Document 8: Katie Thompson, “Corresponding Secretary’s Report: Colorado,” Minutes of the Woman’s National Christian Temperance Union, at the Annual Meeting, Held in Baltimore, November 6-11th, 1878, with Reports, Addresses, Constitutions, etc. (Cincinnati: A.H. Pugh, Printer, 1879), Appendix, pp. 77-78, Frances Willard Memorial Library, Evanston, Illinois.

Document 8: Katie Thompson, “Corresponding Secretary’s Report: Colorado,” Minutes of the Woman’s National Christian Temperance Union, at the Annual Meeting, Held in Baltimore, November 6-11th, 1878, with Reports, Addresses, Constitutions, etc. (Cincinnati: A.H. Pugh, Printer, 1879), Appendix, pp. 77-78, Frances Willard Memorial Library, Evanston, Illinois.

Introduction

        The Woman’s Christian Temperance Union began in Colorado in 1876, when Louise S. Rounds organized a union in Colorado Springs. That city became the first in Colorado to endorse prohibition, and the W.C.T.U. began spreading to various cities and towns across the state.

        This report from Katie Thompson (unknown-1893), founding president of the Longmont W.C.T.U. and later State W.C.T.U. president, on developments in Colorado during 1878 revealed the growing strength of the organization.

COLORADO.

MRS. KATIE THOMPSON, V.P.

       Colorado--young, vigorous, and earnest-prefaces her report with an appeal to this honorable body for aid. “Come over and help us,” i[s] her cry, “for the harvest is white, but the reapers are few.”

*   *   *

       Since last spring, Longmont has been a temperance town. The Union there, which numbers thirty members, held prayer meetings during the election. God heard their earnest prayers, and gave them the victory. There is a Juveni[l]e Union of forty members, and a free “reading-room,” which affords a temporary home for young men who have no friends or home, is sustained.

       Greeley, Colorado Springs, and Longmont are the only no-license towns in the State.

*   *   *

       The churches are becoming more active in the work, and a strong sentiment for the cause could be developed if some earnest, consecrated, Christian woman would aid by experience and efforts. A State organization is in view, and Colorado, with her zeal and fresh enthusiasm, gives promise of taking first rank among the working temperance States of the country.

 
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