Resolved, That we express our endorsement of the action of our beloved president, Miss Willard, and of the national executive committee, in regard to the Prohibition party, as being in harmony with the resolution passed in the national convention at Detroit.
In this same year our president attended the nominating convention at Pittsburgh, as delegate from the Prohibition convention.
In 1885, Mrs. Burt in her annual address referred to what is known as the St. Louis resolution, which reads as follows:
We refer to the history of ten years of persistent moral suasion work as fully establishing our claim to be called a non-political society, but one which steadily follows the white banner of prohibition wherever it may be displayed. We have, however, as individuals, always aimed ourselves, in local and state political contests, with those voters whose efforts and ballots have been given to the removal of the dram-shop and its attendant evils, and at this time, while recognizing that our action as a national society is not binding upon states or individuals, we reaffirm the positions taken by the society, both at Louisville in 1882 and at Detroit in 1883, pledging our influence to that party, by whatever name called, which shall furnish us the best embodiment of prohibition principles, and will most surely protect our homes. And as we now know which national party gives as the desired embodiment of the principles for which our ten years' labor has been expended, we will continue to lend our influence to the national political organization which declares in its platform for national prohibition and home protection. In this, as in all progressive effort, we will endeavor to meet argument with argument, misjudgment with patience, denunciation with kindness, and all difficulties and dangers with prayer.
Mrs. Burt adds:
And distasteful though the word "politics" may be to many in connection with our work, we can none of us ignore the fact that the strength of the saloon system, which is an open menace to our homes, is vested in political power....
Political action with regard to woman's temperance work may be decried, our influence as an organization may be withheld, but the fact will remain that the party which boldly declares for the prohibition of the liquor traffic—the men who, standing solemnly before God, say, "My voice shall be given and my vote shall be cast against the legislation of this iniquity,"—deserves the sympathy, prayers, and influence of all women, and will receive the blessing of God.
During the years that have followed these eventful ones we have always come up to the standard, and have given no uncertain sound on this question, and in closing this chapter we cannot do better than to quote again from Mrs. Burt's address of 1886:
And in the years to come I believe it will be a fact over which the union will rejoice, that when the battle waged the fiercest, when shot and shell rained the thickest, the Woman's Christian Temperance Union of the state, true to the genius of its organization, stepped boldly forth and extended sympathy and influence to our brothers who were struggling so bravely for the right, saying, "Here I stand—I can do no other; so help me God."
