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In 1902 the WCTU petitioned the Japanese government to stop rewarding good deeds with sake cups. Alcohol production and consumption, its members argued, led to suicide, bankruptcy, and child abandonment. The campaign was part of a wide-ranging reform program to oppose licensed prostitution, eradicate drinking and smoking, improve the lives of women, and spread Christianity. As Elizabeth Dorn Lublin argues, the WCTU's activism belies received notions of women in Meiji Japan. Far from being politically submissive, members felt a duty to shape government policy and believed that their moral values and religious beliefs were essential to their vision. They did not passively accept and propagate government policy - they defined social problems and tried to shape official solutions.