The Use and Need of the Life of Carry A. Nation
and as a result the joints have been suppressed on all sides. Our legislature,
just adjourned, gave us the most drastic legislation against the
liquor business in her history, and with tremendous majorities. The
result of the movement started by this brave woman, who is roundly
condemned in the East, is best summed up in the words of a Kansas
wholesale liquor dealer, who said recently, "A few weeks ago we had a
very fine trade in Kansas, shipping out many car-loads of liquor, but
just now they are coming back as fast as they went out." Our city,
Topeka, has had considerable notoriety all over the country as the center
of the Nation temperance crusade, and because of the presence of Mrs.
Nation. However, we think your readers will quite agree with us when
we say their eastern cities could well afford such notoriety if thereby
they could be rid of their debauching and terribly corrupting saloons.--
Pastor, Topeka, Kansas.
TRIBUTE TO MRS. NATION.--CORRESPONDENT OF THE STATE JOURNAL GROWS
ELOQUENT ABOUT HER.
A correspondent of the State Journal who is evidently an admirer of
Mrs. Nation has written the following tribute the famous smasher of
joints:
"Carry A. Nation, prophetess of God and prohibition, came suddenly
like the furious driving Jehu. Her cyclonic joint smashing shook
the rum power of the United States from apex to foundation-stone.
The great American god Bacchus turned pale on his throne. Gambrinus
and his thirty thousand white-aproned priests of debauchery and licentiousness
trembled in every saloon and bagnio throughout the union.
No whirlwind, tornado or simoon of the desert ever startled a nation
as her volcanic career. From ocean to ocean, from Canada to Texas.
she faced a storm of relentless criticism and bitter sarcasm from political
curs, clerical hirelings and editorial henchmen of the murderous liquor
traffic such as no mortal ever faced before. A star of hope to the one
hundred thousand despairing drunkards, already in the death-grasp of
this licensed Moloch of perdition; volunteer liberator of the hundreds
of thousands of hapless slaves of this greater "curse of curses" and
more than "sum of all villainies;" precursor of emancipation of the
millions of sad-faced women and children whose lives are blasted and
crushed beneath the wheels of this cruel Car of juggernaut; betrayed by
false friends, imprisoned by the courts, and manacled; no martyr of old
ever ran the gauntlet of hotter persecution, yet like Banquo's Ghost and
the Man of Galilee she will not down. Denounce her as you may, she
is such an one as heroines and world-wide characters are made of.
Every one will want a copy of her "Life," forthcoming publication.
The boys and girls will find the Old Kentucky Home plantation scenes,
interesting as Uncle Tom's Cabin and well worth the price of the book.
The pictures and portraits of the noted Smasher of joints are more than
worth the nominal sum. To every citizen, student and philanthropist
the legal citations for reference are worth it. No temperance person
or prohibitionist can afford to be without a copy.--RAY RAND.
WORDS PROPHETIC.
The liquor traffic will never see another hour of peace in this
country. Mrs. Carrie Nation has sounded the alarm. There's a growing
hatred of the saloon. The speaker has sworn hostility to an
institution that feeds on the bodies and souls of men. I will pay my
taxes like an honest man and not saddle by my vote, the burden on the
tempted and weak, who will pay them over the bar and throw his wife
and children on the charity of the public.
What shall the harvest be?
As a people for years we pressed to our hearts the evil of human
slavery. It was profitable, we thought, but every drop of blood let by
the slaver's lash, God made us pay back with blood of our own upon the
altar. Many fortunes were built up by slave labor, but how many of them
were left after the war? "Whatsoever a nation soweth that shall it
also reap." What shall the harvest be from the wild sowing of the
legalized saloon? Our own country is a partner in the business for the
of revenue. I pray God that the liquor traffic may be abolished from
America, without bloodshed, and yet who dares prophesy that it shall
be so. Much blood has been let in these long years by drunken husbands
and fathers. Many fortunes have been built up by the traffic. What
shall the end be?
Right shall prevail--
"For right is right, as God is God;
And right the day will win.
To doubt would be disloyalty,
To falter would be sin."
Listen to the voice of the 20th century prophet as it comes ringing
down the grooves of change: "The saloon is going! Perhaps not by
your political party or mine, your church or mine; but God reigns and
his people will awake. And as it lies dying at last amongst its bags of
gold, and we stand over it, as I pray we may, if it shall look up into
our faces and whisper: "Another million of revenue for a single breath
of life!" You will say, as I will: "NO! Down, down to hell and say
I sent thee thither."
CHAPTER XIX.
DR. MCFARLAND'S PROTEST.--KICKED AND KNOCKED DOWN BY CHAPMAN OF
BANGOR HOUSE.--MEDDLING WITH THE DEVIL.--TIMELY WARNING TO OUR
BOYS AND GIRLS.--BRUBAKER OF PEORIA.--WITCHCRAFT.--LAST TIME IN
JAIL.
The determination of that rum anarchy in Topeka, Kansas, was such
that three consecutive times I was put in jail because I went into these vile
dens. Dr. McFarland, pastor of the First Methodist Episcopal church of
Topeka, came down at my last trial to see what the trouble was. The
police, when put on the witness stand, swore positive falsehoods and
Judge Magaw, the republican police judge, appointed there by the democratic
Mayor, Parker, that these two might unite their force of corruption,
knew that these police were swearing falsehoods but were winking
at the crime. I saw that the Doctor was getting ready to offer his
protest when the time came, and it came when I was sentenced to jail for
contempt of court, because I insisted on asking what kind of business
these dive-keepers were carrying on, which the judge wanted to keep out
of the witnesses mouths. Dr. McFarland arose and said: "I suppose you
want to fine me judge. I say this is an infernal outrage," repeating it
the second time. Judge Magaw said: "Yes I will fine you twenty-five
dollars." "You may make it a hundred." "Well, I will make it a hundred,"
said Judge Magaw. I was taken to jail. Dr. McFarland was
not, but walked out and said it was worth a hundred dollars to tell them
what he thought of such travesty on justice. Dr. McFarland had plenty
of friends who offered to pay the amount but I believe he paid it himself.
Then he began some investigation of the corruption at the police station.
He preached a sermon telling of this. It was published. I was in jail
next door to the room in which the mayor, Parker, and the police gathered
to discuss a suit for slander against Dr. McFarland, but it was only
a bluff. Before this all night long there was loud talking and swearing
in the room under mine as if around a card table. After Dr. McFarland's
sermon I heard no more of it. There were several of these poor degraded
girls in jail. I knew of actions and words that were not decent between
the officers and these girls. This exposure of Dr. McFarland's was very
salutary. Before that, officers would come into my room without knocking
and address me in a rough manner. After this they knocked at the
door and were respectful and even kind. The Reverend Doctor did a
great work by that sermon which was to the point and effective.
I went to Bangor, Maine, to lecture once. Stopped at the Bangor
House, run by one Chapman. Roosevelt had stopped there just two
weeks before. I heard this hotel had one of those traps, called "dives."
When I went into the dining-room I asked a young lady waiting on me,
if she could get me a bottle of beer? She said they kept it and that she
would ask the head waiter to get it for me. She spoke to him. He left the
dining-room and in a few minutes the man Chapman came out of the
winding way to his dive; the proprietor rushed up to me in a drunken
rage. He threw me against one of the pillars, then literally knocked me
out into the hall in the presence of the guests, perhaps a hundred; then
he kept knocking me down every time I rose to my feet. He would not
allow me to get my things. I was invited to go home with a prohibitionist,
Dr. Marshall. This Chapman was a noted dive-keeper, a rummy, and
ran a representative rum-soaked republican hotel. He was angry, because
I dared to expose him, in his sneaking way of drugging and robbing
his guests. It was marvelous what rages these law-breakers used
to have when I came around at first. It is not so now. Their bands
have been smashed and they are not as bold; and more marvelous that
I was not seriously hurt.
Once in Nebraska City, Neb., I was knocked in the temple by a
saloon-keeper. I reeled and fell and while I knew he struck me with his
clenched fists as hard as he could, so it seemed to me, I did not have a
bruise.
I always prayed to God to take care of me, but to lead me into these
tumults to rouse the people to think and to talk.
THE BEGINNING OF THE GRAVEYARD ASSOCIATION OF MEDICINE LODGE.
I never saw anything that needed a rebuke, or exhortation, or warning,
but that I felt it was my place to meddle with it. I have been called a
"meddler". Yes I say: "It is my place to meddle with the devil's
business. Jesus meddled with the law-breakers in the temple."
I will give you a few facts to prove what I mean and hope it will
inspire my readers to do likewise. What injures one is the interest of
all. We are personally responsible for all wrong that we neglect to make
right, when it is in our power to do it. If anything injures my neighbor
it injures me. If my neighbor is blessed so am I.
I used to ride out north of Medicine Lodge past the graveyard. It
was situated on an elevated place, barren of trees, for trees could not
well grow where it was so dry. Grave-yards are not pleasant places at
best, but to see one barren of trees or flowers, just the graves, the white
marble, the sunshine, rain, and prairie grass, in sight of the pleasant
yards and homes of the living, I feel a sense of reproach, as if the dead
were complaining of this neglect. The only ground Abraham ever bought
was a piece of ground to bury his dead and it had trees on it. I wanted
to see a better condition of things. I knew this neglect was because no
one would make a move. I felt I was not the one, but I wrote an article
for the papers, "Index and Crescent", of Medicine Lodge, and I took it to
a widow, Mrs. Young, who had recently lost a husband who was very
dear to her. I told her she was the one to organize a grave-yard association.
That this letter would call the ladies together. After making a
few changes in the language she published the letter, and the ladies met,
organized, and in a few months all was changed. One will rarely find
a more attractive resting place for our beloved dead than in the cemetery
of Medicine Lodge. I could not have effected what Mrs. Young did,
but there are more ways of doing things than one, and when people
say: "I can never carry out any plans", I know they have not tact or
perseverance.
MEDDLING WITH THE DEVIL.
A friend who lived a few miles in the country came to my house
in Medicine Lodge, threw her arms around my neck and said: "Oh,
Sister Nation, Matt has gone to Wichita for a bad purpose. I am almost
wild; can't you help me? She is in love with Will, and he does not care
for her but he has gotten her into trouble and does not intend to marry
her." She told me that Will wrote her a note to go to the Goodyear