Thirty Days in Lithuania in 1919Saurusaitis, Peter
History
Thirty Days in Lithuania in 1919
Saurusaitis, Peter
Lithuania
[Footnote A: When I presented to the president of Lithuania, Mr. Anthony
Smetona, the said recommendation of the Lithuanian Total Abstinance
Organization in America, which is indeed a suggestion to introduce the
prohibition of the manufacture and sale of intoxicating drinks in
Lithuania--in other words, to imitate the American government in this
respect, he expressed himself sufficiently in favor of it, but it is
quite self-evident that he, as the President of Lithuania alone, cannot
accomplish it. In our conversation he made a suggestion to me that I
should strive to get a chance to speak publicly in Kaunas and in other
places as much as possible on the subject of total abstinance, to which
I expressed my hope that some of the priests of Kaunas, no doubt, would
give me a chance there. Then the President said to me: "I have read in
the Lithuanian American newspapers so much of you as the apostle of
total abstinance among Lithuanians in America, I wish you would do the
same here." In Lithuania the opportunity to speak to the people is
offered only on Sunday, and in that case it is better in the church. So
I had an opportunity on Sundays and delivered sermons in seven churches.
In one a good number of priests as guests were assembled and listened to
my sermon. They were pleased and at dinner table were discussing about
American prohibition. A great many of them are boldly opposed to it;
some even expressing their doubt about total abstinance. But they all
were curious to know what those Lithuanians will do who were arrested
and punished for manufacturing at home and selling intoxicants without
the license of the government, after hearing of that sermon in the
church. Lithuanians in Lithuania have learned from the Germans when they
were in occupation, not only how to make intoxicants, but also soap,
sugar, etc.
At first I considered it might be an insult to speak about total
abstinance in Lithuania, after the horrible war; that those people could
not get any attraction to intoxicants having witnessed such horrors of
the war. But I was soon informed by some good souls of the necessity of
total abstinance and of the dangers and temptations of many to
intoxication. So I could not part with Lithuania without making an
effort to sow the seed that might produce some good effects in the field
of total abstinance.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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