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CHAPTER EIGHT

A Methodist Saint

Frances Willard—“Do everything!”—Hall of Fame

A petition weighing fifty-five pounds and containing 110,000 names pasted on a roll of white muslin bound with red and white ribbon was ceremoniously presented to the Illinois state legislature on March 6, 1879. It was the largest petition ever to be presented to this body, and possibly the largest ever to be presented anywhere in the United States. It read:

Whereas, In these years of temperance work the argument of defeat in our contest with the saloons has taught us that our efforts are merely palliative of a disease in the body politic, which can never be cured until law and moral suasion go hand in hand in our beloved state; and

Whereas, The instincts of self-protection and of appreciation for the safety of her children, her tempted loved ones, and her home, render woman the natural enemy of the saloon:

Therefore, Your petitioners, men and women of the State of Illinois, having at heart the protection of our homes from their worst enemy, the legalized traffic in strong drink, do hereby most earnestly pray your honorable body that, by suitable legislation, it may be provided that in the State of Illinois, the question of licensing at any time, in any locality, the sale of any and all intoxicating drinks, shall be submitted to and determined by ballot in which women of lawful age shall be privileged to take part, in the same manner as men, when voting on the question of license.

The petition was incorporated into a bill called the Hinds bill, which failed to pass. This did not matter. What mattered was that the sponsor of the petition, and the manager and arranger of the ceremony that attended its presentation, had entered politics, and that was a momentous event. She was a slim woman with auburn hair, and her name was Frances Elizabeth Caroline Willard.

Teaching school was about the only career open to a woman in America at that time, and Frances Willard could be spotted without hesitation as a schoolteacher. For a while she had been president of the Evanston (Illinois) College for Ladies. At the time of the petition, she was president of the Illinois Woman’s Christian Temperance Union and corresponding secretary of the national union.

There was nothing scolding about Frances Willard’s manner. She did not waggle a reproving finger or raise her voice. Like Gail Hamilton and Margaret Fuller, but unlike Susan B. Anthony and the redoubtable Elizabeth Cady Stanton, she never treated man as the inevitable enemy. She was always every inch the lady.

She was as smart as a whip, and exceedingly ambitious.

When the WCTU was organized in 1873, the name of Frances Willard was mentioned for president, but she withdrew it, knowing that she was not yet ready for such a job, and Mrs. Annie Wittenmyer of Philadelphia was elected instead. As corresponding secretary, however, Miss Willard visited state and local organizations all over the East and the Middle West. (The WCTU at that time was virtually nonexistent in the South and the West.) She encouraged members to work simultaneously for temperance and woman suffrage and, indeed, for many other causes.

Mrs. Wittenmyer was opposed to the WCTU’s extension and diversification of interests, and soon the union was split into a liberal midwestern wing and a conservative eastern wing. An amazingly large number of women, especially in the East, were opposed to suffrage because they regarded it as unfeminine, but the liberals in the WCTU gained strength every year.

It was only a matter of time before Frances Willard would take over as president, and she did so in November, 1879, at the national convention in Indianapolis.

For the following twenty years she was in complete control of the WCTU, which greatly increased its membership and established local chapters in every state and territory. Eventually, the WCTU could boast that it was the biggest all-woman organization in the world.

Miss Willard did not limit expansion to the United States. She sent foreign missionaries to Australia, Japan, and China, and later to most of the civilized countries of the world. These missions were consolidated into a World’s Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, of which Frances Willard was president. (She was also president of the National Council of Women, president of the Alpha Phi sorority, and a member of more national committees than she could count.) By the time of the fourth biennial convention of this world body, there were delegates from Australia, Belgium, Burma, Brazil, the Bahamas, Canada, Chile, China, Denmark, Egypt, Finland, France, Germany, Great Britain, Iceland, India, Japan, Madagascar, New Zealand, North Africa, and every state and territory of the United States.

Frances Willard puzzled and fascinated reporters, who were wont to say that her words on paper had nothing of the charm they had when she spoke them. She stood five feet three inches and she weighed scarcely one hundred pounds, yet without ever losing her head or resorting to cheap tricks she could command the attention of thousands, holding huge conventions under control and, when she felt like doing so, playing on their emotions as glibly as a master pianist. She had a way with slogans, mottoes, adages. For instance, she invented and often used the telling expression “home protection.” The many WCTU-sponsored petitions modeled on that first huge one presented to the Illinois legislature were called home protection petitions. It covered a lot, that name, and she hammered at it. Who could vote openly against a home protection measure? “Do everything!” was another slogan she gave to the WCTU.

Miss Willard always stood well to the left of center. She was always looking ahead. Temperance was to her no more than an excuse to get into action. Soon she was forming new departments for specialized work, some of it only remotely connected with the antialcohol cause.

One of the best-known departments was the White Cross, members of which petitioned for, and eventually gained, a raising of the state and territorial age of consent for marriage, which in some cases had been as low as eight. In time, all raised the age to at least sixteen, and many fixed it at eighteen. The White Cross also succeeded in getting most states and territories to increase punishments for rapists. It did many other things in the cause of social purity.

There was also the department of education, which was nearest to the heart of the leader. This department persuaded each state and territorial legislature to stipulate that some form of temperance instruction would be part of the curriculum in every public school.

There was a department of health and hygiene, presided over by Mrs. J. H. Kellogg of the Battle Creek, Michigan, Kelloggs.

There was a department of labor, and a department of Sabbath observance.

There was a department of mothers’ problems, which probably led to the development of the Parent-Teacher Association.

There were forty departments, all working full time.

Miss Willard was a genius—there is no other word for it—at organization. And she kept things organized, kept them going.

“Do everything!”

There were some who were frightened by the rapid expansion of the WCTU and who tried, feebly, to have it checked, but Frances Willard easily rode over such attempts. There were many, too, who realized that no other woman could possibly hold such a vast organization together and who asked themselves what they would do when Frances Willard died. It was the problem a dictatorship always creates.

She did die, eventually, on February 18, 1898, in New York City. Toward the end she had dabbled in phrenology, spiritualism, and what she called “astro biology,” which was simply astrology, but in the convention hall and the committee room she showed no sign of weakness. She retained her grip on her beloved Woman’s Christian Temperance Union to the last moment.

Immediately, she became a saint. In private conversation as well as from the platform she was called, frequently and without a trace of sarcasm, “Saint Frances.” For many years at the annual WCTU convention an empty chair was placed on the platform, and nobody brushed against it.

The WCTU sold relics. For twenty-five cents one could buy the Willard bookmark, with her last words—“How beautiful to be with God”—written in gold. The Willard pin came in various metals, ranging in price from twenty-five to seventy-five cents.

There was also a Frances Willard souvenir spoon.

Kansas, Alabama, New Mexico, and Tennessee declared her birthday, September 28, a school holiday.

More than three hundred schools, churches, community centers, hospitals, and parks were named or renamed for her.

Besides writing about twenty thousand letters a year, Miss Willard had managed to write many books, too, most of them during trips. These were reissued in fancy and expensive editions, for the WCTU, in addition to running a hospital and a lecture bureau, also ran a publishing house.

Books about Frances Willard were even more numerous. The most popular was a pamphlet, What Frances Willard Said. Her adoring secretary and her successor as well, Miss Anna Gordon, wrote The Beautiful Life of Frances Willard, which sold very well.

Frances Willard was the fifth woman to be admitted to the Hall of Fame, after Harriet Beecher Stowe, Mary Lyon, Maria Mitchell, and Emma Willard (no relation). She was the first woman to be admitted to the Statuary Hall in the Capitol in Washington, D.C., where, in the form of a heroic statue made of Carrara marble with a Vermont marble base, she represents the state of Illinois.