Of the more recent interest of Unitarians in questions of temperance reform there may be mentioned the thorough study made by the United States Commissioner of Labor, and printed in 1898 under the title of Economic Aspects of the Liquor Problem.[24] This investigation was ordered by Congress as the result of a petition sent to that body by the Unitarian Temperance Society. Probably few petitions have ever been sent to Congress that contained so many prominent names of leading statesmen, presidents of colleges and universities, bishops, clergymen, well-known literary men, and other persons of influence. The Unitarian Temperance Society was organized September 23, 1886, in connection with the meeting of the National Conference at Saratoga. Its purpose is "to work for the cause of temperance in whatever ways may seem to it wise and right; to study the social problems of poverty, crime, and disease, in their relation to the use of intoxicating drinks, and to diffuse whatever knowledge may be gained; to discuss methods of temperance reform; to devise and, so far as possible, to execute plans for practical reform; to exert by its meetings and by its membership such influence for good as by the grace of God it may possess." It has held annual meetings in Boston, and other meetings in connection with the National Conference; it has published a number of important tracts, temperance text-books, and temperance services for Sunday-schools; and it has exerted a considerable influence on the denomination in shaping public opinion in regard to this reform. The presidents of the society have been Rev. Christopher R. Eliot, Rev. George H. Hosmer, and Rev. Charles F. Dole. The subject of temperance reform has been before the National Conference on several occasions and in various forms. At the session of 1882 a resolution offered by Miss Mary Grew was adopted:-- That the unutterable evils continually wrought by intemperance, the easy descent from moderate to immoderate drinking, and the moral wrecks strewn along that downward path, call upon Christians and patriots to practise and advocate abstinence from the use of all intoxicating liquors as a beverage. In 1891 a series of resolutions recommended by the Unitarian Temperance Society were adopted as expressing the convictions of the Conference:-- First, that the liquor saloon, as it exists to-day in the United States, is the nation's chief school of crime, chief college of corruption in politics, chief source of poverty and ruined homes, chief menace to our country's future, is the standing enemy of society, and, as such, deserves the condemnation of all good men. Second, that, whatever be the best mode of dealing with the saloon by law, law can avail little until those who condemn the saloon consent to totally abstain themselves from the use of alcoholic drink for pleasure.