o prepare the history
of the State Woman's Christian Temperance Union, and has given much time
and thought to the work. Mrs. Graham is young in years, but already her
work has told for God and humanity. Should her life be spared, what
blessings may we not hope for the cause through her consecration and
ability?

M. T. B.

CHAPTER VI.

LEGISLATION AND PETITION.

"The law of the wise is a fountain of life."--_Prov. xiii., 14._

As "all roads lead to Rome," so the legality of temperance measures is
reached through legislation; and many times has the Woman's Christian
Temperance Union, with memorial, petition, and protest, marched over the
roads leading to the legislative halls of municipality, state, and
nation, asking for the enacting of new laws or the better enforcement of
old ones.

This policy was inaugurated at the first convention, in the memorial
prepared for presentation to President Grant and Governor Dix, and has
been continued with varying success through the subsequent years. At the
second annual convention a memorial was prepared for congress and the
state legislature, from the last of which a single article is quoted,
viz.: "That no license to sell intoxicating drinks in any place be
issued except when a majority of women residents, as well as men, above
the age of twenty-one years, desire such license granted." This memorial
enrolled 6,328 names, and was presented to the legislature by Mrs. Allen
Butler and Mrs. Mary T. Burt. Had the request been granted at that time,
and its enforcement continued, the license question would now be solved.

April 12, 1882, the first petition to the state legislature for a
prohibitory constitutional amendment was presented by Mrs. Mary T. Burt
and Mrs. E. M. J. Decker. The petition contained 10,431 names. Mrs Burt,
in reporting the work at the next convention, said "A page carried the
bulky document to the desk, and during its passage thereto a smile crept
over faces of members and dignified speaker alike, so large was its
circumference."

As early as 1877 a memorial had been prepared relative to temperance
teaching in the public schools, but not until 1884 was the law secured.
After the annual convention of 1883 this work was prosecuted with vigor.
Public meetings were held and petitions circulated in its behalf. These
petitions recorded 57,419 names. February 5, 1884, the bill passed the
senate, twenty-two voting for and two against it; March 3 it pass