Peace Messenger

The Myth of American Diplomacy

The Myth of American Diplomacy: National Identity and U.S. Foreign Policy
by Walter L. Hixson
Yale University Press / 2008

Review/Comment

In The Myth of American Diplomacy, Walter Hixson, a professor of history at the University of Akron, puts forth the disturbing thesis that we Americans are so violent because we presume ourselves to be virtuous. He argues that the roots of our current situation can be traced back to America's Puritan beginnings and are sustained through a national narrative that glorifies violence as an instrument of moral purification and divine providence. The potent and deadly mix of self-interest and religious rationalization has created an American citizenry that turns to violence quickly, naturally and with a deep sense of entitlement. Violence has become enmeshed in the very notion of who we are as a nation.

--Timothy Renick, Christian Century, May 6, 2008

Ellen White, Slavery and Politics - III

Peacemaking Heritage - 17

Seventh-day Adventism did not enter the American South until after the Civil War, but during the war it did begin to attract a few Northerners sympathetic to the Confederate cause.  Would the anti-slavery convictions of the movement’s founders prove to be dispensable political baggage, easily separable from the religious tenets of Adventism?  Ellen White spoke to this question in 1863, during the midst of the war, in a testimony entitled “The Rebellion”:

There are a few in the ranks of Sabbathkeepers who sympathize with the slaveholder. When they embraced the truth, they did not leave behind them all the errors they should have left. They need a more thorough draft from the cleansing fountain of truth. Some have brought along with them their old political prejudices, which are not in harmony with the principles of the truth. They maintain that the slave is the property of the master, and should not be taken from him. They rank these slaves as cattle and say that it is wronging the owner just as much to deprive him of his slaves as to take away his cattle. I was shown that it mattered not how much the master had paid for human flesh and the souls of men; God gives him no title to human souls, and he has no right to hold them as his property. Christ died for the whole human family, whether white or black. God has made man a free moral agent, whether white or black. The institution of slavery does away with this and permits man to exercise over his fellow man a power which God has never granted him, and which belongs alone to God. The slave master has dared assume the responsibility of God over his slave, and accordingly he will be accountable for the sins, ignorance, and vice of the slave. He will be called to an account for the power which he exercises over the slave. The colored race are God's property. Their Maker alone is their master, and those who have dared chain down the body and the soul of the slave, to keep him in degradation like the brutes, will have their retribution. The wrath of God has slumbered, but it will awake and be poured out without mixture of mercy.

Some have been so indiscreet as to talk out their pro-slavery principles--principles which are not heaven-born, but proceed from the dominion of Satan. These restless spirits talk and act in a manner to bring a reproach upon the cause of God. I will here give a copy of a letter written to Brother A, of Oswego County, New York:

"I was shown some things in regard to you. I saw that you were deceived in regard to yourself. You have given occasion for the enemies of our faith to blaspheme, and to reproach Sabbathkeepers. By your indiscreet course, you have closed the ears of some who would have listened to the truth. I saw that we should be as wise as serpents and as harmless as doves. You have manifested neither the wisdom of the serpent nor the harmlessness of the dove.

"Satan was the first great leader in rebellion. God is punishing the North, that they have so long suffered the accursed sin of slavery to exist; for in the sight of heaven it is a sin of the darkest dye. God is not with the South, and He will punish them dreadfully in the end. Satan is the instigator of all rebellion. I saw that you, Brother A, have permitted your political principles to destroy your judgment and your love for the truth. They are eating out true godliness from your heart. You have never looked upon slavery in the right light, and your views of this matter have thrown you on the side of the Rebellion, which was stirred up by Satan and his host. Your views of slavery cannot harmonize with the sacred, important truths for this time. You must yield your views or the truth. Both cannot be cherished in the same heart, for they are at war with each other….” (Testimonies for the Church, Vol. 1, 358-359).

Ellen White, Slavery and Politics - II

Peacemaking Heritage - 16

The previous post in this series looked at the vivid message of apocalyptic judgment on American slavery in Ellen White’s testimonies about her visions in the 1840s and 1850s.  But did slavery primarily provide fodder for a doomsday theology rather than elicit a genuine, costly opposition to the evil? Did her ministry encourage any action on behalf of the oppressed, such as that taken by the twenty-one residents of Oberlin, Ohio (above) who were jailed in 1859 for their anti-slavery activities?

In brief, her course of action was to throw herself into building up a network of believers for whom non-cooperation with the social sin of slavery was absolutized by their covenant to “keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus.”  While she lifted the eyes of the sabbatarian Adventist community to a higher prize than the renovation of American civic institutions, that higher loyalty led them to use their voices, influence, and, increasingly over the following decades, their votes, expertise, and resources, on behalf of justice and mercy.

While a “little flock” of a few hundred scattered believers in the “third angel’s message” was just beginning to cohere through a series of “Sabbath Conferences,” the U.S. Congress was hammering out the Compromise of 1850, which staved off the threat of disunion over the question of slavery in the western territories.  The compromise included a new Fugitive Slave Law with draconian measures designed to overcome legal hindrances in some Northern states to enforcement of existing federal law mandating the return of escaped slaves.

The law would be implemented by specially-appointed federal commissioners who would be paid $10 if they ruled that an apprehended person was indeed a fugitive who must be returned to bondage, and only $5 if they ruled that such was not the case and the accused should go free. During the 1850s, 332 persons seized under the new law were returned to slavery and eleven declared free.  The entire free black population of the North was at risk, not to mention those who had made good their escapes years, even decades, before.  Moreover, the law empowered marshals instantaneously to deputize any citizen and thereby compel them to assist in the capture of alleged fugitives.

Response to this law should be a significant measure of how far Ellen White’s opposition to slavery extended. In a testimony published in 1859, she wrote:

The law of our land requiring us to deliver a slave to his master, we are not to obey; and we must abide the consequences of violating this law. The slave is not the property of any man. God is his rightful master, and man has no right to take God’s workmanship into his hands, and claim him as his own. (Testimonies 1: 202).

Adventist faith in action meant an unequivocal pledge of noncompliance with federal law, because slavery violates the foundational biblical truth about the dignity and identity of human beings, each of whom are “God’s workmanship.”

However, in the first edition of Seeking a Sanctuary: Seventh-day Adventism and the American Dream (Harper & Row, 1989), Malcolm Bull and Keith Lockhart point out that Ellen White did not speak to this issue until nine years after passage of the law and the emergence of widespread, highly-publicized opposition to it.  Her statement in 1859 thus merely “brought the church into harmony with mainstream Northern opinion” and thus cannot be taken as convincing evidence that Adventist rhetoric against slavery was more than augmentation of their convictions about the end of the world (196-197).

Assessment of Bull and Lockhart’s claim first requires questioning whether opposition to the Fugitive Slave Law is best characterized as “mainstream Northern opinion.”  Outrage over the law, combined with the impact of the best-seller, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, did in fact greatly swell the anti-slavery ranks, but they remained a minority of the general Northern population.  Indeed, the Republican president elected the following year made a pledge of full cooperation with the Fugitive Slave Law prominent in his effort to convince the South that he had no intention of interfering with slavery the states where it presently existed.  That was the position of the Republican majority party, and the northern Democrats as a whole would have only been more accomodating to the slave system.  Thus, pledged opposition to the Fugitive Slave law meant being part of a distinct minority, and not taking a comfortable stance of prevailing opinion.

Indeed, even though nine years had elapsed after its passage, controversy over the law reheated during the very year that Ellen White wrote about it.  A case originating in Wisconsin (Ableman v. Booth) made its way to the Supreme Court, which confirmed the constitutionality of the 1850 law on March 7, 1859.  In Ohio, the Oberlin-Wellington Rescue Case grabbed the national spotlight for several weeks, dramatizing not only zealous resistance to the law but the powerful forces arrayed in support of it.  The twenty-one residents of reform-oriented Oberlin (pictured above) who were jailed in Democrat-controlled Cleveland for harboring a fugitive slave gained release only after four slave catchers were imprisoned as bargaining chips in Republican-controlled Oberlin.

We cannot be certain that these specific developments were prominent in Ellen White’s mind as she commented on the Fugitive Slave law in 1859, but clearly it was a current, controversial matter, not an issue that had by then become “safe.”  The main topic of the testimony in which the comment appears is the question of taking oaths in legal proceedings.  While arguing that it is not necessary to resist taking oaths in legal settings, she cited the Fugitive Slave law as one example in which noncompliance with civil authority is required by loyalty to the “higher law” of God.

In sum, whatever else it might nor might not have meant with regard to slavery, being an Adventist meant taking a stand on a highly controversial public issue, being part of a community firmly and unabashedly pledged to nonviolent resistance of a federal law intended to perpetuate the evil.

Evangelism, then, would mean expanding the ranks of those thus committed.  So what happens when a person of pro-slavery politics becomes convinced of the Adventist message? That’s the topic planned for next time.

Sources: Donald W. Dayton, Discovering an Evangelical Heritage (Hendrickson, 1976), 45-62; James McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era (Oxford University Press, 1988), 79-88, 262.

Iran: Our Ticket Out of Iraq?

Maya Schenwar of truthout writes about her interview with Stephen Kinzer, author of All the Shah's Men and Overthrow:

"Every time I pick up my newspaper and read about what's coming out of Washington, my fears of an American attack on Iran intensify," Kinzer told me during an interview last week....

During our interview, Kinzer pointed to the hypocrisy of Bush admonishing Iran for intervening militarily in Iraq. Kinzer stressed that the US must recognize the legitimacy of Iran's integral role.

"The fact is, Iran does have influence in Iraq, and Iran always will have influence in Iraq," he said.

The two countries are tied religiously, politically, historically and geographically, and the US is in no position to sever those ties, according to Kinzer. Rather, he suggested, we might use them to our advantage, viewing Iran as "our ticket out of Iraq."...

"All the Shah's Men" reminds us that, when it comes to Iran, the backseat is probably where we should be sitting. The US was responsible for the 1953 coup that toppled Iran's democratic government, replacing it with the repressive Shah regime, which hastened the Islamic Revolution of 1970s, inspiring the rise of radical groups like the Taliban and al-Qaeda....

Kinzer's most recent book, "Overthrow," shows how the "regime change" model has developed over the past 110 years. In our interview, he discussed the motivations behind that empire-driven mentality - and why, ultimately, it's doomed to fail.

"As long as the US arrogates to itself the right to decide which governments may live, and which must die, these interventions are never going to work out," Kinzer said.

Click here to view the interview

What Have We Learned?

“What Have We Learned, If Anything?” Tony Judt, in the May 1 issue of the New York Review of Books, asks this question about the twentieth century, with its massive-scale brutalities of total war, concentration camps and genocide.  “We have,” he notes, “memorialized it everywhere: shrines, inscriptions, ‘heritage sites,’ even historical theme parks are all public reminders of ‘the Past.’”

But when many respectable and influential Americans – he quotes a Supreme Court justice, a constitutional law expert, a liberal Democratic Senator, and a divinity school ethicist – “favor torture – under the appropriate circumstances and when applied to those who merit it” and thereby erode that “which until very recently distinguished democracies from dictatorships,” what have we learned?

We are slipping down a slope. The sophistic distinctions we draw today in our war on terror—between the rule of law and "exceptional" circumstances, between citizens (who have rights and legal protections) and noncitizens to whom anything can be done, between normal people and "terrorists," between "us" and "them" —are not new. The twentieth century saw them all invoked. They are the selfsame distinctions that licensed the worst horrors of the recent past: internment camps, deportation, torture, and murder—those very crimes that prompt us to murmur "never again." So what exactly is it that we think we have learned from the past? Of what possible use is our self-righteous cult of memory and memorials if the United States can build its very own internment camp and torture people there?

Far from escaping the twentieth century, we need, I think, to go back and look a bit more carefully. We need to learn again—or perhaps for the first time—how war brutalizes and degrades winners and losers alike and what happens to us when, having heedlessly waged war for no good reason, we are encouraged to inflate and demonize our enemies in order to justify that war's indefinite continuance.

A History Lesson for Bull Connor

From “I See The Promised Land,” Martin Luther King, Jr.’s last speech, delivered to supporters of the Memphis sanitation workers’ strike, April 3, 1968:

I remember in Birmingham, Alabama [in 1963], when we were in that majestic struggle there we would move out of the 16th Street Baptist Church day after day; by the hundreds we would move out.  And [police commissioner] Bull Connor would tell them to send the dogs forth and they did come; but we just went before the dogs singing, “Ain’t gonna let nobody turn me round.”  Bull Connor next would say, “Turn the fire hoses on.”  And as I said to you the other night, Bull Connor didn’t know history. He knew a kind of physics that somehow didn’t relate to the transphysics that we knew about.  And that was the fact that there was a certain kind of fire that no water could put out.  And we went before the fire hoses; we had known water.  If we were Baptist or some other denomination, we had been immersed.  If we were Methodist, and some others, we had been sprinkled, but we knew water.

That couldn’t stop us.  And we just went on before the dogs and we would look at them; and we’d just go on singing “Over my head I see freedom in the air.”  And then we would be thrown in the paddy wagons, and sometimes we were stacked in there like sardines in a can.  And they would throw us in, and old Bull would say, “Take them off,” and they did; and we would just go on in the paddy wagon singing, “We Shall Overcome.”  And every now and then we’d get in the jail, and we’d see the jailers looking through the windows being moved by our prayers, and being moved by our words and our songs.  And there was a power there which Bull Connor couldn’t adjust to; and so we ended by transforming Bull into a steer, and we won our struggle in Birmingham.

Published in James M. Washington, ed., Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings of Martin Luther King, Jr. (HarperSanFrancisco, 1986), 281-282.

Patriotism, Sports, and the Imperialization of Early Christian Imagery

From "The Private Art of Early Christians" by Peter Brown (New York Review of Books, 20 March 2008, 49-53), which describes the exhibition "Picturing the Bible: The Earliest Christian Art" at the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, Texas:

...[O]ne of the revelations of the catacombs is the extent to which Christians participated, with little sense of incongruity, in the one feature of urban life which their clergy had always condemned as irremediably profane. They frequently went to the games at the Circus Maximus and in the Colosseum.... In the fourth century, Christians were pulled into those moments of high excitement. Grooms and their circus horses appear on many Christian tombs....

We must always remember that fourth-century Christians went to the games not because they were incurably frivolous. The opposite was true. They went because they were patriots. In Rome, the games had always been the emperor's games. They were now laid on by Christian emperors. For a Christian to attend them was a gesture of loyalty. It was on the crowded seats of the Circus Maximus, surrounded by their fellow members of the proud Roman people, that the average Roman—Christian, Jew, or pagan—would have felt, at high moments of procession, that they were truly "One Nation under God." They did not necessarily feel this as intensely in the churches. Indeed, none other than Pope Leo I (440–461) was shocked to learn that many members of his congregation believed that it was the circus games, still celebrated with due pomp and ceremony, and not the supernatural protection of Saints Peter and Paul that had kept Rome safe in an age of barbarian invasion....

It is well known that in 312, the year of his conversion, the emperor Constantine hit on the chi-rho monogram as his own very special image of power. He was convinced that he had seen a vision of the Cross in the sky. But what he promoted for use in his army, as a standard and an emblem on shields, was this "logo" of Christ that was deemed all the more powerful for being a little mysterious, although any Christian would have recognized what it meant. It had brought Constantine's troops victory outside Rome. It continued to do so in a series of bloodthirsty civil wars that probably killed more Roman professional soldiers, in the conflicting armies, than ever perished at the hands of barbarians. Thus the peace of the Church and the subsequent Christianizing of the Roman world were ushered in under the protection of a symbol of good fortune and victory that had as little to do with the Bible (except, of course, for its play on the name of Christ) as a circus horse.

In a masterly contribution, Johannes Deckers spells out the implications of Constantine's decision. In architecture, in coinage, in large-scale representations as in small, we can follow Constantine and his successors as they groped toward forms of visual expression that seemed to be worthy of the emperors' new god: "Christ had to be of imperial stature."...

Two rooms later, in the last part of the exhibition, we see the ultimate symbol of Christ's power at its fullest development—a fragment of the Cross itself placed in a cross of gold studded with gems, given to Rome by the emperor Justin II sometime between 568 and 574 [pictured above].... Glowing in the dark with barbaric splendor, this was still a Cross of victory. As the inscription made clear, this was the Cross on which Christ had "subdued [death] the enemy of mankind." It was also a Cross calculated to keep human enemies (of which there were all too many by that time) away from the walls of Rome.

"Little Rock Nine" Member Calls Adventists to Help Repair the World

Terence Roberts, one of the nine black students who desegregated the Little Rock Central High School in a tense and dangerous confrontation fifty years ago that proved to be a decisive moment in the struggle for racial equality, was a Seventh-day Adventist. In fact, the segment on Little Rock in the Eyes On the Prize documentary series includes a clip from a press conference in which Roberts (pictured at right facing two Arkansas National guardsmen, September 4, 1957) made a point of identifying himself as an Adventist.

In an interview with Adventist Review associate editor Roy Adams, featured on the cover of the February 21 issue, Roberts talked about some of his struggles with the church in recent years, as well as his hopes for it.  By the early 1990s, says Roberts, he and his wife Rita had become "rather disenchanted with the church because of its slow movement on racial issues….What had kept us in the church for a long time was the church’s emphasis on health and education. It made so much sense! But we always sort of chafed over our inability to move faster on race."

When asked by Adams what one brief message he would give to Adventists, based on his experience, Roberts responded:

I would say that the message of Jesus Christ (as I read it) is that we have to become involved in issues of social justice. We’ve got to look out for people in society who, because of the oppressive forces, aren’t doing well. That’s what Jesus seemed to do. He went about helping the downtrodden. It’s important for us as Adventist people, as Christian people, as spiritual people, to understand the need to work toward social justice. (And in many ways Adventism is heavily involved—involved in humanitarian work, in work with refugees, etc.) I recently ran across a concept, out of the Hebrew tradition, called tikkun olam. It means “repairing the world.” The idea is that all of us are called upon to help repair the world, even though we know in advance that we probably would not complete the job.

Dr. Terrence Roberts is a clinical psychologist and a professor at Antioch University (Los Angeles campus).

Ellen White, Slavery and Politics - I

Peacemaking Heritage - 15

Right from the beginning, the problem of slavery stood at the center of the message impressed upon the young apocalyptic visionary, Ellen Harmon White. Narrating one of her earliest visions in a letter to Brother Joseph Bates, the twenty-year-old Ellen White depicts the liberation of slaves along with the vindication of those giving evidence of their allegiance to God by observing the controverted fourth commandment at Christ’s second coming. The foremost contradiction to Americans’ self-proclaimed Christian and republican principles, and the foremost source of violence and oppression in the nation, is addressed by the arrival of a “sweet chariot” bringing the “Jubilee” – the restoration of God’s shalom.

…And when the never ending blessing was pronounced on those who had honored God, in keeping His Sabbath holy, there was a mighty shout of victory over the Beast, and over his Image.

Then commenced the jubilee, when the land should rest. I saw the pious slave rise in triumph and victory, and shake off the chains that bound him, while his wicked master was in confusion, and knew not what to do; for the wicked could not understand the words of the voice of God. [DAN. 12:10.]…The voice of the Son of God called forth the sleeping saints, [JOHN 5:25-28.] clothed with a glorious immortality. The living saints were changed in a moment, and caught up with them in the cloudy chariot. [THESS. 4:17.] It looked all over glorious as it rolled upwards. On either side of the chariot were wings, and beneath it wheels. And as the chariot rolled upwards, the wheels cried Holy, and the wings as they moved, cried Holy, and the retinue of Holy Angels around the cloud cried Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty. And the saints in the cloud cried Glory, Hallelujah….

The letter is signed “From your sister in the blessed hope, E.G. White,” and published by James White in the pamphlet A Word to the “Little Flock” (1847).

Support for or silence about slavery was also foremost among the “sins of Babylon” Ellen White cited in a searing indictment of a conformist Protestantism whose “ministers take their text from the Word but preach smooth things.” The “cloak of religion” is thereby spread over “the greatest crimes and iniquity.” Thus:

All heaven beholds with indignation, human beings, the workmanship of God, reduced to the lowest depths of degradation, and placed on a level with the brute creation by their fellow men. And professed followers of that dear Saviour whose compassion was ever moved as he witnessed human woe, heartily engage in this enormous and grievous sin, and deal in slaves and souls of men. Angels have recorded it all. It is written in the book. The tears of the pious bond-men and bond-women, of fathers, mothers and children, brothers and sisters, are all bottled up in heaven. Agony, human agony, is carried from place to place, and bought and sold. God will restrain his anger but a little longer. His anger burns against this nation, and especially against the religious bodies who have sanctioned, and have themselves engaged in this terrible merchandise. Such injustice, such oppression, such sufferings, many professed followers of the meek and lowly Jesus can witness with heartless indifference. And many of them can inflict with hateful satisfaction, all this indescribable agony themselves, and yet dare to worship God. It is solemn mockery, and Satan exults over it, and reproaches Jesus and his angels with such inconsistency, saying, with hellish triumph, Such are Christ's followers!...

The final paragraph of this message of judgment poses problems for modern liberal sensibilities. Ellen White amplifies the severe language of condemnation and divine wrath, and describes the fate of slaves who have been so degraded that they cannot be taken to heaven:

I saw that the slave-master would have to answer for the soul of his slave whom he has kept in ignorance; and all the sins of the slave will be visited upon the master. God cannot take the slave to heaven, who has been kept in ignorance and degradation, knowing nothing of God, or the Bible, fearing nothing but his master's lash, and not holding so elevated a position as his master's brute beasts. But he does the best thing for him that a compassionate God can do. He lets him be as though he had not been; while the master has to suffer the seven last plagues, and then come up in the second resurrection, and suffer the second, most awful death. Then the wrath of God will be appeased. (Spiritual Gifts, Vol. 1 [Battle Creek, Mich.: Published by James White, 1858], 189-193).

However one handles concerns about what this passage says, it is useful to bear in mind some things that it does not say:

• It does not consign the debased slave, along with all others who do not profess faith in Christ, to ceaseless torture in hell, as would the creeds and belief systems of the overwhelming majority of American Protestants.
• It does not refer to all slaves, and certainly not to the “pious slave” welcoming Christ’s return (the account of the 1847 vision comes a few pages later in the same volume – Spiritual Gifts, Vol. 1, 206).
• It in no way suggests or hints at anything that would bring into question the dignity and full humanity of people of African heritage. The cruelty of the slave-master is the entire cause and responsible agent for bringing about the condition of “ignorance and degradation” on the part of the slave.

Finally, we must ask of Ellen White the kinds of questions Anson Byington asked of Uriah Smith (see Peacemaking Heritage 11 and 12). Intense passion seems to animate her proclamation of apocalyptic judgment against the sin of slavery. But did her message and ministry produce any action on behalf of the oppressed? We hope to explore this question in future installments.

Disappointing Satan

Peacemaking Heritage - 14

A resolution passed on May 17, 1865 by the third annual session of the General Conference reflects a shift in attitudes prevailing among Adventists towards the political process as one in which believers might make an impact for justice, mercy and righteousness, and thereby be makers of peace (shalom).

RESOLVED, That in our judgment, the act of voting when exercised in behalf of justice, humanity and right, is in itself blameless, and may be at some times highly proper; but that the casting of any vote that shall strengthen the cause of such crimes as intemperance, insurrection, and slavery, we regard as highly criminal in the sight of Heaven. But we would deprecate any participation in the spirit of party strife.

The fact that, contrary to their expectations, American slavery had been brought to an end by human government, and that the same government had accommodated their convictions against participation in military combat, seems to have contributed to the shift. To this we expect to return in future segments.

Even prior to the Civil War, however, the issue of temperance was already driving the shift. An intriguing entry in Ellen White’s diary, dated March 6, 1859, reflects both a background of general sentiment against voting and the major shift that was underway:

Attended meeting in the eve. Had quite a free, interesting meeting. After it was time to close, the subject of voting was considered and dwelt upon. James first talked, then Brother [J. N.] Andrews talked, and it was thought by them best to give their influence in favor of right and against wrong. They think it right to vote in favor of temperance men being in office in our city instead of by their silence running the risk of having intemperate men put in office. Brother [David] Hewitt tells his experience of a few days [since] and is settled that [it] is right to cast his vote. Brother [Josiah] Hart talks well. Brother [Henry] Lyon opposes. No others object to voting, but Brother [J.P.] Kellogg begins to feel that it is right. Pleasant feelings exist among all the brethren. O that they may all act in the fear of God.

Men of intemperance have been in the office today in a flattering manner expressing their approbation of the course of the Sabbathkeepers not voting and expressed hopes that they will stick to their course and, like the Quakers, not cast their vote. Satan and his evil angels are busy at this time, and he has workers upon the earth. May Satan be disappointed, is my prayer.

It should be noted, and continually born in mind when dealing with this topic, that combating the liquor traffic through legislation was almost universally advocated by progressive and radical social activists throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Alcohol was seen as a major if not primary cause of poverty, crime, and violence against women and children.

Historian Ronald G. Walters writes that “anti-alcohol crusaders were not blue-nosed reactionaries, as latter-day critics made them seem….As they saw it, prosperity, godliness, and political freedom were the fruits of sobriety. Poverty, damnation, and tyranny were the consequences of intemperance” (American Reformers, 1815-1860, 131).

Photo above of Ellen White from the White Estate, dated 1859.