FEATURE-ALCOHOL'S BIGGEST FOE CELEBRATES 125 YEARS

NEW YORK - For more than a century, alcohol's greatest foes
have not been firebreathing preachers or federal agents with Tommy
guns but women wearing white ribbons.

The anti-liquor ladies of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union
celebrate their 125th anniversary this year, but while times have
changed the group's message has not. "We think that our bodies are the
temple of God and therefore we should keep impure things out of them,"
WCTU president Sarah Ward told Reuters. "We still think the safest
thing is not to drink."

Trying to keep up with the times, the WCTU has added a host of new
evils such as marijuana, crack and cocaine to its list of thou shalt
nots. But total abstinence has been its core agenda since it was
founded in 1874 when women frustrated by their husbands' drinking
began occupying saloons -- a shocking action at a time when women were
banned from bars.

"They went in and laid their Bibles on the bar and knelt and prayed,"
Ward said. The women wore white ribbons to symbolize their purity and
lived by the slogan "Agitate - Educate - Legislate."

A BUNCH OF OLD LADIES?

The group's shining moment, and its biggest disappointment, came with
its successful push for Prohibition, the 1919 amendment to the U.S.
Constitution that banned drinking until it was repealed in 1933. Ward
admits times were rough after Prohibition ended but says the group
refused to quit.

She insists the WCTU still has a role to play in modern America
despite shrinking membership and a perception that it is a bunch of
old ladies out of touch with the times.

"It's a popular thing to say, `Oh well, that group's had their day.'
But as long as we have young people who are becoming alcoholics or are
dying ... there's a definite need for us," Ward said.

While she concedes that Americans are not "joiners" as they once were
- -- WCTU membership has fallen from about 176,000 in the late 1800s to
10,000 -- Ward says a Web site and e-mails between members show the
group can stay up with the times.

For one loyal WCTU member, a commitment to stay drink-free seems to
defy time altogether. At 106, Lois Addy has been a WCTU member for 99
years, since she turned eight in 1900. The daughter of teetotaler
parents, she was raised in Saluda, South Carolina, and has never
tasted a drop of alcohol.

HAPPY OUTLOOK, CLEAN LIVING

Addy, who spoke to Reuters over an amplified phone to aid her hearing,
said she attributed her long life to heredity, a happy outlook and
clean living.

"Somebody asked the other day if I'd eaten ... rum cake," she said. "I
didn't know there was such a thing as rum cake."

Addy once ran the WCTU in South Carolina and for 20 years brought
young members to a "temperance" camp in the mountains.

She says her positive Christian outlook has helped her, despite some
trying times: the end of Prohibition and the death of her first
husband in 1919 from the influenza epidemic.

"My theme song is `Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, sweetest name I know, fills my
every morning, keeps me singing as I go,"' she sang over the phone.

As for alcohol, she agrees with the group's current stance that it is
not only a moral scourge but bad for the health. "It's a killer, a
killer drug," she said.

Her hopes for the WCTU's survival are also strong. "My hope is it'll
never die," she said.

Coming from a 106-year-old, that seems pretty realistic.