Famous Five statues reveal temperance roots

But not all women’s groups are enamoured with the installation

DOUG KOOP
CW Editor
— Ottawa —

The Alberta suffragists who won the famous 1929 “Person’s Case” were honoured October 18 with the unveiling of their statues on Parliament Hill. The recognition delighted members of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU). Two of the Famous Five—Nellie McClung and Louise McKinney—were active WCTU members.

But as befits the evolution of the women’s movement, not everyone was so enamoured. REAL Women of Canada, a conservative advocacy group with many Christian members, protested the installation of the statues.

According to spokeswoman Diane Watts, “the significance of the Famous Five ‘Persons Case’ is highly exaggerated. Women were recognized as persons before 1929; they held the federal vote, could own and manage property, and enter professions.” REAL Women also takes issue with the process that saw the statues passed by the House of Commons.

And they don’t want people to forget that the Famous Five held some very objectionable views. “Emily Murphy wrote material which was racist,” says Watts, and “four of the five favoured eugenic sterilization for the mentally and physically unfit.”

Not the same

Indeed, the face of feminism is not what it used to be. Working with an agenda light years removed from that of the National Action Committee on the Status of Women today, the WCTU was a dominant and effective social force in the first half of the 1900s.

Founded in the United States in 1874 to combat the rampant alcoholism that was destroying many lives, the WCTU also emerged as a force for equal rights for women, a place where conservative Christian women expressed their feminist concerns and became politically active.

“The WCTU was the largest women’s organization in Canada for many years,” says Gina Torres, 52, who promotes WCTU programs in Toronto and directs its youth wing. “Our message remains the same. It’s still about temperance and zero tolerance for alcohol and other drugs,” she says.

Although less active and visible today, the WCTU certainly isn’t forgotten. The venerable group got a major public relations boost when an exhibition displaying WCTU political and religious banners opened earlier this fall at the Museum of Civilization in Hull, Quebec. The same exhibit was on display last year at the Museum for Textiles in Toronto.

The prime minister and governor-general were on hand at the unveiling of statues of the Famous Five— the first female Canadians to be accorded a place among the bronzed prime ministers and Fathers of Confederation on Parliament Hill. McKinney’s statue shows the former politician wearing a WCTU ribbon.

And the Ontario Women’s History Network’s October 28 “Crusading Women” conference, which the WCTU helped to sponsor, included a tour of the Senate led by Senator Betty Kennedy, a visit to the statues and the banners exhibit, as well as presentations about the WCTU. “We learned a lot about our roots,” says Torres.

Fervour days

Honouring a glorious past is valuable, but like most organizations, the WCTU has no desire to be relegated to the history books, even if it has fewer than 500 members in a few pockets across Canada. “It’s nothing compared to what it was back in the fervour days,” observes Ottawa member Mona Cooper.

National president Elizabeth Wolfe acknowledges that “we’re a smaller group now,” and “a lot of our ladies are elderly,” but remains resolute. “We plan to keep on keeping on,” she insists.

“I believe there is a continuing role for the WCTU. Our main goal is to teach prevention to teens and children,” says Wofe, who attends the United Church in St. Jacob’s, Ontario. “In today’s society we need to have Christian morals. We must remember that we’re examples and that we need to be setting some standards in our day to day living showing Christ’s love.”

Torres is similarly upbeat. She believes “this organization is going to take off, although it won’t be the same as yesterday.”

“Our numbers have started to grow again,” she says, mostly among young people. “We’ve signed up 54 youth in the last two years.” Last month 78 teens attended what’s become an annual retreat at Teen Ranch near Collingwood, Ontario.

“The message is always abstinence, a message of holiness,” says Torres. “We were teaching that we can be Christians and still have fun.”

Torres explains that members sign a pledge that “with God’s help they will not partake of alcohol and other drugs, and will encourage others to do the same.” The WCTU has pledge cards for children as young as six to sign.

Men may also be associate members. Indeed, according to Cooper, “the organization couldn’t carry on without its menfolk. They are very vital. Back in the starting days the men were in the saloons and the WCTU went in to drag them out. Now the women are in there too,” she laments.

Cooper recalls a previous pastor telling her that “as the women of society go, so goes the nation.” She agrees, suggesting that moral decline sets in “when women let down the standards and do not uphold purity and temperance. We influence the men far more than we realize,” she says.