"NEWS OF BATTLE"

White Ribbon, Volume 19, Issue 7, 1 August 1947, Page 1

"NEWS OF BATTLE"

Like a clarion call comes the news of a brilliant campaign on behalf of the Temperance Cause being carried out by our owm dear old friend, Mrs. Lee Cowie. Mention has been made of her brave carrying of the war right into the enemy’s camp, in New Zealand daily papers. In a letter received from her a few days ago, she says:— 1 )ear Fellow;-worker, — We are in the thick of a mighty “Prayer Crusade” which has thrilled all America, and reached to Canada and England. We have been broadcast and televisioned all o\er the L’.S.A., and I ant overwhelmed with letters of approval, and appeals to start the “Crusade” in other places. What aliout New Zealand? Tell our Christians of every creed to read Proverbs .24:11-12; Jeremiah 9:20-21; Ezekiel 33:1-9.

It is time for every child of God to “Stand up, stand up for Jesus.’’ We have been sitting too long at case in Zion (Amos 6:1) and the judgment of Meroz may fall on us.

God bless you. My love tw every friend and fellow-worker. Ever in glorious service,' BESSIE LEE COW lE.

Cuttings and papers from California bear news of the success of the Crusade. Under a picture of our old friend, we read: “Twenty modern ‘Carrie Nations’ will take to the streets todav for Round Two in the W.C.T.U.’s battle to “let the Lord’s light into Pasadena’s Bar-rooms. The embattled women, led by Mrs. Lee Cowie, 87-year-old ‘world missionary two for the W.C.T.U., will call at Colorado down-town street bars, read passages from the Bible, and offer prayers for the souls of the guz/.lers and barkeeps. They will also call the attention of tlie proprietors to a section of the Alcoholic Beverage Control Act, which states that “there shall be sufficient interior light in retail premises to make possible the immediate identification of patrons.” Mrs. Cowie, in an exclusive interview said that the W.C.TU. feels that more light, spiritual as well as physical, would reduce the amount of drinking in bars.

She said the Pasadena Union of the W.C.T.U. will send resolutions to Sacramento and to Washington, urging laws to make bar-room interiors \isible from the street. “The city of Alhambra recently passed a law to let the Lord’s light into bars,” she said. “Such a law should be nation-wide.” Mrs. Cowie considtrs her life to be so rich and varied, and so strenuous, that she can only say, “What hath God wrought?” She blames the Demon Rum for the majority of divorces, traffic deaths, and wayward girls. “Hospitals and divorce court* are jammed with the wreckage of drink,” she declared. “And don’t forge* the fact that this situation costs the taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars.”

Mrs. Cowie said her main concern, however, is the effects of drink on women. “We don't want to set our girls and women destroyed,” she said, her eyes welling up with tears. “Again and again girls have told me that their fall began with a glass of wine at a social gathering.” Mrs. Cowie’s crusaders will he armed with Bibles, and carry placards reading: “Wine is a mocker”; “Which— Bible or Bottle?”; “Sign the Pledge”; “Liquor Takes Lives”; ““Alcohol is Venom”; and “Save our Girls.” They will meet at the First Methodist

Church for prayers before sallying forth on Colorado Street.

“There will he no violence," said Mrs. Cowie. “We don’t intend to indulge unobjectionable conduct.” The writer of the above article prefaces his remarks with the following: “We thought you might like to know • something al»out a woman who, despite her years, can confound guzzlers and barkeeps on their own ground." In another clipping from a Wellington paper, we are told: “All the women are over 60. They march into bars and cocktail lounges reciting psalms. They concentrate particularly on women in the bars, engaging them in conversation. Frequently they break into “Onward Christian Soldiers.”

Meanwhile, in New York. Mr. George Eads, the Brewing industry's consultant on Prohibition, said that the alcoholic beverage industry would have to extend its organisation to counteract the efforts of the “drys.”

He warned the National Beer Wholesalers' Association that 263 political sub-divisions i.i the U.S.A. went dry in 1946, while the “wets” gained only 6.S units. He added that the “Drys” were busy re-organising the principal units which brought about prohibition.