From: Jack D. Drummond
Date: 3/28/00
Time: 12:53:04 AM
Remote Name: 216.59.55.200
The intended audience of this fiercely pro-temperance speech by Dr. J.S. Wilson was the women of America. Using painstakingly composed and powerful language, Wilson urges American women to keep their men off the sauce and in line with the pious ideals of the temperance movement. I believe that one reason that these remarks were aimed at the females of America was because the temperance movement has been generally described as a women’s fight, and he would have the largest number of supporters appealing to a female audience. Also, I believe that he felt that alcoholism was primarily a male problem and it was up to the women to keep their men in line. He acknowledges the mysterious power of feminine influence, stating that “there exists no earthly incentive to virtuous action” quite like it. In my opinion, these remarks were meant to be read rather than spoken. The writing is extremely dramatic and meant to imbibe immediate emotion rather than drive across a lingering point. At one point in the speech he addresses the audience directly and paints a picture of the household of the alcoholic. The wife, he says, lingers “around her lonely habitation, a shadow of her former self.” The children of the home “avoid him as they would the bug-a-boo of their infant imaginations, and tremblingly cling for protection around the form of their agonized mother.” At several points in the speech Wilson asks rhetorical questions of the audience, a staple of effective speechmaking. “Will they not then,” he asks, “banish a habit which they are assured has the stamp of your unyielding reprobation?” These remarks beg the reader to speak aloud, something I found myself doing at several points during the reading in my best Jimmy Swaggart impression.