WOMAN'S RIGHTS IN OHIO.
ONE hardly knows whether to cry or laugh over the latest development of Woman's Rights in Ohio,—to admire the movement there as a crusade againit vice, or detest it as an ex- plosion of unjust and silly fanaticism. Certainly no such mar- vellous mixture of faith and foolishness, religion and contempt for justice, deep piety and reliance on Lynch law, could exist for a week anywhere except in an American State, where reason is silent before a surge of emotion, and law is powerless whenever public feeling happens to run against it. It appears that Ohio is one of the States in which teetotal feeling has for some time run high,—so high that a general but very mild prohibitive law has been passed, and every municipality invested with the power of passing a Permissive. Bill of its own of almost any degree of strict- ness. Owing, however, in part to the number of German settlers, who will not bear any such interference with their right to drink beer, in part to the reluctance of the lower class to part with their liquor, and in part, we are happy to say, to -the deter- mined stand made by a portion of the educated against the suppression of the liberty of the minority, the law has been for the most part a dead - letter, and the publicans, or saloon-keepers, as they are called, have multiplied their establishments as they please, till they have gradually become an almost intolerable nuisance. Outside the German settlements they usually sell a filthy extract of rye called Bourbon whisky, their customers are enticed by every temptation, to keep on.drink- ing, and they are believed to-be the originators or fosterers of half the crime committed in the State. At the same time, large classes of the respectable inhabitants are teetotallers, and have secured the women, the church. members, and the officials completely to their side. Women rarely taste liquor in any part of .the States, but in Ohio they have made of teetotalism a religion, and are ready, apparently, for any excesses in its cause. Seeing all these things, a Dr. Dio Lewis, who is probably a fanatic, for it is alleged he spends his own income lavishly on the promotion of the move- ment, has bethought himself of the possibility of using the national respect for women, the national love of • religious excitement, and the national habit of supplementing law by mob action, as levers for the total suppression of the liquor trade. Wherever he goes he lectures to the women, excites an emotion, partly religious, partly hysterical, and partly due to a love of excitement quite natural in a very monotonous and nar- row system of social life, and sends them off on a crusade against the liquor-dealers, whether publicans or druggists. The plan of operations is to form the ladies of the place, and especially those with claims to " social distinction," into bands of seventy-five, to give their husbands and brothers a hint to look after them, and to send them to besiege the druggists or saloon-keepers. The scheme is usually, if the victim is a druggist, to place the matter quietly before him, to pray openly for his salvation, to placard him, if he resists, as a malefactor, to describe his treatment of his wife and family in a strong series of libels, and at last to threaten him with loss of custom, eviction, and perhaps banishment. As the poor druggist is always on the wrong side of the law, usually afraid of losing custom for the more respectable side of his trade, and slightly ashamed of himself and his secret calling, he usually capi- tulates, and makes away with his surreptitious store of " healing waters ;" but the publican requires stronger measures. The bands of women march into his saloon, his customers slink out as they can, and the women demand, first, that he sign the pledge, next that he shut up the saloon, and lastly, that he spill all the liquor on the premises into the street. If these requests are not complied with, the ladies hold a permanent special service in the saloon or just out of it till they are,—pray at him, preach at him, and sing hymns at him till he either yields, or flies, or becomes " converted " to teetotalism. He is absolutely without resource. If he applies to the law he gets nominal redress in the form of an injunction, but one may pray against an injunction as well as anything else, and the injunction seems to be rarely or never followed up by active judicial measures. The judges think of the next election, and let the storm go by with only a mild protest on behalf of legality and order, while the people resolve in committee that " this injunction, being opposed to the Higher Law, be, disobeyed." As for any other mode of self-defence, it is ridiculous for the publicans to speak of it. Public opinion in America is entirely opposed to the application of force to decent women, the husbands and brothers are looking out, quite ready to use the revolver or to overwhelm the unhappy publican with suits—one man seems to have had upwards of a hundred brought against him in one day—and in one place, Jefferson, the ladies were always followed by a group of men who, after the hymn had been sung and had failed, informed the publican' that " the business would be very serious for him" if he did not accede to their request, a threat which instantly produced compliance,—,all the more ready, perhaps, because the victim is, as a rule, at heart superstitiously afraid of the prayers. He generally tries to get compensation for the whiskey on the premises—sometimes granted, but very seldom, the ladies in most places holding this a compromise with the Devil—shuts up his saloon, declines to per- jure himself by taking the pledge, and departs to some place where the law is supposed to have some force. If he holds out, he is prayed at inside his own house and outside his own door for days on end, till the male citizens, catching fire from the women's half-hysterical emotion, interfere, and inform him that go he shall, law or no law to the contrary. Accordingly, he hangs out a placard, " This business is stopped," and unless he happens to be a German, he does go ; or if he is very convinced indeed, like a Mr. Van Pelt, turns teetotal lec- turer, details his experiences as a rumseller, sells his photo- graph in thousands for a shilling, and finds the new busi- ness quite as profitable as the old. With the Germans alone the women never succeed. The Germans are proof against loveli- ness—it is observed, in all seriousness, that the prettier the missionaries the more rapid the conversion—they disbelieve the prayers, and they have a faith in the idea of human liberty which is as fanatic as the faith of the teetotallers themselves. A most serious raid was made upon one German village, in which the quiet people were accustomed to grow their own grapes and make their own wine, but the result is reported as " most unsatisfactory." The Germans were not to be convinced that to drink a little very bad Rhenish was a crime, denounced the whole movement as an indecent absurdity, and with chuckling astuteness left the battle to their wives, who, it would seem from the result, talked the visitors down. Wine, in fact, seems the most difficult subject of attack, partly because it does not produce the effects of whiskey, and partly because the real centres of the missions, the devout women, who thoroughly believe their creed, get puzzled about the miracle of Cana in Gallilee. The Germane, therefore, escape, and by the latest accounts, an individual German, named Goeppert, is reported to be the sole recalcitrant in the village of Morrow. He pat out a placard bearing the figure of a corpse upon a bier, and the inscription, " This man was talked to death ;" but as the men took this up, he withdrew it, and assumed an attitude of passive resistance. He closed his doors, opened his window to watch the prayer-meetings, and is actually reported to find that the hymns " have rather a soothing effect upon him than otherwise." He has stood siege five days, and as his neighbours think that Ayes him to be an im- penitent and extremely insolent person, his shop is in a day or two to be sacked, as a further impulse to conversion. Indeed so strong is the distrust of the men in prayer, and so irresistible the tempta- tion to use force, that they are advised in some places to stay away; and the Ohio correspondent of the Tribune says their presence is often fatal, as it rouses the personal courage of the barkeepers. The secession of any one Church, too, is a most serious impediment, and the Catholics, who do not approve an authorised addition to the deposit of the faith ; and the Universalists, who object to create a new sin, are found in some places serious obstacles in the way of the torrent of feeling, which it is believed by sane observers will for a moment banish all liquor-shops from Ohio, which is spreading fast into Indiana, and which is to be tried, we are told, as soon as the teetotallers have the courage, in New York itself. It is observed, however, to fail usually in large cities, and even in Columbus, Ohio, the State capital, it is imagined that "the presence of the Legislature will be quite fatal to the attempt." Whether the Legislature drinks, or whether it is expected to retain some nuance of respect for human liberty, outsiders are left to con- jecture as they can.
There is no moral argument that we know of against the action of the women, bizarre as their conduct must appear, for they start from the logical premiss, which can alone justify Maine laws, that whiskey swallowing • or selling is in itself a crime, that the moderate drinker is a reprobate just as much as the immo- derate one. We can quite understand that assertion, which, though irreconcilable with Christianity, has a distinct place within the Mussulman and Hindoo systems, and once conceded, makes suppression not only justifiable, but an imperative duty. If American women can carry it out better than American men, there is no moral reason why they should not, more especially while they restrict them- selves to persuasion, whether by entreaties, or hymns, or any other method of employing moral force. Nor are we quite so cer- tain, as some observers seem to be, that the scheme must fail. Opinion' an sometimes put down moderate drinking, as we see in Mussulman 'countries', where the 'law allows it, and as it has done
all through the Union among clergymen ; and if its pressure can be maintained for a generation, Ohio may become as teetotal as Mecca, and perhaps, as Ohio is not swampy, without the usual drawback, the extensive use of more dangerous sedative drugs and compounds. We rather admire the women who will pray in the rain for hours, without discomposure, in pursuit of an object which they believe to be both good in itself and acceptable to God, though we wish the preparations against martyrdom were not quite so cautious and complete. It is not the moral aspect of the movement, but its social aspect, which strikes us as objectionable. When all is said, it is only an application of Lynch-law to a elms of the com- munity which could just as easily be reached by the action of the Legislature. Each commune in Ohio is authorised to fine the publicans ; it is admitted that the law, if carried out, renders drink-selling most dangerous, and to the law the offence ought to be referred. The women are breaking the law by their elabo- rate system of pickets, and may break it again whenever they see fit with just as much success. Suppose the people of Xenia, or Athens, or Clearcircle, or Chillicothe take it into their heads that abstinence from Church-membership is a vice—as was the conviction in Connecticut once—are they to establish pious pickets till all citizens are enrolled on the Church lists and hypocrisy reigns triumphant in Ohio ? All America would say No, for non- interference in religion happens there to be a dogma ; but there is no conceivable reason except opinion against such a repetition of a movement which at its very best only elevates popular opinion into a Sovereign Law, above the law of the land as well as above the law revealed. The ladies of Ohio are probably devout, self- sacrificing women, obeying, as they think, a call of duty ; but still they are bound to allow that they are inventing a religion of their own, that they would have reprimanded Christ for his conduct in Cana, and have risen indignantly from the Last Supper.
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