Page:The War on the Webfoot Saloon.djvu/14

 herd on the skirted whirlwind were shining with elation. Saloon-keepers and other politicians were openly worried. Then, on the very morning of the canvass, there was distributed over the signature of the League a little broadside sweetly titled, The Voter's Book of Rememberance. This extraordinary document was probably the work of A. C. Edmunds—preacher, laborer, journalist and sometimes agitator. But whoever prepared it possessed a very large vocabulary of exceedingly short words. The burden of the Book was that members of the liquor trade went hand-in hand with practitioners of another—and older—profession, and that any citizen low enough to vote against the Temperance candidates was a supporter of Sin, an unAmerican scoundrel, and an arch-foe of Home and Mother.

The town exploded. What had previously made the League impervious to attack was the high moral tone which its members assumed. The Voter's Book, however, was rich with clinical descriptions framed in language exceedingly blunt. The Crusaders' bright mantle of respectability was torn from them in a trice. The politicians howled. The newspapers thundered. The clergymen retreated with unseemly haste, disclaiming responsibility. Large numbers of ladies tucked up their skirts and hurriedly sought places of safety. And the Temperance candidates were thumped.

It was the beginning of the end. The little corporal's guard of stalwarts which remained true to the standard was soon broken up by jealousies and wrangling. The New Northwest tossed rocks at the preachers; the Temperance Star shied stones at the New Northwest. On July 17, under the title, "CRUSADERS, WHAT THINK YOU?", Mrs. Duniway published a remarkable about-face which began:

"Haven't you discovered at last, to your sorrow, that the boy preachers who, in their silly zeal, have commanded you to be content to work as outlaws [have misled you.]"

And which ended:

"We have all along rejoiced in your work, not because we believe the saloons of Portland would tremble under it ... [but] because we saw that your failure ... would open your eyes to the power of the ballot."