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Term: Chafin, Eugene Wilder 1852 - 1920

Definition:

lawyer, temperance advocate, b. East Troy. He graduated from the Univ. of Wisconsin (LL.B., 1875), was admitted to the bar, and set up a law practice in Waukesha. Early in life he became active as a lecturer and organizer in the temperance and prohibition movements. At 14 he joined the Order of Good Templars, and was Grand Chief Templar in Wisconsin (1886-1890), Grand Electoral Superintendent (1893-1901), and a representative to international meetings of the order. Originally a Republican, he joined the Prohibition party in 1881 and was its unsuccessful candidate for a number of state offices. He was a delegate to the party's national conventions from 1884 to 1920, serving as chairman of the committee on the platform (1900), and a member of the national committee (1888-1896). He was the unsuccessful Prohibition candidate for President in 1908 and 1912. In 1901 he moved to Chicago where he was superintendent of a home for inebriates. After the adoption of the 18th Amendment in 1919, he went on a lecture tour to Australia and New Zealand in behalf of temperance. His writings include Lives of the Presidents (1896); Lincoln, the Man of Sorrow (1908); and The Master Method of the Great Reform (1913). Dict. Amer. Biog.; Waukesha Freeman, Dec. 2, 1920; N.Y. Times, Dec. 1, 1920.

View newspaper clippings at Wisconsin Local History and Biography Articles.