Page:Woman of the Century.djvu/133

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
128
BROWN.
BROWN.

the temperance lecture system. That position she held from 1867, through the organization of the Prohibition party in i860, the Ohio Woman's Crusade in 1873, and the founding of the National Woman's Christian Temperance Onion in 1874, in each of which movements she was a leader. In 1868 she took editorial charge of the Republican newspaper of Alliance, Ohio. At that time the Republican party was known to weaken before the demands of the German Brewers' Beer Congress, and Mrs. Brown openly denounced the demands of the brewers as "un-American." She also sharply criticised the efforts of what she recognized as the rum oligarchy at political domination, and she reprimanded the truculent spirit and conduct of many politicians. Julius A. Spencer, of Cleveland, secretary of Ohio Good Templary in 1868, proposed to Mrs. Brown the formation of an independent political party, and she extended her hand to assist im. The question being further discussed, Mrs MARTHA McCLELLAN BROWN. Brown's husband required that, before his wife should unite in the movement for a new party, there must l>e an agreement to place woman on an equal status with man. Mr. Spencer finally agreed that woman should have equal status in the new party, and that a plank asserting this fact should be inserted in the platform, provided they were not expected to discuss that issue before the people. The Prohibition party was organized in Ohio early in the following year, i860. The present name of the party was suggested by Mrs. Brown's husband as more appropriate than "Anti-Dram-Shop," the name proposed by another friend of the cause. Mrs. Brown was present in Oswego, N. Y., in May, 1869, at the first caucus for a national organization of the new temperance party. In 1870 Mr. Brown purchased the political newspaper, of which his wife was editor, and for years that paper was made the vehicle of vigorous warfare against the liquor traffic. As a member of the executive committee of Good Templars in Ohio, Mrs. Brown had almost constant opportunity, apart from her position as editor of a local city paper, for the circulation of her views. Her family had increased until the number of the children was four, two sons and two daughters. Mrs. Stanton desired to enlist Mrs. Brown in her efforts for the suffrage reform, but both Mr. and Mrs. Brown refused ; and they steadily avoided, from policy, the discussion of the question or any identification with the woman sufrage workers. In 1872 Mrs. Brown was elected a delegate of Good Templary to Great Britain. Very shortly thereafter she was called to the headship of the order in the State of Ohio. When Mrs. Brown appeared upon the platform in Scotland and England in 1873, audiences of from 5,000 to 10,000 greeted the American temperance woman, and her title of Grand Chief Templar of Ohio was a passport to recognitions of royalty, even so far remote as Milan, Italy. Returning from the European tour, her services were in constant demand. She was elected at the State Grand Lodge of Ohio, held in Columbus in 1873, to succeed herself in the oltice she held. When Mrs. Brown heard of the work of the new revival, she hastened to examine and determine its spirit. Believing that it was a visitation from the Lord in answer to years of work and much prayer, she in her capacity of Chief Templar issued an order in January, 1874, for a day of fasting and prayer in the three-hundred lodges of Ohio under her jurisdiction, and encouraged that all ministers of religion favorable to the order and the cause of temperance be invited to unite with the Good Templars in a day of humiliation and worship for enlightenment and power for a dispensation of a much-needed temperance revival. During the year of the women's uprising 3,000 letters crowded her tables. Finding that the women who had become active in the out-door work of the crusade, were not satisfied to enter the Good Templar lodges, Mrs. Brown, at the suggestion of her husband, prepared a plan for the organization of crusaders in a national society without pass-words or symbols, under which plan open religious temperance meetings and work should be prosecuted, women being the chief instruments of such work. It was her purpose to project this effort of organization at a proposed visit to the first meeting of the Chautauqua Assembly, which purpose was fully carried out 12th August, 1874. She afterwards was chiefiy instrumental in gathering the women in the first national convention in Cleveland, Ohio, where she largely assisted in developing her plan, which was made the basis of the permanent organization of the National Woman's Christian Temperance Union. Just after the foundingof the Woman's Christian Temperance Union in August, 1874, Mrs. Brown was elected Right Grand Vice-Templar of the International Order of Gxxl Templars, in Boston, Mass. That gave her a place in a board of five, which held supervision over upwards of 800,000 pledged temperance workers. When nominated for the president of their union by the women in Cleveland. Ohio, the ladies were sarcastically reminded that Mrs. Brown was an active official of the Prohibition Party, Chief Templar of Ohio, and a member of the International Executive of Good Templary, and ought not to be made president of the Woman's Union. She immediately arose and withdrew her name, and Mrs. Wittenmyer was elected to the place. In 1876 Mrs. Brown objected to the attitude of the majority of the Right Grand Lodge of Good Templars in rejecting lodges of colored people, and so withdrew and united with the English delegates in constituting a more liberal body. After ten years of separation the two bodies