The Vegetarian Eating Club (1895)

AUTHOR: Moore, J. Howard

PUBLICATION: “The Vegetarian Eating Club, of Chicago University.” The Vegetarian  Vol. I, no. 3 (September 1895): 42-44.
https://archive.org/details/vegetarianmonthl00unse/page/42/mode/1up

KEYWORDS: animals, animal welfare, diet, food

SUMMARY (Ridvan Askin, edited Deborah Madsen):

Moore explicitly promotes ethical veganism in this report on the creation of a vegetarian club, “a gastronomic club of the genus Vegetarian” (42), at the University of Chicago. Moore was a founding member himself. “To-day,” he claims, “the Vegetarian Eating Club, of the University of Chicago, is one of the most mentionable and successful gastronomic facts of the present time” (42-43), boasting both male and female members and “many of the brightest and most interesting people of the University,” including “Professor Frederic Starr, head of the department of anthropology” (43). About the club's mission and activities, Moore writes:

We use grains, fruits, nuts, vegetables, dairy products, eggs – in fact, everything of the nutritious sort except the bones and flesh of other animals. We find in our experience that we not only do not lose by this dietetic elision but that it is a positive benefit. We feel more adequate physically, our brains are more receptive and obedient, and our tempers are less inflammable. The hot head, dirty blood and feverish unmanageable passions of carnivorous creatures the vegetarian knows little about. I do not mean that a vegetarian regimen is an omni cura and will turn its devotees invariably and irretrievably into saints, giants and geniuses. But I do mean that an elegant, ample and varied diet, such as we serve in our Club, cannot have other than a powerfully clarifying and civilizing effect on the entire living organism. I verily believe if a generation or two of children could be brought up, unhabituated to scenes and deeds of massacre and unvitiated by a gross and dastardly diet, that a moral and intellectual millenium would be imminent. […] Intemperance, war, bestiality, domestic infelicity, crime, social irascibility – in fact, all of the choler and delirium resulting from individual and social inflammation may be mitigated, if not entirely cured by an elegant, rational, civilized diet (43-44).

For Moore, animal welfare is a much more important aspect of veg*nism than human well-being. He thus calls on everyone “to live the Golden rule, not simply mouth it”: “Think of an animal whose stomach is a perpetual grave, going about inculcating kindness and reciprocity! Yet, that is the farce to which mundane eyes are most accustomed” (44). He deplores those who “preach about love, mercy and justice, when the very energy they expend in preaching justice and mercy is obtained by ripping open, etc., tearing out the vitals of their fellow beings” (44).