A Temperance Minister Refuses to Preach Prohibition—or Hate
At Tacoma’s interstate temperance congress, Rev. Dean Richmond Babbitt urges patient education and rejects the A.P.A., drawing fire from fellow reformers.
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TACOMA, Sept. 4.—[Special.]—During the session of the inter-state temperance congress today Rev. Dean Richmond Babbitt, an Episcopal minister, told the prohibitionists that at present he would not teach prohibition, but would begin with the children and educate people to temperance. He opposed temperance people excluding others because they did not believe exactly as they did on prohibitory lines. He wanted Christian people of all churches working unitedly for temperance. In opposing avowed hatred for any person or creed he said he couldn’t be an A. P. A. Rev. George Wilding, of Vancouver, shouted: “I’m an A. P. A.” Babbitt then said: “Well, my brother, you follow your conscience and I’ll follow mine. As a Christian minister, I will not hate anybody. But what a mighty force for temperance is the Roman church.” Although Babbitt’s remarks were applauded, many present evidently opposed his views. His ideas were attacked in the discussion which followed, and at one time Babbitt had to call the congress’s attention to the fact that he was invited to speak to gentlemen and ladies, and he therefore pleaded for fair consideration, which was given.
“As a Christian minister, I will not hate anybody.”
Temperance was a mass reform movement, but it split over tactics, religion and nativism—Babbitt’s refusal to join the anti-Catholic A.P.A. was a stand against purity politics. Modern coalitions still wrestle with the same question: whether to build a broad tent or enforce ideological tests.
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