Tacoma’s Epworth League Wants the Bible in Public Schools—and the Saloons Gone

Tacoma, June 2.—Special.—The Epworth Leagues of all Western Washington are going to make a decided and determined stand against the liquor traffic. They are also going to make an effort to introduce the Bible into the public schools. The matter will be formally taken up and ways and means for the prosecution of the objects will be considered at the coming Epworth League convention which takes place at the First Methodist Episcopal church in this city June 6. G. H. Feese, secretary of the conference Epworth League, said this evening that fully 1,000 Leaguers, including delegates, will be here during the convention, and the moral influence of their meeting and the stand they will unitedly take will give the reforms a great impetus. To begin with, he is sanguine of success, and thinks the abolition of the liquor traffic is a certainty. Rev. Feese said last evening: "We are going to institute such a fight against the liquor traffic as has never before been made in the Northwest. We expect to accomplish what the temperance societies and prohibition have failed to do. In the beginning we shall not try to abolish the rum traffic, but shall endeavor to create such a sentiment against it as will sweep it out of the state. It is sentiment that produces reform always; men never do. A reform is merely an effect of a sentiment that existed prior to its inception. In Toronto no public officer would dare to be at all lenient with liquor men. His head would come off at once. The people there are against liquor. When such a sentiment as that is here, the business will be pressed and the people will do the rest. Our Epworth Leagues are now a part of every large community, almost, in Western Washington, and our movement is becoming a powerful influence. All reforms have been made by men who were in, not apart from, the masses. For this reason the Epworth League, occupying the peculiar position it does, will have more success in doing away with the liquor traffic than if it was an institution working on a more exclusive and independent basis." "Yes, we are going to do our best to have the Bible introduced into the public schools as a moral influence. The schools which can be reached in no other way will be reached by it. We do not favor any interference between church and state, and we are not trying to introduce the religious service as a part of the church, but to have the Bible recognized in the schools."