Queen Victoria Quotes
It is quite true that he has done much good by preaching temperance, but by the aid of superstition, which can hardly be patronized by the Crown.
A priest, Father Mathew, had been recommended for a State pension because of his extensive work of promoting temperance. However, his message played to and increased the degree of superstition, He preached that there were literal demons who would take over people and cause them to drink. The Queen was very aware of the symbolic value that every act of the crown conveyed and she was concerned about two things. First that superstition which she and most educated and enlightened people wanted diminished in society. Second, that the crown and the government would lose rational and scientific credibility so that future information and advice might be discounted by a cynical public who remember the crown arguing that demons were the cause of drinking and other ills. The same problem faces modern governments often. For example, in the middle of the 20th century, the Federal Government issued a film, Reefer Madness, which showed supposedly what happened when a person smoked marijuana. A few minutes after a young man smokes a marijuana cigarette, he starts to attack and rape a young woman at the party. The intent was to discourage people from smoking marijuana. But the consequences depicted were mostly false and to people who had smoked marijuana or observed smoking, the government appeared to be ignorant and or lying, The film became an icon of anti-government distrust and tendency to propaganda. Half a century later, the National Institutes of Health had trouble getting the true scientific facts about drug use believed as cynics still pointed to (and replayed on the Internet) Reefer Madness to show the government untrustworthy. Victoria understood this and took a long term view of the integrity and credibility of the crown and government.
Victoria Alexandrina, 1819-1901, [Queen Victoria], Queen of Great Britain and Ireland & Empress of India, Letter to her Prime Minister, John Russell, July 10, 1846
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Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini. Early in his career, as Secretary to the Emperor, he was assigned to oversee the education of the young king of Bohemia. Piccolomini’s advice of temperance was not at all based on theological reasons as drinking was rampant, even among the clergy. Also, he recognized the major effect of peer pressure on teenagers as it affects drinking behavior.
In 17th century England the Puritans were major opponents of the Celebration of Christmas which at the time had been celebrated mostly by Roman Catholics.
Most people only know about Garrison’s abolition crusade. However he had others like temperance.
Muslims are not supposed to drink alcohol.
6th Baron Byron
In 1931 prohibition was a major political issue. Mayor William Hale Thompson organized campaign parades complete with circus animals. A camel carried the following sign.
Victoria was Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until her death in 1901. Known as the Victorian era, her reign of 63 years and seven months was the longest of any British monarch until surpassed by that of Elizabeth II. It was a period of industrial, political, scientific, and military change within the United Kingdom, and was marked by a great expansion of the British Empire. In 1876, Parliament voted to grant her the additional title of Empress of India.
