Rev. Hiram Mattison, minister of the Methodist Episcopal church of Watertown, N.Y., fired this theological blockbuster: "No Christian is at liberty to select or adopt any general system, organization, agencies, or means for moral reformation of mankind, except those prescribed and recognized by Jesus Christ." He added that his church had been chosen, together with his gospel, as the system of truth and the only system to reform mankind. It was war! Other churches reacted in the same way and finally closed their doors to Washingtonians. 4. As if that were not enough, some of the Washingtonians' oratorical circuit riders turned professional, having no Eighth Tradition to guide them. So their one-drunk-to-another message lost a great deal of its impact. A final destructive note came when influential leaders of nonalcoholic groups decided that the need for ex-drunks to reform other drunks was past, and that emphasis should be placed instead on the importance of laws to promote temperance. In doing the research and writing this article for the Grapevine, my thoughts have kept returning to this question: After the movement destroyed itself, what happened to all the thousands of alcoholics who had found sobriety through the Washingtonians? It becomes a personal question when I add: What would have happened to me? During the early days of the AA program, especially prior to the adoption of our Twelve Traditions, AA did suffer some of the same symptoms that destroyed the Washingtonians. The fact that we survived those hazards is one of AA's many miracles. But it is still a 24-hour day. D. P., Ogden, Utah FEBRUARY 1972 OUR LAWYER FRIEND Arriving by horse and buggy on the wintry night of February 22,1842, at the Second Presbyterian Church in Springfield, Ill., a tall, lanky lawyer proceeded to sow the seeds of basic ideas that eventually blossomed in the program of Alcoholics Anonymous. His address on the drinking problem was given before the Washington Temperance Society, so named because George Washington had been "a mild-drinking man who knew when to stop."* Not yet married, this attorney was practicing in the circuit courts and had already shown congressional interests. With great perception and depth of thought he made keen observations which may come as a surprise to us. To begin with, he said, "In my judgment, such of us who have never fallen victims have been spared more by the absence of appetite than from any mental or moral superiority over those who have. Indeed, I believe if we take habitual drunkards as a class, their heads and their hearts will bear an advantageous comparison with those of any other class." Immediately, he established the fact that degree of intelligence and willpower has nothing to do with our condition. Speaking mostly to reformed drunkards (though the society also included nonalcoholics), he gave a condensed example of a typical AA talk: "When one who has long been known as a victim of intemperance bursts the fetters that have bound him,. and appears before his neighhors 'clothed and in his right mind,' a redeemed specimen of long-lost humanity, and stands up, with tears of joy trembling in his eyes, to tell of the miseries once endured, now to be endured no more forever; of his once naked and starving children, now clad and fed comfortable; of a wife long weighed down with woe, weeping, and a broken heart, now restored to health, happiness, and a renewed affection; and how easily it is all done, once it is resolved to be done - how simple his language! Human feelings cannot resist." Here, aside from a good description of recovery, we get: the admission in Step One-"once it is resolved to he done"; the sanity in Step Two - "in his right mind; and Doctor Bob's admonition against complicating things-"how simple his language!" Removing any misconception that the use of alcohol was something new, he said, "I have not inquired at what period of time the use of intoxicating liquors commenced; nor is it important to know. It is sufficient that, to all of us who now inhabit the world, the practice of drinking them is just as old as the world itself - that is, we have seen the one just as long as we have seen the other." Then be quickly expressed doubt that any plan of prohibition might be called for: "Whether or not the world be vastly benefited by a total and final banishment from it of all intoxicating drinks seems to me not now an open question." The U.S. experiment of national prohibition began in 1920 and was acknowledged a failure by its repeal in 1933. As a harbinger of the American Medical Association's decision that alcoholism is a disease, the lawyer said, "The victims of it [should be] pitied and compassioned, just as are, the heirs of consumption and other hereditary diseases. Their failing [should be] treated as a misfortune, and not as a crime, or even as a disgrace ... Is it just to assail, condemn, or despise them?" Even to this day, society jails us and shames us, and disrepute persists. Again criticizing the attitude of condemnation, he assured his listeners that the alcoholic was not hopeless: "Another error, as it seems to me, into which the old reformers fell, was the position that all habitual drunkards were utterly incorrigible, and therefore must be turned adrift, and damned without remedy. . . . There is in this attitude something so repugnant to humanity, so uncharitable, so cold-blooded and feelingless , that it never did nor ever can enlist the enthusiasm of a popular cause." Our lawyer friend realized that no one was spared: "The sideboard of the parson and the ragged pocket of the houseless loafer both hold whiskey." Further, he noted that the alcoholic was not necessarily a bum: "There seems ever to have been a proneness in the, brilliant and warmblooded to fall into the vice-the demon of intemperance ever seems to have delighted in sucking the blood of genius and of generosity." On the addictive nature of alcohol, he reflected, "For a man suddenly, or in any other way, to break off from the use of [alcohol], who has indulged for a long course of years and until his appetite has grown ten or a hundredfold stronger, and more craving than any natural appetite can be, requires a most powerful moral effort:" He was describing a physical allergy coupled with a mental obsession. "In such an undertaking, he needs every moral support and influence that can possibly be brought to his aid and thrown around him" -the AA program, a Higher Power, fearless inventory, fellowship, and the example of other recovering alcoholics. Whether by foresight or by intuition, and perhaps quite unwittingly, the speaker continued by hinting at a program of attraction: "It is an old and true maxim that 'A drop of honey catches more flies than a gallon of gall.' So with men. If you would win a man to your cause, first convince him that you are his sincere friend." Even more important, be anticipated the mistrust a drunkard might feet if forced into change: "Assume to dictate to his judgment, or to command his action ... and he will retreat within himself." Aren't the Twelve Steps suggestions, not commandments? And aren't we advised to choose a Higher Power as we understand Him, no matter what our individual conception of that power may be? But perhaps the most significant observation he made was to picture the reformed drunkard as the best of temperance crusaders: "Those who have suffered by intemperance personally, and have reformed, are the most powerful and efficient instruments to push the reformation to ultimate success." Where would AA be today had not Bill, a sober alcoholic, gone to see Doctor Bob, a drinking alcoholic, thus marking the begining of twelfth-stepping.? Yet the speaker was aware that some of us may in addition req-uire doctors, psychiatrists, and the church: "It does not follow that those of us who have not suffered have no part left them to perform." As people went out of the church at the conclusion of the address, an eavesdropper standing at the door reported that many of them were not pleased. One marked, "It's a shame that he should be permitted to abuse us so in the house of the Lord." The Illinois State Register inquired whether the speaker and his fellow politicians had joined the Washington Society for any other than political reason! Abraham Lincoln did not drink. J. M., Dallas, Tex.   JULY 1976 A REMINDER AND A WARNING... ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS was only ten years old when Bill W., AA's cofounder, wrote: "Those who read the July [1945] Grapevine were startled, then sobered, by the account which it carried of the Washingtonian movement. It was hard for us to believe that 100 years ago the newspapers of this country were carrying enthusiastic accounts about 100,000 alcoholics who were helping each other stay sober; that today the influence of this good work has so completely disappeared that few of us had ever heard of it.... "May we always be willing to learn from experience?" Bill cautioned.   The quotations in this article are from material in AA's archives.   Founded by six drunks in 1840, the Washingtonians had grown in membership to hundreds of thousands in a short twelve years, and then destroyed themselves as an organization and dropped out of sight. By 1852, all that remained of their spectacular power as a method of treatment was the Home for the Fallen in Boston. They flourished when they helped one other In a talk on the Traditions shortly before his death, Bill said that the Washingtonians had done things "which were very natural to do, but which had turned out to be utterly destructive. And it was this spectacle of the past, brought before us as our Traditions were evolving, that confirmed that we were probably very much on the right track in this matter of no public controversy; in this question of paying our own bills; in this question of not becoming involved with other enterprises, and so on down the line. And above all, it confirmed the great protective guide of our anonymity Tradition." Later, in the book Alcoholics Anonymous Comes of Age, Bill Wrote: "In many respects the Washingtonians were akin to AA .... Had they stuck to their one goal, they might have found the full answer. Instead, the Washingtonians And they died when they abandoned certain timeless principles permitted politicians and reformers, both alcoholic and nonalcoholic, to use the society for their own purposes.... Within a very few years they had completely lost their effectiveness in helping alcoholics, and the society collapsed. "The lesson to be learned from the Washingtonians was not overlooked by Alcoholics Anonymous. As we surveyed the wreck of that movement, early AA members resolved to keep our Society out of public controversy." And to a friend he wrote. "I wish every AA could indelibly burn the history of the Washingtonians into his memory. It is an outstanding example of how, and how not, we ought to conduct ourselves. In a sense, Alcoholics Anonymous has never had a problem seriously threatening our overall unity. Yet I notice that some AAs are complacent enough to suppose we never shall." Bill also recalled the fate of the Washingtonians before 1,500 AAs gathered at the annual banquet in New York City on November 7, 1945. "In short, the Washingtonians went out to settle the world's affairs before they had learned to manage themselves. They had no capacity for minding their own business.... The negatives within them overthrew the positives. "That won't happen here" Bill urged in closing, "if we remember, publicly and privately, our own simple principles of honesty, tolerance, and humility, and that we live only by the Grace of God." Traditions! Words to remember! Thanks, Bill, Thank you, Washingtonians. D. P., Ogden, Utah JANUARY 1991 FRAGMENTS OF AA HISTORY THE WASHINGTONIANS ON Thursday evening, April 2, 1840, six drinking buddies gathered, as was their daily customs at Chase's Tavern in Baltimore. A well-known temperance speaker was lecturing that night, and four of them thought it would be a good joke to go and hear him. As they discussed the lecture later that evening, one of them proposed (still not quite seriously that they form a total abstinence society, and on Sunday, April 5, while strolling and drinking, the six men did make a decision "to drink no more of the poisonous draft, forever." Each of the six agreed to bring a man to the next meeting, and they wrote and signed a pledge not to "drink any spiritous or malt liquors, wine or cider." The name Washington Temperance Society was chosen in honor of George Washington. The Society continued to meet for a time in Chase's Tavern, but when the owner's wife objected to the loss of good customers, they switched to the home of one of the members, and finally rented a hall. In November, they held a public meeting which, with subsequent monthly meetings, proved such a success that by their first anniversary, the Baltimore Washingtonians counted "about 1,ooo re- formed drunkards and 5,000 other members and friends in the parade to celebrate the occasion." The Washingtonians were zealous in carrying their message of hope beyond Baltimore. Several leaders turned out to be powerful orators who traveled widely, speaking to large crowds, and "by May 1842 the movement had penetrated every major area of the country and was going particularly strong in central New York and New England." At its peak, the Society's membership was estimated at anywhere from one to six million, of whom perhaps 100,000 to 600,000 were sober drunks. (One difficulty is the terminology - the Society claimed to have sobered up everything from "confirmed drunkards" to "hard drinkers often drunken" to "sots" to "tipplers in a fair way to become sots," and the distinctions were never too clear.) Others who joined up were friends and families (even very young children), as well as liquor dealers and tavern owners. Abraham Lincoln (according to the February 1953 Grapevine) was "the foremost member of the Springfield, Illinois, Washingtonians. He had never taken whisky, but he had seen his business partner ... overcome by it." And the December 1948 Grapevine describes how "in Dedham, Mass., a Mr. Thompson proved himself such an eloquent speaker that the entire town joined.. .. The leading liquor merchant gave up his business, signed the pledge, and was made President of the village society" and poured his entire stock of liquor on the ground. Formation of the Washingtonians was tied in many ways to the temperance movement, which had been gaining strength since 1825, but was beginning to lose momentum. At first, the Washingtonians were notable for their differences. Unlike temperance advocates, who considered the drunk a hopeless case (Justin Edwards said in 1822, "Keep the temperate people temperate; the drunkards will soon die, and the land will be free"), the Washingtonians treated drunks with love and won them over with "moral suasion." An 1842 document gave directions for organizing a Washingtonian Society, which included "Declaring that love and kindness and moral suasion are your only principles and measures." Accounts of the early Washingtonians are in some ways remarkably similar to descriptions of AA meetings. The Washingtonians were the first to insist on the recounting of personal experience in their meetings (apparently this practice began as a pragmatic measure, when public meetings became popular and the Society's leaders had to think up a way to keep them interesting). In January 1949, Richard Ewell Brown wrote in the Grapevine: "The Washingtonian charter provided that only ex-drunks could address the meetings. Thus the 'benefits of experience spoken in burning words from the heart' were made available for all to hear. . . Debates, lectures and speeches were definitely out, and matters of business were limited to 'as few remarks as possible.' Politics and religion were both taboo as topics of discussion." Brown went on to say: "Every effort was made to prevent the society from encroaching on anyone's prejudices, so that all people would feel free to join the organization. One purpose, and one purpose only, was held in mind: to rescue men from the toils of drink." Another aspect was simplicity: "Responsibility was divided equally... and everyone was kept busy doing missionary work, bringing new members to the weekly meetings and helping old members who had slipped back into their former habits." Yet by 1848, the Washingtonian movement had "destroyed itself completely and dropped out of sight. With it went the hope it had held out for thousands of drunks of that day," and the only tangible evidence remaining was its Home for the Fallen in Boston. How did it happen? The similarities between Alcoholics Anonymous and the Washingtonians are too clear to be overlooked: alcoholics helping each other, weekly meetings, sharing of experiences, constant availability of fellowship with the group or its members, reliance on a Higher Power, and total abstinence from alcohol. Why is AA celebrating 55 years of growth, while its nineteenth century forerunner fell apart within only a few years? Most historians are agreed on the reasons: For one, the Washingtonians had no sustained program of recovery comparable to AA's Twelve Steps. But the real key to their self-destruction lie in the lack of any guiding principles like those incorporated in AA's Twelve Traditions. The Washingtonian movement "met its Waterloo in the conflicting aims of its members. Affiliation with outside enterprises; public controversy: From the beginning, the Washingtonians were closely allied with the temperance movement, and outside of Baltimore, the early "missionaries" were "invariably sponsored by temperance organizations." Temperance leaders looked upon the Washingtonians as a means of "sparking" their cause, and in the end, this became the chief interest of the Washingtonian leaders themselves. In many places, Washingtonians spoke in churches, and some came into conflict with the beliefs of religious entities. "Nothing can divide groups more quickly ...than religious or political controversy. Strong efforts were made in the Washingtonian movement to minimize sectarian, theological and political differences, but the movement did not avoid attracting to itself the hostile emotions generated by these conflicts ... it was still caught in all the controversy to which the temperance cause had become liable.', Singleness of purpose; membership requirements: Formed for the purpose of helping drunks, a Society whose membership encompassed alcoholics, their families, and nonalcoholics of many types could not provide that vital ingredient of AA's success: identification. "The nonalcoholic member soon grew tired of listening to an endless chain of ex-drunks expatiate on an experience that, in the final analysis, had no meaning for anyone but another alcoholic." The movement's founding aim, helping drunks, "became an increasingly secondary interest of those whose primary interest was the furtherance of the temperance cause . . . And as fewer and fewer men were reclaimed, the last distinctive features of the Washingtonian movement dropped out of sight." Anonymity.- In his discussion of AA and the Washingtonians, Milton Maxwell comments: "A comparison with the Washingtonian experience underscores the sheer survival value of the principle of anonymity in Alcoholics Anonymous. At the height of his popularity, John B. Gough [one of the most prominent of the Washingtonian missionaries] either 'slipped' or was tricked by his enemies into a drunken relapse. At any rate, the opponents of the Washingtonian movement seized upon this lapse with glee and made the most of it to hurt Gough and the movement. This must have happened frequently to less widely known ... Washingtonians. Public confidence in the movement was impaired. Anonymity protects the reputation of AA from public criticism "Equally important, anonymity keeps the groups from exploiting prominent names for the sake of group prestige; and it keeps individual members from exploiting their AA connection for personal prestige or fame. This encourages humility and the placing of principles before personalities." Bill W. cited the experience of the Washingtonians in a number of his writings and he considered them both a forerunner of AA and an object lesson for the Fellowships future. In an article in the August 1945 Grapevine, he reflected on the lessons of the movement and emphasized the importance of being "strong enough and single-purposed enough from within" to be rightly related to the world: "We are sure that if the original Washingtonians could return to this planet they would be glad to see us learning from their mistakes... Had we lived in their day we might have made the same errors. Perhaps we are beginning to make same of them now" A major source for this article is "The Washingtonian Movement." by Milton A. Maxwell, Ph.D., Quarterly Journal of Alcohol Studies, September 1950. Other sources include Grapevine articles in the December 1948, January 1949, and February 1953 issues.   FEBRUARY 1995 WASHINGTONIANS WHERE ARE THEY NOW? Maybe I should have known I was an alcoholic when I went to school so drunk that I couldn't make it to class, and instead passed out in my high school's basement boiler room for six hours. Or when I misjudged the amount of 150 proof rum it would take to make my senior class retreat tolerable, and vomited all over the retreat director. Perhaps the bare fact of my daily drinking and the associated lies and theft it took to maintain it should have clued me in to the fact that I had a problem with alcohol. It didn't: my denial was etched in granite, and the well-intentioned teachers, parents, and coaches trying to divert me from the disastrous path I was on were easily ignored. After several turbulent, painful years, I came to realize that the immense loneliness and despair that I felt related somehow to my drinking. Hoping to learn to "drink like a gentleman" - I couldn't comprehend a life without alcohol - I made a phone call one night that led me to Alcoholics Anonymous, via a local detox center. In the rooms of AA I learned the fatal nature of my illness, and in the Big Book and fellowship found a power that enabled me to stay sober one day at a time. I had just turned twenty-one years old. The power that I found in Alcoholics Anonymous has kept me sober for nearly five years now, and has given me a life beyond my wildest dreams. Marriage, a house, an interesting job, an education - all of these things have come my way as a result of being sober and applying the principles I've learned in AA to my daily, affairs. Even more importantly, I've developed a deeply satisfying spiritual life as a result of working the Steps as directed by the Big Book and a loving, caring sponsor. The past five years, however, have had a few "downs" as well as plenty of "ups" and a recent one of those "downs" has reminded me of the importance of the concept of singleness of purpose, both to my own personal recovery - and to the survival of our Fellowship. The phrase "singleness of purpose" can be found in the account of the Fifth Tradition in the "Twelve and Twelve." Tradition Five itself reads "Each group has but one primary purpose - to carry its message to the alcoholic who still suffers." Our Preamble, printed in the grapevine, also discusses singleness of purpose: "Our primary purpose is to stay sober and help other alcoholics to achieve sobriety." The chapters on Traditions Five and Six in the "Twelve and Twelve" eloquently describe how absolutely essential this concept is to the survival of AA, stating "The very life of our Fellowship requires the preservation of this principle." The "Twelve and Twelve" goes on (in the chapter on Tradition Ten) to describe the Washingtonian Movement, a nineteenth-century movement among alcoholics that was, initially, similar to AA in many ways. Over one hundred thousand alcoholics sobered up with the Washingtonians, before the movement self-destructed in the chaos caused by involvement in a myriad of issues unrelated, or only remotely related, to alcoholism. Lacking singleness of purpose, the movement collapsed. The experience of the Washingtonians provides compelling evidence for the importance of AA focusing directly and exclusively on the issue of alcoholism. My strong belief in the importance of the principle of singleness of purpose for the Fellowship of AA has some important conse-quences. It means that when I go to a meeting, I introduce myself as an alcoholic, period. Like many alcoholics (including Bill W - see page seven of the Big Book), my story includes drug use, ranging from pot to crack to LSD. I don't hesitate to share this at meetings when it is relevant, as it is part of the experience that brought me to AA, and a part of my story that many other young people, especially, can relate to. However, I think it is extremely important to emphasize that I am an alcoholic, and that in meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous we discuss the common solution to alcoholism that we share. If I'm an "alcoholic and an addict and you're an "alcoholic and a compulsive overeater and the person leading the meeting is an "alcoholic and a compulsive gambler we begin to lose our commonality. I become slightly different from you - an attitude that I believe is potentially fatal. Moreover, we've started down the slippery slope that doomed the Washingtonians. Our program is no longer focused on the single purpose of recovery from alcoholism, but instead is tackling the issues of drug addiction, gambling, co-dependency, etc. - very serious problems, undoubtedly, but outside the scope of Alcoholics Anonymous. A careful reading of Traditions Five, Six, and Ten has convinced me of how dangerous this is to the continued existence of our Fellowship, and it is my responsibility as an AA member to ensure that the hand of Alcoholics Anonymous is always available in the future to reach out to the suffering alcoholic. I've found that the concept of singleness of purpose applies to my life in an even more immediate, personal way as well. When I got sober at twenty one, I didn't have an established career to return to, a family to reunite, or even all that much wreckage of the past to clean up. The future was a blank state, and the newly found freedom of sobriety made the possibilities overwhelming. I immediately jumped into school, work, and relationships - and suddenly didn't have time for meetings. Life would get chaotic and painful and I'd make my way back to the Fellowship and principles just long enough to soak up a little bit of serenity by osmosis, then head back out into the fray. Fortunately, some AA members were able to point out to me the insanity of my actions, and I was able to alter my behavior before it led me to the inevitable drink. I discovered that in order to maintain any semblance of spirituality and serenity in my life, I needed to live by the principle of singleness of purpose. Like the Fellowship as a whole, I have but one primary purpose: to stay sober and help other alcoholics achieve sobriety. The same three reasons that support our group commitment to singleness of purpose underlie my personal commitment: (1) duty - I can repay those who have given me this gift by giving it away to others; (2) love - I've learned compassion for those still suffering and want to help others; and (3) self-preservation - I must help others in order to stay sober myself. I inevitably find that when I'm able to stay focused on my primary purpose, my "secondary purposes" (school, jobs, relationships) work themselves out quite satisfactory. For me, the concept of singleness of purpose has become the bedrock of my personal program of recovery, just as it is the fundamental principle supporting the structure of our entire Fellowship. Brad B., San Diego, Calif. 1. Most of the data for the discussion of the Paterson Washington Temperance Benevolent Society are based on materials in the Paterson intelligence, and the data on the Newark Washington Temperance Benevolent Society are based on materials from the NeWark Daily Intelligencer. To simplify the problem of footnotes, in most cases only the source of quotations is cited. 2. Occupational data on members of the Paterson society were secured largely from newspaper reports because city directories were not available for the dates most relevant to this research; occupational data for Newark were taken from city directories. 3. Written by Reverend Joel Jewell in 1830 and 1832; set to the tune "Rockingham" (14,p.227) 4. That these membership data included substantial numbers of nondrunkards is suggested the fact that, according to the Paterson intelligencer of 31 March 1841, a committee of the "friends of temperance" estimated that in Paterson and Manchester there were 127 habitual drunkards and 79 occasional drunkards, including 30 women. 5. The editorial quotation is from John Allen Krout's book The Origins of Prohibition, Published by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., in 1925.

Subscribe to TransitionsDaily Email: Browse Archives at groups.google.com   11/15/2008

Sorry Your Are Missing My Music Translate this page into Spanish Translate this page into German

Top of Page