NAWSA Subject File Algeo, Sara M. _____________________________________________________________________________________ Statement of Sara M. Alges, Independent Dry Candidate from the First Congressional District F. Rhode Dlaud. Friday, Nov 7, 1932 Ready For Business. The Barrington Co-operative Association is now prepared to “carry on.” Located in its new headquarters, the Parish Cottage, in the rear of St. John’s Church, Barrington Center, it looks forward with pleasure to serving alike both buyer and seller. Open each week-day from one to six in the afternoon, it invites you most cordially to come in either to buy some of its delicious home made goodies,- lemon pie, angel cake, nut bread, Parker House rolls, salads, candies, jellies,- to admire its attractive display of handicraft and gifts, or to place on sale your own hand-made products. - MEMBERSHIP - To carry on successfully, a large membership is needed. The dues are one dollar for active members, five dollars for associate, and fifty dollars for a life membership. If you wish to join, please send dues to the treasurer, Mrs. Molly Nye Tobey, Rumstick Point. Members only are entitled to enter their goods for sale. - ACTIVITIES - Daily activities are planned for the month of August: Bridge- Mondays and Thursdays- Mrs. Charles Claire. Speakers on “Gift Shop Problems”- Tuesdays- Mrs. Sara M. Algeo Speakers on “Handicraft”- Wednesdays- Molly Nye Tobey. Special Exhibits- Fridays- Mrs. A. Louise Bliss. Friday, August 19- Monthly business meeting. Tea, light refreshments, served each day form 4 to 6 o’clock. CONCERT. Through the generosity of Loyal Phillips Shawe and his School of Music which has been located in Barrington during July, an exceptionally fine concert is promised the membership and friends of the Barrington Co-operative Association on Tuesday evening, August second, at eight o’clock. Tickets at fifty cents will be on sale at headquarters during the coming week. Professor Shawe, who is well known throughout New England, heads the voice department of Northwestern University and his students hold important positions in several western states. Parish Cottage should overflow with lovers of goof music on the truly notable occasion. Ice cream, cake and home made products will be on sale. The object of the Barrington Co-operative Association is mutual helpfulness and exchange. It needs your friendly co-operation “right now.” SARA M. ALGEO, President ANNA H. WHIPPLE, Chairman of the House Committee. A. LOUISE BLISS, Manager. –1– It is always a pleasure to come to Woonsocket for it contains many pleasant memories not the least of which is when we raided your city in wartimes for the sake of the boys over there. We had a tag day and gathered in for the benefit of our War Hospitals about $1200.00. One girl whom I approached on Main St was so sweet and lovely. She gave willingly saying eagerly "My Sweet heart is over there." On that day you were all very generous - American born and Canadian born, for we were working together for a great cause to win the war - to make our world safe for democracy. One [?] of the means we adopted, you will remember, was to clean up our navy in order by banning intoxicating liquor in order that sailors might travel the high seas in safety and another was to clean up our army cantonments 1) Statement by Sara M Algeo, Candidate for Congress from the 1st Congressional District of Rhode Island. I come to Newport to fire the first gun in my campaign to enter the Congress of the United States as your representative for two reasons - First, because your Newport-by-the-Sea is a friendly city - friendly to all good causes and friendly to all peoples. It was friendly to John Clarke and his little band of Quakers along with Mary Dyer and Ann Hutchinson. When the austere air of Boston became too cold for them they came to the Island of Rhode Island. It was friendly to that small colony of Jews who established here the first Synagogue in America and gave name to the lovely street called Touro. It has shown itself friendly to the colored people and in consequence you have a considerable portion of your population rightly and wisely assimilated into your economic and civil life. You were friendly to me when as far back as 1912 along with Maude Howe Elliott I stood on your public square in Daniel Le Roy Dresser's quaint old runabout seeking your votes for Col. Roosevelt in the Progressive campaign. Many times have I come to your beautiful city seeking your aid for votes for women, Equal Rights, "Old Ironsides," and many good causes in which you have never been found wanting. So once again I come to ask, "Will you fail me when the greatest of all causes - –3– to a stricken world–the 18th Amendment in our Constitution–and that we respect and honor, observe and enforce this portion of our Constitution in the same patriotic spirit with which we pledge allegiance to our flag. Not only do I come to open my campaign in Newport because you are a friendly city. It is the bailiwick, the home town of the man who is the present incumbent of this office in Washington who, judging from the present political horizon of the Republican Party may be my opponent in coming weeks, though political acumen, justice and the exercise of some degree of common sense may dictate a dry candidate an honest supporter of the 18th Amendment is Congressional representation from the first district when the Convention meets next Tuesday. Should good judgment, sound wisdom, and a fair sense of proportional representation, prompt the Republican party to [send] nominate such a candidate to represent the dry sentiment of Rhode Island conservatively estimated at 1/3 of the voting power as expressed in the referendum of two years ago, I will gladly with draw for it is more important to have a dry vote in Congress than is the personal equation of the individual casting that vote. House [?] deliberately challenge the Republican first Congressional Pencil copy of Upcoming Campaign Address by Sara M. Algeo, Candidate for Congress First Congressional District. Independent Dry -1- Friday [?], Oct 7, 1932 Statement by Sara M Algeo Candidate for Congress from the 1st Congressional District of Rhode Island. I come to Newport to fire the first gun in my campaign to enter the Congress of our United States as your representative for two reasons. First because your Newport-by-the-Sea is a friendly city - friendly to all goods causes and friendly to all peoples. It was friendly to John Clarke and his little band of quakers along with Mary Dyer and Ann Hutchinson when the austere air of Boston became too cold for them. It was friendly to [that little band] the small colony of Jews who established here the first synagogue in America and who gave name to the lovely street called Touro. It has shown itself friendly to the colored people and in -2- consequence you have a considerable faction of your population who are friendly to you and rightly assimilated into your [economic?] and civil life. You showed yourselves friendly to me when as far back as 1912, along with Maud Howe Elliott I stood on your public square in Daniel Le Roy Dresser's funny old run about seeking your votes [support along with Maud Howe Elliott] for Col. Roosevelt in the Progressive campaign. Again and again have I come to you seeking your support votes for women, women's rights, for Old Ironsides, and for other good causes in which you have never been found wanting. So once more I came to ask will you fail me now when the greatest of all causes - the abolishment of the hateful liquor traffic - is at stake? When the 18th Amendment for which the good men and women of our Nation fought for more than one hundred years is in jeopardy? When this vile monster once crushed to earth dares raise is head -3- in spiteful [?] in the midst of the world's greatest depression: when God in his infinite wisdom bids [the] Christian people throughout the land rise and smite to earth [again] once more this greatest enemy to humankind? No you will not fail me nor will you [?] recreant to the faith of those noble women, those dearly beloved early crusaders, who dared the terrors of the saloon as they knelt in its alien atmosphere and prayed that it be removed forever from our country's portals. I would that their garments of faith and hope and sacrifice with a kindred grace of God to strengthen our footsteps, might descend upon us who see the fruits of their long and arduous toil threatened by the self-same evils which they had to combat the evils of greed and avarice, apathy and appetite, a foolish and insane desire to drink our nation back to prosperity, to loaf ourselves back to work and to spend our way back to thrift. You will prove yourselves friendly when I come to beg -4- that we return the greatest gift our Nation has to give to a depressed world - the 18th Amendment in our Constitution and that we observe and enforce, respect and honor, this portion of our Constitution in the same patriotic spirit with which we pledge allegiance to our flag. Not only do I come to open my campaign in Newport because you are a friendly City. [but because] It is the bailiwick, the home town of the man who is the present incumbent of the office of representatives in Washington and who judging from the present political horizon in the Republican Party may be the next candidate, though political acumen, political justice, and the exercise of some degree of common sense may dictate a dry candidate, an honest supporter of the 18th Amendment for that office were the Convention meets next Tuesday. Should good sense and sound wisdom -5- prompt the Republican Party to send [our] a dry representative to Congress from the first District to represent dry sentiment in Rhode Island which may be conservatively estimated at 1/3 of he voting [sentiment] power expressed at the polls two years ago then I will gladly withdraw for it far more important to have a dry vote in Congress than to consider the personal equation in the matter of the individual casting that vote. Hence, I deliberately challenge the Republican Party of which I am a member to make this opening address my swan song as well as first shot. Mr. Clark Burdick is a personal wet and a political wet meaning that he believes neither in the observance nor the enforcement of the 18th Amendment. Meaning too, as he has stated many times that he will work for repeal of the 18th Amendment, the repeal of the Volstead Act, and the legalizing of intoxicating liquors As an independent Dry, a personal Dry -6- and a political Dry I solemnly pledge the dry forces of the State of Rhode Island and loyal Christian men and women throughout the world to defend the 18th Amendment to the last ounce of my strength to support the Volstead Act and to fight the repeal of either should I be your choice for National representative. For the eyes of the world are turned upon us in the national crisis and the prayers of the praying mind are beseeching the rentention of the 18th Amendment. As I have fought in their behalf since their inception and before their inception, in fact for prohibition of the liquor traffic during more than twenty years in the Women's Christian Temperance Union, so I shall continue to work for a better observance, a stronger enforcement, a loftier conception of this law which is the greatest safe guard built by any nation around its homes, its churches, and its schools to protect coming generations form the horrors of the saloons, the brothels, and the breeding places for crime which proved themselves to be the natural spawn of the liquor traffic of -7- past generations. Why mince matters? The elections, national and state, are milling around this one great issue of the 18th Amendment - shall it remain to bless by proper observance and enforcement or shall it be thrown away in favor of local option, high license, low license, government sale or other methods which but synonyms for a return of the liquor traffic in all its baneful aspects? As with the mobs at the Conventions at Chicago so with the unthinking people of Rhode Island, a strange and fantastic psychology is in the air linking beer with prosperity, booze with bread and whiskey with mile, queer bedfellows indeed to the logical thinker. In these chaotic days which will go down in history as the time of the Great Depression we find men and women considered as sane and balanced individuals in the past so crazed by loss of money, loss of social prestige, decrease in the value of their holdings in stocks, especially brewery stocks, over-burdonsome taxes and -8- diminishing [?] that they have actually fooled themselves into the belief that plenty of liquor hard or soft would emliorate the depression when our moment of genuine thought would demonstrate how much more terrible the use of alcohol would have made every phase of the depression. It has been said that the depression has actually helped to stabilize family life. Has the free use of liquor ever accomplished this even in the most prosperrous times? When in Bristol recently, a woman almost seized my nomination paper in her anxiety to sign. She said, "You will be interested to know what my children are hearing at school. Yesterday I listened to my older daughter in Junior High saying to her sister "Sure mother's a Wet. Doesn't she believe in prosperity and if we have beer won't we have more jobs and won't jobs bring prosperity?" This mother hastened to inform her daughters that she wanted no beer prosperity and was glad indeed to see at least one dry candidate in this wet State. I explained to her what the Grand Old Man of Canada had told us last summer at the World's Women's Christian Union Convention in Toroto that the jobs created by doing away with prohibition -9- would not be in the making of beer - that is a self-making process, but in the creation of a new class of drinkers to consume the stuff - the boys and girls of our nation to whom it is unforbidden by law. I have learned anew many things in my two weeks canvass for signatures. One is that our wet newspapers are doing a great deal of harm in distributing wet misinformation. The dryest class of voters I encountered are readers of the Christian Science Monitor which knows its facts and presents them well. I gladly pay my tribute to this well-edited sheet. So insidious is this propaganda of a wet Press that in my travels about I found staid Congregationalists proclaiming the repeal of the 18th amendment in order that we might get "good" liquor instead of the "bad" in circulation just, as though any good liquor ever existed. It was ostracised because it was a narcotic and a poison and it's the same criminal as of old. I have heard Baptist's tell about drinking among the younger generation and speak-easies in their midst and when I asked what hey as supposedly Christian Citizens were doing about it was answered by silence. In going from door to door I have found Methodists, members of that church which produced Bishop Cannon and Clarence True Wilson, so lethargic and -10- pessimistic that King Alcohol could come and snatch their victory right from under their very noses without their batting an eyelash. These and other great churches are forgetting that it was through the tears and sweat and prayers of their mothers and the endorsement of the great denominational Christian forces that the 18th Amendment was put into the Constitution. Will it be taken out by a wicked and slothful generation who unworthy of their noble inheritance lie sleeping at the switch while the death-bearing train of false and cruel wet propaganda goes merrily on? I cannot believe that we like the [?] of old are all longing for the flesh [?] of Egypt to the extent of forgetting our duty to unborn generations who will rightfully rise up in their [math?] and curse us if we again unchain this evil monster in their midst. Rhode Island as elsewhere is sadly lacking in political leaders. Across the border Senator Bingham's sole remedy for the depression -11- is fees and plenty of it while Senator Metcalf has spent the greater portion of his time in Washington to achieve the same remedy. Senator Hebert in his anxiety to climb upon the wet wagon forgets that it was his dry promises to the Anti-Saloon League which brought about his election. Had it not been for that endorsement he would have lost many dry votes mine among them. Vice-President Curtis has undergone no such change of front as his dry declarations testified in his acceptance speech. It is my habit to invite frequently to our representation in Washington and usually receive cordial replies. When, however, I wrote last winter to Senator Metcalf asking him who was to consume the beer so anxiously sought by him and his wet colleagues his answer was evasive for I informed him that it would not be the men employed by Henry Ford for he permits no drinkers in his plant; it would not be the thousands of workers employed the the Du Ponts for even one glass of beer is taboo among their highly explosive materials; -12- It would not be of use to Mr. Atterbury's men for the Pennsylvania Railroad requires no liquor in its machinery. I am sure Mr Metcalf wants to liquor in his own mills and no return of the drunkard's Monday morning so common in the old days Nor does his brother in-law Henry D. Sharpe want drinking in his highly organized factory. Think it through my friends. For whom is this flood of liquor designed for which the Wets are so eagerly trying to smash the 18th Amendment? No nation can exist half slave and half free - nor can it maintain a healthy life half drunk and half sober. Our beloved Nation has reached a crisis in what President Hoover well termed a noble experiment. A wet or a dry Congress will decide the fate of 18th Amendment in the next two years. We are asked by the Dry Forces of the country to carry out a distinct policy: Retain dry Congressmen, replace wet Congressmen by dry and vote only for dry legislators. Thanks to the Prohibitionists of the State -13- Each of us will have an opportunity to place our cross on Election Day against a dry candidate. That candidate may not be in the ranks of the two major parties both of which seem to be hysterically wet. [but] If it is however a vote for men and women who will serve our State and nation equally well and preserve intact the 18th Amendment both in its observance and enforcement are we not performing our duty in a finer and more intelligent way than adhering strictly to Party lines. Hence I come to this friendly city asking you to vote for me if you desire to retain the 18th Amendment both in observance and enforcement. Secondly I ask your votes for another reason. For many years I was kbnown throughout Rhode Island as a hard- working suffragist. (Refer to book) My home on Angell Street was a haven for those women who believed that votes for women would raise our Nation's -14- standards of living. From the year 1907 I worked incessantly among the colored people who were the first under the inspired leadership of Mary Jackson to endorse our cause; among the Italians, among the Jewish people in fact among all peoples I labored to secure the passage of the 19th Amendment believing in my heart then as now that it will form the seal to the 18th. For women have suffered most from the iniquities of the liquor traffic and women will not sanction their return I who worked side by side with the [great] pioneers, Susan B. Anthony, Anna Howard Shaw, Carrie Chapman Catt, Alice Stone Blackwell, Maud Wood Park know that the truly great leaders believed in prohibition. In fact most of them had their [first early] training in temperance work. It was there they learned the deadly hatred of organized liquor interests to women sharing in politics. It was these same liquor interests who fought us tooth and nail by every trickery known in the calendar of rotten politics for they well knew -15- that women by and large wanted nothing to do with the filthy poison. Their whole story has been written by Mrs. Carry Chapman Catt if you doubt my words in her book Woman Suffrage and Politics. The franchise for women was llikewise utterly opposed by a small group of wealthy women headed by Mrs. Charles Warren Lippitt who likewise, strange coincidence, now heads the women's branch of the Association Against Prohibition in Rhode Island. I am told that more than thirty national liquor organizations have remained intact waiting the overthrow of the 18th Amendment to renew their dirty work. Mary Harris Amor told us at the World's W. C.T.U. convention that many of these "whiskey ladies" and men too for that matter had trunkfuls of brewery stock in their attics as they have of confederate money in the South hoping for its return to the market prices of the [??] days before prohibition. In the South four years ago when six states considered hidebound in their loyalty to the Democratic Party voted for the first time in their history for a Republican President the slogan was "Christ Before the Democratic Party." Shall we in New -16- England where we see our Constitution nullified, our laws flouted and our precious 18th Amendment mobserved and uninforced take a less heroic stand? It is time that the fighting spirit of the Drys be aroused and that fighting spirit first express itself at the Polls on Nov. 8 voting only for dry national and state legislation regardless of Party lines. God is not mocked. As a man sows that shall he reap. Date of this report Feb. 21, 1917 Time I am at Providence, R.I. Today Will be at Taunton, Mass. Tomorrow Expect to be at .......... Next Day Signed Hamilton Mercer Date of meeting Sunday Afternoon, March 11, 1917 Speaker Oliver W. Stewart City Providence, R.I. Population 250,000 Place of meeting Casino Theatre Terms As stated in contract Hour of meeting 3:30 Chairman of Committee Mrs. Thomas Hadley, 353 Potter Avenue Publicity Man Mrs. J.W. Algeo, 394 Angel Street Presiding Officer Nathan W. Littleton Ushers MissAlthea Hall/188 High Street, Pawtudet Young People Miss Lena S. Sparks, 319 Butler Exchange Reception Geo. F. Rooke, 3200 Pawtucket Avenue W. C. T. U. Mrs. Geo. F. Rooke, 3200 Pawtucket Avenue Music Window Cards Mrs. J.W. Algeo, 394 Angel street Hotel R. R. Newspapers MAILING LIST Transcribed and reviewed by contributors participating in the By The People project at crowd.loc.gov.