American Health and Temperance Association

An organization dedicated to the advocacy of temperance. On Feb. 13, 1826, the American Health and Temperance Association, then called the American Temperance Society, was incorporated in Boston, Massachusetts. The Christian Examiner at that time declared: “The greatest enterprise and the most hopeful omen of the age, perhaps, is the temperance reform.” By 1827 more than 7,000 temperance societies had been established and were active, composed of one and a quarter million members and claiming more than 10,000 reclaimed drunkards. This organization was reconstituted and established by the General Conference in 1932. Joseph Bates, one of the Seventh-day Adventist pioneers, had long been a temperance reformer. Toward the end of his years as a seaman, he discarded the use of all alcoholic drinks and tobacco. On the day of his baptism into the Christian church in 1827, he expressed his determination to organize a temperance society, and invited the minister who had baptized him to assist in this, but the minister refused to become involved in the project. Bates therefore approached a minister of the Congregational church, and was successful in securing his support. In addition to the Congregational minister, two of his deacons, several former sea captains, and a few others whom Bates had persuaded to assist him met and organized the Fairhaven Temperance Society at Fairhaven, Massachusetts. The charter members of the society took a pledge against gin, rum, brandy, and whiskey. Later the society amended the pledge by including all intoxicating beverages, thus putting the ban on fermented as well as distilled liquors, except for medicinal purposes. The New Bedford Society, the Bristol County Society, and then the Massachusetts State Society were organized in due course. Thus, Joseph Bates was among the earliest pioneers in organizing a temperance society and in promoting and fostering the total-abstinence movement in the United States. Bates later devoted his full time to the Adventist movement of the 1840s, and following the disappointment in 1844 became one of the principal founders of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. Early Seventh-day Adventist Advocacy of Temperance. The original SDA leaders were abstainers, but not until 1862 was a more thoroughgoing reform inaugurated. Chiefly through the writings of James and Ellen G. White, emphasis was given to the fact that the moral nature is largely affected by physical nature, and that success in appealing to people spiritually is more effective if they can first be turned from those habits that undermine their physical powers and benumb their moral sensibilities. The first united move was made among Seventh-day Adventists in behalf of a broad temperance program in 1863, but Ellen White had already warned of the dangers of not only liquor and tobacco but also tea and coffee. The years of the Civil War in the United States and the subsequent period of reconstruction witnessed a serious setback to the cause of temperance reform that had flourished in the earlier part of the century. During the 1870s several temperance organizations appeared, including the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union. Mrs. White actively cooperated with the national temperance movements, frequently speaking on their behalf and addressing on numerous occasions large audiences on the subject of temperance. On one occasion, during the summer of 1876, she spoke to some 20,000 people on a campground at Groveland, Massachusetts. The next day she repeated her address to the Haverhill Reform Club. American Health and Temperance Association. A great forward movement to enlist the rank and file of Seventh-day Adventists began in December 1878. A meeting was held in the publishing house chapel in Battle Creek, Michigan, on Dec. 30 “to consider the propriety of organizing a national health and temperance society.” At a second meeting, held on New Year’s Day, 1879, further steps were taken, and on Jan. 5 the organization of the American Health and Temperance Association was completed. J. H. Kellogg, M.D., of the Battle Creek Sanitarium, was elected president. Some 133 persons signed the teetotalers’ pledge, discarding tea and other stimulants and narcotics, as well as alcohol, and 22 signed the anti-rum and tobacco pledge. Another action was taken on Nov. 24, 1879, by vote of the General Conference, emphasizing that it is “the duty of all members of this denomination to become members of the American Health and Temperance Association, and to use their influence in inducing others to unite in this reformatory effort.” At this time the membership program was inaugurated as the basis of temperance organization. Any person of good moral character could become a member of the association by paying an initiation fee of 25 cents, and thereafter a minimum of 10 cents a year, and signing a teetotal pledge. Also the basis was laid for general support of the temperance cause by ministers and church leaders. “ Resolved , That the conference committee of each conference be requested to encourage proper persons to fit themselves to engage in the health and temperance work; and we especially urge all ministers to prepare themselves to present the subject of health and temperance in an efficient and practical manner, and make it a part of their work in their various fields of labor.” During the next few years the subject of temperance was presented actively in the camp meetings, and all SDA s were invited to become members of the organization and to take an active part in temperance endeavor. International Health and Temperance Association. By 1881 the American Health and Temperance Association had 9,819 members, according to the minutes of a meeting held that year. In that year a children’s pledge was prepared for circulation among the younger people. In 1889 at the eleventh annual session, the society was renamed the International Health and Temperance Association. The association continued its activities until 1893, when the SDA Medical Missionary and Benevolent Association was organized. The specific purpose of the original organization became subordinated in the general health program promoted by the church. Specific counsel had been given by Ellen G. White on the necessity of establishing temperance societies and clubs, printing temperance literature, and appointing workers who would go to the cities and bear the message of temperance. Temperance activity of Seventh-day Adventists followed the national trends during the period leading up to the enactment of the Eighteenth Amendment, with some church leaders, such as C. S. Longacre, taking part in the public education that resulted in the passage in 1917 of the prohibition amendment and its ratification by the states in 1919. SDA s oppose church participation in politics; but they have always considered legislation against alcohol and other similar poisons to be not a political but a moral issue. When the Volstead Act of 1919 made national prohibition effective, Seventh-day Adventists relaxed their public efforts, as did the other organizations that had pushed for prohibition. In the meantime the anti-prohibition forces became active to nullify prohibition, until in 1933 the Twenty-first Amendment, to repeal the Eighteenth, was passed by Congress and became effective on Dec. 5, 1933, after the required number of states had ratified it. American Temperance Society Reorganized. Already in 1932, discerning the increasing tragedy of intemperance in the nation as repeal approached, SDA s had organized the American Temperance Society of Seventh-day Adventists. During the following 15 years a modest temperance program was carried on. The chief organ for the society was the Temperance Bulletin , an informational sheet of four pages. Special annual temperance editions of the Signs of the Times , circulated in millions of copies, made a major impact on the public. Anti-narcotic issues of Our Little Friend were published for the children. After the 1946 Autumn Council, the General Conference appointed representative committees to review the church’s temperance objectives and to formulate a program of world action along temperance lines, with a view to setting up an organization through which an aggressive effort could be promoted both within and outside the church. American Temperance Society Again Reorganized. Two constitutions were planned, one for the organization that was to serve the world to be known as the International Temperance Association, and the other a new constitution for the American Temperance Society. The latter would serve as the model for the organizing of a temperance society in every country. The constitution of the American Temperance Society was adopted by the General Conference Committee on Jan. 27, 1947, with J. L. McElhany, the General Conference president, being elected as president of the society and W. A. Scharffenberg as executive secretary. The constitution of the International Temperance Association was adopted at the Autumn Council of 1947. Methods, Projects, and Publications. About this time a compilation was made from Ellen G. White’s writings on the subject. Published under the title Temperance , this book serves as the blueprint for the church’s temperance program. The first major project of the American Temperance Society was the launching of the magazine Listen in 1948. This was the first of an increasing number of temperance publications that have served during subsequent years as the major stimulus for the society’s growing program. The American Temperance Society was set up as a membership organization, following the instruction and personal example of Mrs. White herself in the early temperance work of the church. Various memberships offered were junior and student memberships for the children and young people, as well as regular, family, contributing, sustaining, supporting, and life memberships for adults. Each member was to receive benefits for the respective membership, these benefits consisting mainly of the publications such as Listen , Alert , Smoke Signals , Activities, and The Winner . The annual pledge-signing campaign and membership drive provided opportunity for all church members to enroll as temperance members; this took place on Temperance Commitment Sabbath, designated at the time in the church calendar as the last Sabbath in February. Financial support for the society came from four major sources: membership dues; sale of publications, films, and other materials; contributions from interested donors; and the annual Temperance Offering, received on World Temperance Day, the fourth Sabbath in October. By 1964 four national conventions of the American Temperance Society had been held, two in Washington, D.C., the others in Denver, Colorado, and Kansas City, Missouri. These served as training schools for church temperance secretaries and other laypersons interested in temperance activity, and provided opportunity to present nationally known authorities in person and to publicize widely the church’s temperance program. Chapters of the American Temperance Society were organized in SDA schools. Active projects, including oratorical, essay, jingle, and poster contests, were encouraged for the young people. Many student participants presented their orations before civic and business clubs, and before other church and youth organizations. Chapters sponsored annual Temperance Weeks for the students, and engaged in community literature distribution to aid in local option elections. Currently such activity is directed by Collegiate Adventists for Better Living and (on the elementary and academy level) Adventist Youth for Better Living. Program. The program of the American Temperance Society can be summarized under three major headings, as follows: 1. Education: the producing and making effective use of attractive magazines, pamphlets, posters, films, public lectures, and all other means to focus the attention of the church and the public on problems of intemperance, but emphasizing the principles of better living from a positive approach, in order to present appealingly, especially to youth, the advantages of abstinence as the genuine alternative. 2. Legislation: cooperating with civic and government agencies in making the community and nation a safer place in which to live, and pressing for the passage of laws to restrict, control, or ban the production, sale, distribution, and consumption of liquor, tobacco, and illegal narcotics, also urging church members and all others to make use of their vote at every opportunity on temperance issues. 3. Reformation: helping those who are victims of intemperance, pointing them back to normal living, through the use of natural means and dependence on divine aid. Spiritual emphasis is a real part of such projects. To reflect more accurately the fusion of the Health and Temperance departments into one department in 1980, the American Temperance Society’s name was change to the American Health and Temperance Society. In the early 1990s the name was changed again to the American Health and Temperance Association. Presidents: J. L. McElhany, 1947–1950; H. L. Rudy, 1951–1960; M. V. Campbell, 1961–1962; R. S. Watts, 1963–1968; M. S. Nigri, 1968–1975; F. W. Wernick, 1975–1980; Mervyn G. Hardinge, 1980–1981; C. E. Bradford, 1981–1990; A. S. McClure, 1990– . Executive Secretaries/Directors: W. A. Scharffenberg, 1947–1964; E. J. Folkenberg, 1965–1968; E.H.J. Steed, 1968–1981; Rudolf E. Klimes, 1981–1985; S. E. Proctor, 1985–1990; D. S. Williams, 1990– .