Amelia Bloomer.
Council Bluffs, July 30, 1880.
CHAPTER XIV.
NEW YORK.
NEW YORK STATE TEMPERANCE CONVENTION, ROCHESTER,
APRIL 20, 21, 1852.
Letter From Frances Dana Gage.
McConnellsville, O., April 5, 1852.
My Dear Miss Anthony:—Yours of March 22d, asking of me words of counsel and encouragement for the friends of temperance, who are to meet at Rochester on the 20th inst., is before me. Need I tell you how earnestly my heart responds to that request, and with what joy I hail every demonstration on the part of woman that evidences an awakening energy in her mind, to the great duties and responsibilities of her being!
If we examine the statistics of crime in the United States, we shall find that a very large proportion of the criminals of our land are the victims of intemperance. The records of poverty, shame, and degradation furnish the same evidence against the traffic and use of ardent spirits. Examine those same statistics, and another great truth stares us in the face—that nine-tenths of all the manufacturers of ardent spirits, of all the drinkers of ardent spirits, and of all the criminals made by ardent spirits, are men. But we find, too, in our search, a fact equally interesting to us, that the greatest sufferers from all this crime and shame and wrong, are women. Is it not meet, then, that women should lay aside the dependent inactivity which has hitherto held them powerless, and give their strength to the cause of reform which is now agitating the minds of the people?