I had received ever so many letters from all over the country justifying

smashing as being reasonable, right and legal. I also saw that the

republican newspapers of Kansas and other states were determined to

put me in a false light before the people. I conceived the idea of editing

a paper. I tried to get the Journal to edit the paper, but it seemed

that I could not get anyone to take hold of it. Some one suggested to

me Nick Chiles, a negro, who had a printing outfit. I knew but little of

this man. I sent for him to come and see me at my cell. All the money

I had in the world was from the sale of ten cows which was $240. This

negro, Chiles talked very fair and promised to print my paper in a

creditable way. I gave him the $240. I wrote the editorials while in

the jail, and also gave him bundles of letters which I had received and

a great many poems that had been written on Carry Nation and smashing.

This negro finally cheated me out of my money and papers also.

I closed with him after three weeks, he put the papers out, collected for

them and never paid me a cent. I believe he paid Mr. Nation some and

when I would have made him account for his wrong dealings, I found

that the contract between he and I, which was drawn up by Mr. Nation,

made this negro my partner. This, of course, was done to prevent me

from having any legal redress. My paper was called THE SMASHER'S

MAIL. I called it this for it was largely composed of letters which I

had received on the subject of smashing. I had no one to read the proofs

and was at the mercy of this negro, who was not in sympathy with my

cause, but to the reverse. I was often humiliated at the way my articles

were tortured. I afterwards got The Kansas Farmer to publish the paper

and I then bought a press of my own, but found that I could not conduct

a paper and lecture, so after the 13th edition, I closed. The paper

accomplished , this much, that the public could see by my editorials that

I was not insane.

THE SECOND TIME IN JAIL AT WICHITA.

I was in a meeting of the W. C. T. U. in Wichita, of which Mrs.

Summers was president. I wanted to have these women go with me and

destroy the places there that were murdering their sons. Many present

were in favor of it, but Mrs. Summers was bitterly opposed. Three

went out in the hall with me, Mrs. Lucy Wilhoit, Miss Muntz and Mrs.

Julia Evans. The husband of the latter was a great drunkard, otherwise

a capable physician. Those three women said they would go with me.

We went to Mrs. Evans' home and then, for the first time, I took a hatchet

and Mrs. Evans a piece of iron. We marched down to the first place,

kept by John Burns. We walked in and began to smash right and left.

With my hatchet I smashed in the large plate glass windows and also

the door. Sister Evans and I then attacked the show case, went behind

the bar and I smashed everything in sight. The bartender came running

up to me with his hands up, "Don't come near my hatchet, it might fall

on you and I will not be responsible for the results."

After we were through for no one resisted us, Mr. Burns was asked.

"Why did you not knock that woman down?" he replied, "God forbid

that I should strike a woman." ("a man's a man for a' that.")

I did not see what the other two women were doing, but heard Sister

Wilhoit talking to the crowd and telling why we had done this.

We were put in one cell, the one I occupied before and were given

a cot apiece. This was one of the glorious heavenly and refreshing

times. We sang hymns, repeated scripture, would often laugh and cry

by turns for joy to think we were worthy to suffer for His sake. "The

table was prepared before us in the presence of our enemies, our cup

runneth over." This happy condition was not what our persecutors

wished, and Mrs. Simmons and her husband, whom we called "Jezebel"

and "Ahab," were determined to separate us. Mrs. Simmons was telling

that I used obscene language to her husband.

{illust. caption =

THIS PICTURE TAKEN BY A MAN WHO CALLED FOR THE PURPOSE, TO SEE ME IN

TOPEKA JAIL. I NEVER WANT A PICTURE TAKEN OF ME WITHOUT MY BIBLE, MY

CONSTANT AND HEAVENLY COMPANION.}

These two were very much interested in having me adjudged insane,

for Mr. Simmons had in several ways laid himself liable to criminal

prosecution, especially in the matter of the quarantine. Mrs. Simmons

came to our cell door, and in the presence of Sister Wilhoit, to whom she

had told that I used "obscene language," I asked her if she said this?

She had to acknowledge that she did. I told her she spoke a "lie," for

I had never done such a thing. She sent her husband and son up to the

cell and they dragged me into the rotary and put me in one of those little

triangular cells, which was indeed a place of filth. The faucet leaked,

and kept a continual spatter, which made the foot of my cot damp. I

stayed there five days and while it was not as bad as Jeremiah's dungeon,

it was similar. The dampness and poison of this cell added to the already

deep cold on my lungs. Dear Bro. Schollenberger! Who has not heard

of this great hearted man of Wichita? He brought us little treats and

in many ways relieved us of our afflictions and bonds. I was not allowed

to be with my lovely sisters again in prison they would write notes and

send them by a "trusty," for they were very uneasy about me, fearing

foul play.

As soon as the sisters could get bonds, they got out, but I was not

allowed to give bond. I was not a meek prisoner, did not act like a

criminal. This vexed my prosecutors and they tried to humble me, but

I felt that I was right and that God would stand by me and I wanted

Him to look down and always find me brave and true and in nothing

to be terrified by my adversaries.

I had some money sent me while in jail and this I divided, often to

the last, with my fellow prisoners. To one I gave four dollars, for his

poor wife was soon to be confined. To the "trusty" John, I gave three

dollars for his destitute wife, and often bought little treats, such as

fruits and butter. The meals were meat and beans one day, then potatoes

and meat all cooked tip into a mush. I became very much attached to

my fellow prisoners and I found some with noble sentiments. What

do people do who have no hope of heaven, I often ask. What a joy to

have a place in view where there is no sickness, no death, no jails, no

suffering of any kind.

THE THIRD TIME IN TOPEKA JAIL.

I had become so disgusted with jail food that my stomach refused

it. As soon as I was put in jail I told Mr. Cook to send the milkman

to my cell. He came and was very kind. He agreed to bring me some

bread and milk, ten cents worth a day. This I lived on for the eighteen

days. In the cell with me was a woman named Mrs. Mahanna, who was

put in for selling beer. She did not happen to have a government license.

Poor creature! She bad been the mother of fifteen children; had a

broken hip caused by a kick of a drunken husband. She was very ignorant

but kind-hearted. The heat was intense and we were next to the

roof. Sometimes I would feel like I was suffocated. The windows

slanted so that but little draught came in. One pane of glass was partly

out and we would sit by that to get a breath of air. While in this jail

I had many offers from different theatrical, circus, and museum managers,

who tried to tempt me with all kinds of prices; one as high as $800

a week, and a palace car and a maid. I never for one moment thought

of taking any of them until two managers came from New York City.

The sheriff, Mr. Cook, brought their cards up. I said: "Tell them to

wait until morning." I prayed over the matter nearly all night and before

day all seemed settled. (This was a test to try my faith.) The cloud

was lifted and I told Mr. Cook to tell the men that a "million a minute

would not catch me." My dear friends especially Mrs. Goodwin, Dr.

Eva Harding and others used their influence to have Stanley, the governor

pardon me, this he refused to do, the joint-keepers were those he

favored more than me.

I had never thought of going before the public as a lecturer. I

knew those people only wanted me as they would a white elephant. I

did not at this time see the stage as a missionary field.

At this time I was entirely out of means, was in debt and the duns

I got while in jail were a terrible trouble to me. The ten cents I got

for my bread and milk came in almost daily for copies of my papers. I

paid my milkman sometimes in stamps.

I never wanted to get out of jail so badly in my life, as I did at this

time, when the offers to make engagements were so many. Two days

after the New York managers were there, I got a letter from James E.

Furlong, a Lyceum Manager of Rochester, N. Y., who had managed

Patti and many of the great singers. He told me if I would give him

"some dates", he would assist me in getting out of jail. I hardly knew

what he meant by "dates". Mrs. Goodwin of Topeka called to see me,

I showed the letter to her and asked what this man meant by "dates?"

She said: "He may want you to lecture or you could tell of your experience."

"I wonder if the people would like to hear me, I can tell my experience,"

I said. I asked her to tell Mr. Duminel, my lawyer, to come to

my cell. I told him of it, and he said he would call the commissioners

together and would have them let me out by paying my fines by monthly

installments. This he did. So Mr. Furlong sent the money needed and

Dr. Harding and Mrs. Goodwin collected seventy dollars from my friends

to help me out. When I got to Kansas City, I lacked fifty cents of having

enough money to pay for my ticket east, so I borrowed that of the man

at the fruit stand in the depot. In about a week from that I spoke at

Atlantic City for the Philadelphia American, the proceeds being used to

give the poor children an outing. Thousands of people were present.

I never made a note or wrote a sentence for the platform in my life.

Have spoken extemporaneously from the first and often went on the

platform when I could not have told what I was to say to save my life,

and for several weeks God compelled me to open my Bible at random and

speak from what my eyes fell on. I have literally proved that: "You

shall not think of what you shall speak but it shall be given in that

hour." The best thoughts have come to me after being asleep, waking

in the night or in the morning.

The way I happened to think of a hatchet as a souvenir, some one

brought me one and told me I ought to carry them. I then selected a

pattern and got a party in Providence, R. I., to make them. These have

been a great financial aid to me; helped me pay my fines and expenses.

People have often bought them from me, at my prison cell window. I

sell them everywhere I go.

The summer of 1902 I was at Coney Island, speaking in Steeple-

Chase Park, and a man was very insulting to me, and always took occasion

to say something against women. I can scarcely remember how it was,

but I broke or smashed his show case of cigars and cigarettes. I knew

I would have to pay for it, but I did not mind paying for the object lesson

that it would be, for tobacco is a poison, and the use of it is a vice.

I was arrested, stood my trial and was being sent to jail, when Mr.

Tilyou, Manager of Steeple-Chase Park, took me from the "Black Maria."

The policeman who had the prisoners in charge was purple and bloated

from beer drinking, he wanted me to go in a place in the front that was

already crowded with women. I refused and he struck me on the hand

that was holding to the iron bars of the little window and broke a bone,

causing it to swell up. I said: "Never mind, you beer-swelled, whiskey-

soaked saturn faced man, God will strike you." In six weeks from that

time this man fell dead on the streets of Coney Island. This was the

first time I every had handcuffs on. I saw in this experience in Police

Courts in Coney Island what I never saw before, eight or ten women

sentenced for drunkenness; one the mother of five children, and the

others nice looking young ladies, and most of them were weeping. When

they received their sentences there would be a smothered laugh from the

audience of bloated men present, and I turned and said: "Shame on you,

for laughing at the sorrows of these poor women." I thought how heartless

it was for men to laugh at the disgrace of women. I got out by

paying for the destruction of the cigar case.

I was very successful and made enough money to pay $125 a month

to have my SMASHER'S MAIL published in the form of a magazine,

but having no one in Topeka that could edit the magazine, doing justice

to me, I returned and closed the business.

CHAPTER X.

LEGAL STATUS OF PROHIBITION AND JOINT SMASHING,

The very highest judicial authority, the Supreme Court of the Nation,

has made a most radical ruling, towit: "No legislature can bargain

away the public health or the public morals. The people themselves cannot

do it, much less their servants. Government is organized with a view

to their preservation and cannot divest itself of the power to provide

for them."--101 U. S. 816.

No state, therefore, can license or legalize immorality, vice or crime.

All such efforts are treason to society and organized government.

Again, the Supreme Court of the United States has declared: "If

the public safety or the public morals require the discontinuance of any

manufacture or traffic, the hand of the legislature cannot be stayed from

providing for its discontinuance, by any incidental inconvenience which

individuals or corporations may suffer."--97 U. S. 32. Thus the legislature

of any state can confiscate property by wholesale if necessary for

the protection of the community. Powder mills, slaughter houses and

pest houses, necessary institutions, are frequently so condemned and

rendered absolutely worthless.

The Federal Supreme Court gives ample power to all states to enforce

this great fundamental principle. It says: "The state cannot by any

contract limit the exercise of her power to the prejudice of the public

health and the public morals."--111 U. S. 751.

Speaking specifically, a sweeping decision of the highest tribunal of

the land, is as follows: "There is no inherent right in a citizen to thus

sell intoxicating liquors by retail; it is not a privilege of a citizen of a

state or a citizen of the United States."--137 U. S. 86.

No state or citizen of the United States then has any power, authority

or right to vend intoxicating liquors at all.

That there may be no misconception or misconstruction, in a case

from Kansas, this final court of appeal in American jurisprudence, said:

"For we cannot shut out of view the fact, within the knowledge of all,

that the public health, the public morals, and the public safety may be

endangered by the general use of intoxicating drinks; nor the fact,

established by statistics accessible to everyone, that the idleness,

disorder, pauperism, and crime existing in the country are, in some

degree at least, traceable to the evil,"--Mugler vs. Kansas, 123 U. S. 623.

And again: "The statistics of every state show a greater amount

of crime and misery attributable to the use of ardent spirits obtained at

these liquor saloons than to any other source."--137 U. S. 86.

Hon. Justice Grier said: "It is not necessary to array the appalling

statistics of misery, pauperism, and crime that have their origin in the use

and abuse of ardent spirits. The police power, which is exclusively in

the state, is competent to the correction of these great evils, and all

measures of restraint or prohibition necessary to effect that purpose are

within the scope of that authority, and if a loss of revenue should accrue

to the United States, from a diminished consumption of ardent spirits, she

will be a gainer a thousand-fold in health, wealth and happiness of the

people."--5 Howard 532.

These far-reaching decisions settle forever the disloyalty and un-

Americanism of any state or citizen presuming to authorize or condone

liquor selling. The whole license system of the United States is clearly

illegal and unconstitutional.

Abraham Lincoln interpreted the Constitution right, when he wrote

the Emancipation Proclamation. The Presidents of the United States

are oath bond to enforce it, and the license to vend intoxicating liquors

as unconstitutional. Mr. Roosevelt is violating his oath to allow this

business to continue. He has the same right and more cause than Abraham

Lincoln to cancel every license, and shut up every brewery and distillery

in the United States. God says, "Woe to the crown of pride, to

the drunkards--Yes, this thing at the head of the nation is cursed--Look

at the assassinated Presidents, since the license was given by the Republican

Party in 1863. Lincoln refused to put his name to the bill at

first, but was over persuaded to do so by those parties who said it was

to pay a war debt, and when that was done, the license would be revoked,

but poor, honest Abe Lincoln was not suffered to undo the wrong he

was persuaded to commit. Every drunkard's wife and drunkard's mother

and child ought to bring suit against the Government, for the durgging,

poisoning and murdering of their loved ones. A man can recover if his

wife's affections are alienated from him, a person can recover damages

even, if he injures his foot on a defective sidewalk--the inference is clear.

And now let us look at the Legal Status of Joint Smashing. Let

every lawyer, judge and law-abiding person read carefully the following:

Kansas, true to the doctrines enunciated above, and loyal to the best

welfare of her populace, enacted constitutional prohibition forbidding the

sale of ardent spirits.

Section 14 of the Prohibitory Law reads: "It shall be the duty of

all sheriffs and constables, in their respective counties and townships, to

file complaints and make arrests for violation of this act, whenever they

shall be informed of the violation thereof, and any such officer who shall

neglect or refuse to file such complaint or make such arrest, upon being

informed of the omission of such offense, shall be subject to a fine not

exceeding $100, and his office shall be vacant: Providing that no such

officer shall in any event be liable for costs of such prosecution."

Hence, it is not necessary that the private citizen drum up evidence,

swear out warrants and prosecute liquor drug-stores and joints. That

is what officials are elected and paid for and if officers fail to abate

these liquor venders, then the duty devolves back on the patriotic citizen.

This decision of the Supreme Court of the United States, carried

up from Vermont, Spaulding vs. Preston, 21 p. 9, towit: "If any member

of the body politic instead of putting his property to honest uses,

converts it into an engine to injure the life, liberty, health, morals, peace

or property of others, he can, I apprehend, sustain no action against one

who withholds or destroys his property with the bona fide intention of

preventing injury to himself or others."

In Kansas every liquor selling place is not only a declared nuisance,

but a constitutional outlaw. And in the case from Pennsylvania

where a private individual had abated a nuisance, the court held: "We

consider it also well settled, as is claimed by this defendant, that a common

nuisance may be removed, or, in legal language, abated by any individual.

Any man, says Lord Hale, may justify the removal of a common

nuisance, either by land or by Nyater, because every man is concerned in

it."

It is not only the privilege of the patriotic citizen to abate a dangerous

nuisance but it is commendable. Bishop on Criminal Law, paragraph

1081, says: "This doctrine (of abatement of a public nuisance by an

individual) is an expression of the better instincts of our natures, which

lead men to watch over and shield one another from harm."

"The buildings, premises and paraphernalia of a nuisance are not

legitimate property and have no rights in law. Damages cannot be recovered

for their destruction by an individual. The question of malice does

not enter into the case at all."

I Bishop's Criminal Law 828; I Hilliard on Torts, 605.

"At common law it was always the right of a citizen, without official

authority, to abate a public nuisance, and without waiting to have it

adjudged such by legal tribunal. His right to do so depended upon the

fact of its being a nuisance. If be assumed to act upon his own adjudication

that it was, and such adjudication was afterwards shown to be

wrong, he was liable as a wrong-doer for his error, and appropriate damages

could be recovered against him. This common law right still exists

in full force. Any citizen, acting either as an individual or as a public

official under the orders of local or municipal authorities, whether such

orders be or be not in pursuance of special legislation or charter provisions,

may abate what the common law deemed a public nuisance. In

abating it, property may be destroyed, and the owner deprived of it

without trial, without notice and without compensation. Such destruction

for public safety or health is not a taking of private property for

public uses without compensation, or due process of law, in the sense

of the constitution. It is simply the prevention of its noxious and unlawful

use, and depends upon the principle that every man must so use his

property as not to injure his neighbors, and that the safety of the public

is the paramount law. These principles are legal maxims or axioms

essential to the existence of regulated society. Written constitutions

presuppose them, are subordinate to them, and cannot set them aside."

These great principles of civil jurisprudence and popular government

apply alike in every state in the Union. An eminent jurist, Judge

James Baker, of Evanston, Ill., formerly a resident of Missouri, gives

his professional opinion of the late crusading by the women there. He

maintains that it was legal; he points out that the saloons raided, at

Denver and Lathrop, were unlawful and that they were "nuisances at

common law." He quotes Illinois law as follows: "As the summary

abatement of nuisances is a remedy which has ever existed in the law,

its exercise cannot be regarded as in conflict with constitutional provisions

for the protection of the rights of private property and giving

trial by jury. Formal legal proceedings and trial by jury are not appropriate

and have never been used in such cases." Judge Baker sums up

the case thus: "The women who destroyed such property are not criminals.

They have the same right to abate such common nuisances as men

have to defend their persons or domiciles when unlawfully assailed. As

the women of that state are denied the right to vote or hold office, I

think they are fully justified, morally and legally, in protecting their

homes, their families, and themselves from the ravages of these demons

of vice in the summary manner which the law permits."

More citations might be given proving the legality of joint smashing

by the crusaders, but the foregoing is ample, for all fairminded, loyal

people. Had the joint smasher's cases been tried on their merits, not one

would have been convicted of a misdemeaner. They were arrested, tried,

convicted, imprisoned and fined for disturbing the "peace" of a common

nuisance, and "malicious" destruction of rebel paraphernalia. Their only

intent was against the treasonable liquor traffic. Had there been no liquor

dispensing there had been no smashing. This the liquorized courts would

not admit for a moment. Every ruling was a burlesque on civil law, a

travesty on justice and a contemptible farce. The whole proceedings

from beginning to end were a miserable outrage.

DECAY AND DECLINE OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC.

Today the country is ringing with the cry of political bribery, boodle

and official corruption, from the highest to the lowest. The rum traffic

is the principal factor in demoralizing and destroying the dignity, honor

and integrity of civic life. It is the insidious foe that is hatching and

nursing crime. Startling complication of statistics, obtained from the

replies of over 1,000 prison governors in the United States to a circular

letter addressed to them, and a summary shows that the general average

of 909 replies received from the license states, gives the proportion of

crime due to drink at no less than seventy-two per cent; the average

from 108 officials in Prohibition states giving the per centage at thirty-

seven. A considerable number of the latter were "boot-leggers" in jail

for selling whiskey. Out of the 1,017 jailers, only 181 placed their estimate

below twenty-five per cent, and fifty-five of these were from empty

jails in prohibition territory. The relation of drink to pauperism is much

the same as that of drink to crime. Of 73,045 paupers in all the alms-

houses of the country, 37,254 are there through drink.

According to official statistics as gathered by Commissioner Carroll

D. Wright, of the Bureau of Labor, there are 140 cities in the country

having a population of 30,000 and upwards.

In these cities there were in 1898, 294,820 people arrested for drunkeness,

almost ten times as many as now comprise our army in the Philippines.

If this great army of drunkards were marshalled for a parade, marching

twenty abreast, it would require four and one-half days, marching

ten hours a day, for them to pass a given point. And these 295,000

drunks do not include the arrests for "disorderly conduct," "assault" and

a dozen other offences which grow out of the licensed rum business. The

total arrests for all causes in these cities was 915,167. Counting the

moderate estimate of three-fourths of these as being the victims of the

lawful saloons, it would require more than a week's marching twenty abreast,

for the great procession to stagger past a reviewing stand, and the rum

product of only 140 cities heard from.

These appalling statistics are the common property of every citizen,

and any political party pretending to financial improvement that ignores

the sixteen hundred million dollars worse than squandered in liquor and

tobacco annually in the United states, is untrue to itself and false to the

nation. Gambrinus, the god Bacchus, the Rum Power, this Moloch of

perdition, must be destroyed. Prohibition is the only remedy. Kansas

is to be the battle ground. Her constitutional prohibitory law and statutory

enactments are all right, properly administered. But in the hands

of a republican whiskey "machine" with the governor belonging to the

Elks, a liquor fraternity; a confessed defaulter as state treasurer; a

United states senator under indictment for bribery; officials from the

state house to every county in complicity with the whiskey rebels, it

will not be enforced. The liquor men and joint keepers subscribe large

sums to campaigns with the tacit, implied or open understanding of

immunity from prosecution and punishment on the part of candidates

and officials. This has been going from bad to worse for twenty years.

Yet the law is so plain that he who runs may read. How many ever saw

it in print. The revised statutes of Kansas, 1901, Article 14, Section 2462,

reads: "It shall be the duty of all sheriffs, police officers, constables,

mayors, marshals, police judges and police officers of any city or town,

having notice or knowledge of any violation of the provisions of this

act to notify the county attorney of the fact of such violation and to

furnish him names of witnesses within his knowledge by which such

violation can be proven. If any such officer shall fail to comply with the

provisions of this section, he shall, upon conviction, be fined in any sum

not less than $100 or more than $500, and such conviction shall be a

forfeiture of the office held by such person, and the court before whom such

conviction is had shall, in addition to the imposition fine aforesaid, order

and adjudge the forfeiture of his said office. For a failure or neglect of

official duty in the enforcement of this act, any of the city or county

officers herein referred to may be removed by civil action."

Also Article 6, Section 2212, says: "Any officer of the state or of

any county, city, district or township, after his election or appointment,

and either before or after he shall have qualified or entered upon his

official duties, who shall accept or receive any money or the loan of

any money, or any real or personal property, or any pecuniary or other

personal advantage, present or prospective, under the agreement or

understanding that his vote, opinion, judgment or action shall be thereby

influenced, or as a reward for having given or withheld any vote, opinion

or judgment in any matter before him in his official capacity, or having

wrongfully done or omitted to do any official act, shall be punished

by a fine of not less than $200 nor more than $1,000, or by imprisonment

for not less than one year nor more than seven years in the penitentiary

at hard labor, or both such fine and imprisonment at the direction of the

court."

Enforce the statute and thousands of officials in Kansas would soon

be behind prison bars. When the officiary administrative of any government

become corrupt, it is on the highway to disruption and ruin. Greece

and Rome are notable examples. The sworn government report is

that nearly eighteen gallons of liquor to every man, woman and child, is

consumed by Uncle Sam's subjects every twelve months. This republic

cannot long survive half sober and half drunk. The immortal Abraham

Lincoln in a speech at Springfield, Ill., Feb. 22nd, 1842 said: "Turn now

to the temperance revolution. In it we shall find a stronger bondage

broken, a viler slavery manumitted, a greater tyrant deposed--in it, more

of want supplied, more disease healed, more sorrow assuaged. By it, no

orphans starving, no widows weeping; by it, none wounded in feeling,

none injured in interest. And what a noble ally this to the cause of political

freedom! With such an aid, its march cannot fail to be on and on,

until every son of earth shall drink in rich fruition the sorrow-quenching

draughts of perfect liberty! And when the victory shall be complete--

when there shall be neither a slave nor a drunkard on the earth--how

proud the title of that LAND which may truly claim to be the birthplace of

and the cradle of both those revolutions that shall have ended in that

victory! How nobly distinguished that people who shall have planted

and nurtured to maturity both the political and moral freedom of their

species!"

William Windom, when Secretary of the U. S. Treasury under the

Arthur administration, said: "Considered socially, financially, politically

or morally, the licensed liquor traffic is, or ought to be, the overshadowing

issue in American politics, and the destruction of this iniquity

stands first on the calendar of the world's progress."

By Bible authority and by the common law of our land I have proved

to the satisfaction of all who will see the right, that I am a loyal American,

a loving Home Defender, doing the will of Him whom I serve and

whose I am.

CHAPTER XI.

MY TRIAL FOR DIVORCE.--THE LICENSED RUM TRAFFIC THE CAUSE OF SO MANY

DIVORCES.--DIFFERENT TIMES AND PLACES I HAVE BEEN IN JAIL.--AT THE

CAPITAL OF CALIFORNIA.--WIDE OPEN TREASON.--AT THE UNIVERSITY OF

TEXAS.--WOOLLEY CLUB AT ANN ARBOR, MICHIGAN.--CATHOLIC PRIEST

AND CIGARETTES.

Mr. Nation brought suit for divorce against me while I was in jail.

I was very much astonished at it, for I never thought that our disagreement

would result in his desiring a divorce. We had lived together

twenty-four years, and while we could not agree, I never wanted a

divorce. His petition stated the reason for this was "extreme cruelty

and desertion." He sued for all the property and wanted the court to

have me pay for the cost of the trial. I shall always believe he was

induced to do this by the republicans, thinking to hinder my work.

The people of Medicine Lodge were shocked at this, for they knew

I had been faithful to my duties as a wife, up to the time I went to

Wichita, and when I went to Topeka I told Mr. Nation if he would stay

there with me, I would pay his board and room rent, which I did. He

came to Topeka and the first thing that he took offense at was my objecting

to his opening my mail, for when he did I never saw a dollar sent

for a subscription and sometimes would find parts of letters destroyed.

On the day of the trial, Mr. Nation could not produce a witness to

prove I was other than kind, except the affidavit of a man who could

neither read nor write. Mr. Nation wrote out what he wanted this man

to swear to, and the man signed it, for he could just write his name.

This man was in Oklahoma at the time, My neighbors came of their

own accord and testified to my having done my cooking and housework;

frequently cooking meals and taking them to Mr. Nation, who was still

in bed. Judge Gillette, the same man who was on the bench in my

slander suit presided. Mr. Nation did not get his divorce because of my

"extreme cruelty," but because I testified that I could not, nor would

never live with him as a wife. I could not. I was very much grieved to

bear this reproach, of a divorced wife. I made my home during the trial

with my dear friend, Mrs. Judge Howe, who is still living, and she knows

how bitter this was to me.

The home was given me, and the divorce and a small piece of property

in Medicine Lodge to Mr. Nation. I shortly after sold this home for

$800. It was part of the payment for "Home for Drunkards' Wives" in

Kansas City. It was as I expected, a means used by my enemies to hinder

me in my work. I was blamed for the divorce. It was said, "I broke up

a home." That if I was in a good work I would not do these things.

And while delivering my lectures, it was often called out; "Why don't

you go back to your husband? No wonder he got a divorce from

you," and all such sayings. But I learned to expect and was prepared for

such treatment.

We hear, "A woman's place is at home." That is true, but what and

where is home. Not the walls of a house. Not furniture, food or clothes.

Home is where the heart is, where our loved ones are. If my son is

in a drinking place, my place is there. If my daughter, or the daughter

of any one else, my family or any other family is in trouble, my place

is there. That woman would be selfish or cowardly who would refuse

to leave her home to relieve suffering or trouble. Jesus said, "Go out

into the highways and hedges." He said this to women, as well as men.

If the women of Galilee had not left their homes they would not have

followed Jesus. If Phoebe had not left her home, she would not have

gone on the business of the church to Jerusalem. We would have no

woman missionaries--Women now, are forced to go out to save the

homes.

D. L. Moody once said, and which I hardly understood at the time:

"When a wife knew that the man that should be her husband was unfaithful

and corrupt, she was as bad as he if she lived with him." I have thought

much of the meaning of husband. He is one who is a man who provides

and cares for his family, as much as it is in his power to do, but when

he refuses and will not do this, he breaks his marriage vow and becomes

his wife's enemy. A husband is not an enemy. This will place many

women in the roll of living with men who are not their husbands, and

this is so. I do not favor divorce, but it is better to separate, than bring

up children of drunkards or licentious fathers. There is nothing which

is making so much enmity between the sexes as intoxicating drink. This

is the cause of so many divorces. Men who go into saloons generally

visit houses of prostitution. The women they meet there have been

deceived and lost their self respect, become discouraged because men have

made them their victims through treachery and in turn these women

revenge themselves by taking all means to drag these men down. Prostitutes

do not like men; they often hate them. The man who goes there

generally loses respect for the virtues of women, and from associating

with bad women they judge other women to be vile. These men hate

the very women they go to see. Married men who drink are bad husbands,

for they deceive their wives, who soon find it out; and the husbands

and wives cannot be happy. A woman leaves all others for one

man and she wishes his society. In the evening the clubs and drinking

places take up men's time when their families should have it. These

things destroy love and confidence between husbands and wives. 'Tis

not all men's fault, for there are some drinking women.

A man came to me just before I went on the stage at Newport, and

said: "Carry Nation, step aside here, I must speak to you. I am in so

much trouble. Give me some advice. My wife is at home drunk; she

is that way most of the time. We have six children and they feel disgraced.

What can I do? I am almost wild."

I asked: "Did you ever drink with your wife?"

He looked confused. I said: "Women do not usually go to saloons

but you men bring it home and use it on the table and women are just

as apt to catch the disease of alcoholism as men. This may be the way

your wife learned to be a drunkard. Wives have been nursing their

drunken husbands for years; now the chickens have come home to roost,

and you are nursing your drunken wives."

Poor man! He, indeed, seemed distracted; and he is not alone,

there are hundreds of cases.

I met a lovely creature on the train, who had been married a few

months. Her husband was a lumber merchant in Chicago. She sat by

me and told me her sad story. She had been a poor girl and dearly loved

a man whose mother opposed the match and prevented the marriage.

The young lumber merchant, left rich by the death of his father, proposed

and she married him. In a month, the mother of the man she

loved first, died and the obstacle was removed. In telling me this story

I smelled liquor on her breath. She would say a few sentences and then

say: "Oh, Carry Nation I am so miserable! If Charlie would only be

true to me I would not grieve for the man I love, but Charlie drinks

and he goes with other women, and leaves me alone. He gives me all the

money I want. I have everything that money can buy; but, Oh! I

almost hate these things! I had rather have a hut with someone to love

me." She kept talking this way until it was enough to break my heart.

She said: "Charlie will be in from the smoking car, and please Mrs.

Nation speak to him. I want to be a good wife and I will do all I can

to make him a good man. But he laughs at me when I talk to him, he

never takes me in earnest. Go speak to him."

So I did. I found him to be a young man about twenty-three, with

the marks of dissipation on his face. I said: "I have something to say to

you privately. You have a beautiful young wife. If you wish to make

her happy you can do so. There is one thing that will ruin the happiness

of both. That is intoxicating drink. Did you know your wife is under

the influence of some drug?" He said: "Oh, don't say a word to her

about that, I am the cause of it. I drink and have persuaded her to,

because she has a right to do what I do."

I told him of the fatal results and asked him to quit or it would be

the ruin of both. Here were these two on the brink of ruin, so young,

so attractive. I never shall forget the pathos of that woman's story.

The yearning of that heart for love. Of course in her unhappiness she

would turn to the benumbing fascination of the poisonous drug.

On every hand I see the desolation of homes and hearts. There are

no five things that make so much enmity between the sexes as this one--

the licensed saloon. The home life is destroyed. Men and boys are taken

from home at the very time they ought to be there, after their work is

done. Families should gather in the evening to enjoy each other's society.

It is said that Germans are the cruelest husbands on earth. Their beer

gardens have taken the place of firesides. There are more insane and

suicides in Germany than any nation on earth. Alcoholism is a disease.

Men go to the Keeley cure and take different treatments to get cured.

This disease is killing more every year than the deadliest epidemic, and

still not one of the senators or representatives will discuss this. Roosevelt

toured this country moralizing on different questions. The nearest

he ever touched on the subject was "race suicide;" but he did not wish

to intimate that drinking intoxicating liquors was the cause. He wished

to reproach women for not raising larger families. What protection has

a mother if she does? She has to produce the grist to make these murder-mills

grind, and I for one, say to women, refuse to be mothers, if the

government will not close these murder-shops that are preying on our

hearts, for our darling sons are dearer to us than life.

If I had a family to raise and had to live in a city, I know of no place

as desirable as Topeka. I was once lecturing in Lincoln, Neb., and made

this remark. A wife said to her husband, "Let us take our boy and go

to Topeka." So they came. The husband was D. L. Whitney, manager

of the Oxygenor Company, and both he and his wife have been a great

help to me. I say to fathers and mothers, move to Kansas, where your

sons are taught that it takes a SNEAK to sell, and a SNEAK to drink,

intoxicating liquors in that state.

I was arrested in Topeka for going into the dives. The officials

were determined to keep them open, and the police arrested me for even

going in. They did not arrest the keepers. I was thrown out and called

names by the proprietors, in the hearing of the police, still they were let

go. This was during the time that Parker was mayor.

The voting citizens of Kansas will soon find out that no one

but prohibition officers can be trusted to enforce prohibition statutes. I

am glad at the present writing there is said to be not a dive in the beautiful

city of Topeka, and that she has passed the Rubicon. God grant

that no more criminal dens be opened by Republicans, Democrats or any

other Anarchists.

I was arrested in Wheeling, West Virginia, winter of 1902, for going

in a saloon and telling the man he was in a business that would send him

to hell as well as others. The facts are that the police never knew what

I was going to do and they were so frightened and rattled that they of

course thought they would arrest me to prevent trouble. I have been a

terror to evil doers. I was in jail there two nights. No pillow. The

bed bugs bad. Col. Arnett, my lawyer, said I had a good case of malicious

prosecution. I have begun several suits but the "laws delay" and

the condition of dishonest courts has prevented me. I desire to compel

Murat Halstead to be shown as he is, a liar, almost equal to the "Murdocks

of Wichita."

I was arrested in Bayonne, N. J., the summer of 1903, because I was

talking to a poor drunkard. A policeman came up and ordered me to

"walk on". I said: "I have a right to speak to any one on the street."

He said: "I will arrest you if you do not move on." I said: "You do

not wish this poor man to have one warning word to keep him out of

a drunkards hell." He arrested me, took me to the police headquarters,

where I was sentenced for disturbing the peace. I was put in a cell with

a hard board, no cover. There were only two other prisoners, both put

there for getting drunk. The partition door was by accident left unlocked

and I heard someone creeping, looked up and there was one of the poor

creatures in my cell. I called loudly. He ran back. The turnkey came

and fastened the door. All night through I was handing water to these

poor creatures. The bed bugs were thick and kept me quite busy knocking

them out of my face. I lay on the plank but could not sleep a wink.

Next morning I was called in court. That police officer in order to make

it a case of disturbing the peace said there were one hundred and fifty

people around. There was but five and I so testified. I never have seen

such false swearing as there is with the police. I got a fine of ten dollars.

Of course this judge was a republican.

Here is a list of the times and places I have been in jail:

In Wichita three times. Sentenced December, 1900, thirty days; January

21st, 1901, twenty-one days and January 22nd two days.

Topeka seven times; once thirty days; twice each eighteen days; then

twelve days; fifteen days, seven days and three days.

Kansas City once, part of a day; also once, part of a day at Coney

Island, once at Los Angeles; once at San Francisco; Scranton twice, one

night and part of two days; Bayonne, New Jersey a day and night; Pittsburg

three times, one night and part of two days; Philadelphia once, one

night.

I was also put in jail in Cape Breton, and in 1904, when five of us

attacked the Wholesale House of Mahan Bros., in Wichita, of which I

speak elsewhere, making a total of twenty three times.

I spoke at Sacramento, Cal., to the legislature when in session. I

got a letter from one of the officers in the capitol, telling of the joints

run in the capitol building and patronized by the members of the legislature.

A reporter went with me. He tried to get me an opportunity to speak,

but he was told I could not do so, and that I had better leave as the crowd

prevented them doing business. I did not leave. The reporter said: "You

will not be able to speak." I said: "I will speak." I waited until the

speaker adjourned for noon, and as quick as a flash I took the stand, and

began my address. I saw impatience in the faces of many, but there was

a great cheer from visitors and pages. I spoke about as follows: "I

am glad to speak to the law-makers of California. I not only believe

in making laws, but enforcing them." I called their attention to the most

needed legislation on the lines of prohibition of evil. I could see that all

seemed rather pleased at this point, I drew out the letter which read as

follows: "Dear Madam: I see you are to visit the capitol tomorrow, I

wish to call your attention to the flagrant violations under the dome of

California's capitol. In the Bill filing room is a place where liquors are

kept, also in the Sergeant-at-Arms room in the senate chamber, behind

a screen, is stored beer and whiskey, in room 56 there is a safe where

bottles of beer and whiskey are kept. These unlicensed bars are patronized

by the members, and with their full knowledge and consent." It was certainly

a sight to see the faces of these men. After reading each charge,

I would stop and say: "Now gentlemen this must be a grave slander, and

I want you as a body to rise and down this outrage." I waited, no one

rose up. I said: "certainly there must be a mistake, is it possible that the

law-makers of this state are the law-breakers, if so, then who is capable

of punishing the criminals?" I continued, "I hope that at least there are

some of the members of this body that are ignorant of this and that some

one if only one will rise and say, "I know nothing of this;" not one arose;

Both the houses were adjourned and the aisles and lobbies were packed.

These men looked at each other grinning and looking silly, some heartily

enjoying it, reminding me of a lot of bad boys that were caught stealing

watermelons. The pages and visitors yelled and waved and clapped

their hands, but was this not a shame? This is but a sample of the

legislatures of the states. Washington's capitol is a reproach to common

decency, this government like a fish, "stinks worse at the head."

I spoke in Austin, Texas, at the state university. When I arrived in

the city I was met by "Uncle Tom" Murrah. "Uncle Tom" is a true type

of the old fashion gentleman. Had it not been for the chivalry of this

dear friend I expect I would have had some trouble with the police of

Austin.

I went into a saloon and was led out in very forcible manner by the

proprietor, who was one of the city council. I stood in front of this

man's man-trap and cried out against this outrageous business. The man

kept a phonograph going to drown my voice. The police would have

interfered but "Uncle Tom" told me to say what I pleased, and he would

stand by me. I went up to the state university with students who tried

to get a hall for me to speak to them but they could not. I spoke from the

steps. In the midst of the speech and the cheers from the boys I heard a

voice at my side. I looked and there stood the Principal, Prexley Prather.

He was white with excitement, saying: "Madam, we do not allow

such." I said: "I am speaking for the good of these boys." "We

do not allow speaking on the campus." I said: "I have spoken to the

students at Ann Arbor, at Harvard, at Yale, and I will speak to the boys

of Texas." The boys gave a yell. The mail man was driving up at this

time. The horse took fright, the letters and papers flew in every direction.

The man jumped from the sulky; the horse ran up against a tree and

was stopped. I offered to pay for the broken shafts but the mail carrier

would take nothing. There was no serious damage and all had a

good laugh, except, perhaps, the dignified principal.

When I visited the students at Ann Arbor, Mich., I was given a banquet

by the Woolley club of the university. It gave me new life to look

at such men of intellectual and moral force. Oh! for such men to be the

fathers of the rising generation. Just such men as these will save the

Nation. THESE are the hatchets that will smash up evil and build up

good.

One cannot help but compare the tobacco smoking dull brained sot-

tish students with these giants of moral and physical manhood. These

young I men were the greatest argument in favor of prohibition. God

will bless the Woolley club of Ann Arbor and all such as they.

AT HIGH MASS, BUFFALO, OCT. 27

I attended High Mass in St. Joseph Cathedral. One of the priests,

Mr. Percell, was taking up the collection. He came to where I was sitting

but the smell of cigarette smoke was so strong about him that I could

not refrain from a rebuke, so I said: "You smell so bad from cigarette

smoke."

He said: "Who?"

I said: "You!"

He said: "You are a liar!"

I said: "No I am not, you do smell bad!"

He said: "I will have you put out of this church!"

I said: "I dare you! You are the one that should be put out!"

He passed on and after Mass I went into the house of the priest's

and asked for him. He could not be found but two priests tried to make

excuses and treated me well. Said they smoked. I told them God said

for them to cleanse themselves from all filthiness of the flesh. That they

were making provisions for the flesh to fulfill the lusts thereof. I said:

"What a shame for a man to dress like a saint and to smell like a devil!"

One thing I have noticed--that the Catholic schools taught by the

Brothers are saturated with vile tobacco smoke. I would not like to

send a son to such a place for that reason alone. There are many things

I like about the Catholic church, but why, oh, why is it so silent as a

general thing on the liquor traffic? Why are so many of its members in

this devil's work? Oh! what a retribution will be theirs when it will be

proven that instead of clothing the naked they have robbed children of

clothes. Instead of feeding the hungry they have allowed them to starve

because their bread was taken to buy drink. They sent souls to prison

and did not minister to them!

CHAPTER XII.

WOMAN'S SUFFRAGE

In all ages woman has taken an active part in the defense of man. She

is the best defender he ever had on earth, because she is his mother.

True mothers think more of the interest of their children than of their

own. God intended it so, All animals have a care for their offspring.

The hen will fight the hawk or dog, even man, to defend her little chicks.

The farmer's wife will not set a hen the second time that will not fight

for her little chickens. Such hens are taken to market. I have heard

my mother say: "I must set that hen again for she is such a good

mother." The mother bear will die fighting for her cubs. The hunters

say they dislike to kill her, because of her mother love, that never yields

up those two little cubs that she places behind her, and then fights until

she dies. This is the mother love of a brute,--what ought to be that of

the human family?

If a man starts a ranch to raise cattle he protects the females in

raising their young. He will kill the animals that will destroy his stock,

and if he produces the pelt or scalp of these animals the state pays him a

bounty. How is it with the human mothers? They produce the most

valuable offspring, but this licensed traffic is defended, while children

are murdered before our eyes and our hands are tied so we cannot rescue

them. No one will say but that woman represents more morality than man,

also that the mother is more interested in the children than the father;

then of course, the party who has the most care and love should be allowed

the largest privilege to exercise it.

America claims more civilization than any other nation on earth. In

the main this is so. But certainly she is not true to the motherhood, and

THIS is her peril.. Some of the best reigns have been those of queens.

All nations have had their women rulers, but the mothers of America

are not allowed to say who shall be the ones to help them make good

citizens of their own children, while their bitter foes prey upon their

offspring as cannibals. A widow with six sons has a little home. She

is taxed the same in proportion as the brewer, who carries on the human

butcher-shop that grinds up the six sons of the widow. He and his crowd

(republicans and democrats) have the ballot that smashes the poor

widow's boys and takes her substance to prosecute her boys after they

are made criminals, to pay for their arrest, to build a jail for them. Her

heart is broken, home is gone, and disgrace is hers. To accomplish this

she is rendered helpless by having no voice or ballot to protect herself.

God never made an animal that he did not give it some means of defense.

While I am writing this I am in Bridgeport, Connecticut. I find this a

city of eighty-two thousand. The PRESIDENT of the board of education is

P. W. Wren, who is president of the Connecticut Breweries and owner

of one of the largest wholesale whiskey houses in the state. This is as

consistent as if one were to start a ranch to raise chickens, ducks, pigs

and calves and then place a wolf to guard them from harm, The business

of the brewer is to sell beer. No animal but mankind will use this

rotten slop, for the others by instinct know it is poison. No man would

let his horses drink it, for they would be dangerous instead of being

useful. The only way to make the brewer's business profitable is to have

boys and girls as consumers. The brewer is not the worst to blame. It

is the voter. Mothers would never vote for such a man to be the public

guardian of the morals of their children. All liquor men, or liquor

license men, are opposed to woman's suffrage, for the reason that should

women vote, we would have prohibition or abolition of the vice. The

women saved prohibition in Topeka in the year 1903 by five hundred

majority, while it would have been lost by two hundred if men only had

voted. The contest was between the WET and DRY mayors. Where women

have the ballot, even in municipal affairs, no state has resubmitted or

brought back the saloon. God said: "It is not good for man to be alone.

I will make him a helpmate, a partner, a companion, a guardian." When

man elevates a woman he elevates himself. A degraded woman means

many degraded men. Free men must be the sons of free women. This

land cannot be the land of the free or home of the brave, until woman

gets her freedom and men are brave and just to award it to her. No

man can have the true impulse of liberty and want his mother to be a

slave.

The constitution of the United States starts out by saying. "We, the

people of the United States." Women are people as well as men. Therefore

I advise all women to go to the polls and vote in spring and fall elections.

We want the moral, intellectual electorate. The brewer, distiller, saloon

man, their agents, even the colored man was given a vote, and never asked

for it. The foreigners in a few months, or a year, after landing, are

given the ballot, but the loving, true defenders of God, home and all the

best interests of humanity, are compelled to see their sons, husbands,

and fathers, murdered before their eyes, without the sign of a protest

from the government under which they live. The outrageous unfairness

of this is quite evident when we consider that the ballot is represented

and controlled by the worst element, when it should be by the best. The

women are more affected by oppression than man. She is the mother,

the rest are the children.

The mother would vote to save the boy.

The mother would do nothing to injure her boy.

The mother makes a good citizen of her son.

The saloon man votes to make drunkards.

The saloon man does all to injure.

The saloon man makes bad citizens.

The best voters are cast out for President, the vilest are put in, no

wonder we have a snob and brewers choice.

A boy's best friend is his mother. Boys and girls go wrong when

they do not obey their mothers. God has always used women as a mighty

factor in salvation. The promise was given her in the garden, after the

fall, that she should produce the Savior, who would give the deadly wound

to man's great enemy, the devil. It was the "seed of the woman," not the

seed of the man. Christ was born of a woman and the Holy Ghost.

No man has ever been greater in God's estimation than Abraham.

Yet when he and Sarah had a dispute and Abraham went to God to

decide the matter, God said: "In all that Sarah thy wife hath said unto

thee hearken unto her voice." Rebecca understood the will of God,

contrary to the will of Isaac. She carried out the plan of God. Jacob

sent for Rachel and Leah to consult with them before he left Laban, and

he took their advice. "Moses, Aaron and Miriam were chosen by God

to lead the people out of Egypt." The Bible so states it. Huldah and

Deborah were prophets. Rahab was the first convert in Canaan; she

and her family were all that was blessed in that cursed city of Jericho.

Esther saved the whole Jewish nation. A woman smashed the head of

the wicked Abimelech as did Jael the wife of Heber also. In the Psalms,

68:11, the original says: "The Lord gave the word.--Great was the army

of women who published it."

Jesus did his first miracle at the request of a woman, still he rebuked

her. He felt her powerful influence and would know no higher will except

his heavenly Father's. Christ defended woman, saying: "Why trouble

ye the woman, she hath wrought a work on me," hereby rebuking men

to interfere with any woman's work when it is good. Christ never

rebuked even the harlot. There was not a greater preacher than the

woman at the well that brought out the city of Samaria to see Jesus.

Philip had four daughters that prophesied. Women were the first disciples,

they followed Christ from Galilee. He chose the men, the women

chose Him. Pheobe was a deaconess of the church of Cenchrea. The

Bible records no act or word of woman against Christ. With

sufferings not one was caused by a woman. The poor prostitute bestowed

the most loving service when she wept at His feet, kissing them.

This gives some of the Bible women. There have been others in all

ages. One instance in the early history of Rome. There was a band of

men who first settled Rome. They wished to get wives for themselves

and this was the plan by which they got them.

The Romans made a great feast; had games; invited the Sabine

nation to come with their wives and daughters, which they did. In the

height of the footraces and archery, the Romans rushed in among their

invited guests and each snatched a woman. The Sabines returned and

prepared for war. The lines of battle were drawn. The stolen women

had a conference and decided to stop the war. They rushed in between

the Sabine men, their former husbands and fathers, and the Romans,

their last husbands, and forebade bloodshed by saying: "You will have

to kill each other over our dead bodies."

If those heathen women by their act could reconcile two nations, is

it not a rebuke to women in this Christian age for their cowardice in not

coming forward and demanding recognition in the matter of being a

go-between, for one class of men are arrayed against another..

A hundred thousand of our sons are being sent to drunkard's graves

and a drunkard's hell every year. By a bold stand for the right, to defend

our loved ones, let us rush between and stop this deadly strife, with the

same heroism of the women of Rome, "over our dead bodies." Women

will get the ballot in time, but it can be hastened only by women themselves.

It will be a great victory for mankind when women can veto the

curse of mankind. The mother impulse is stronger with women than any,

and when she can protect her offspring, she will make a greater effort

to do so than now. She will not then do as many now do, make her

body a manikin to hang the fashions of the day on. She will not then

display her form to attract the vulgar gaze of the world. She will not

place the corpses of cats or birds on her head. She will not wear mops

at the bottom of her dress to sweep up the filth of the earth. She will

not wear shoes that injure her as the heathen do. She will not put her

body in the vice of a corset, displacing the organs of her body, unfitting

her to be a mother, causing more than half the surgical operations in the

hospitals. She will then discuss character more than fashion. She will

be ashamed of her silly, giggling and meaningless conversation. God

said, "a man shall not wear that which pertains to a woman neither shall

a woman put on a mans garment for all that do such things are an

abomination unto God" women will then see the vulgarity and immodesty

and sin in dressing in male attire or in any other form of indecent

exposure of her person.

Young men often say to me: "Mrs. Nation, if I go to see young ladies

I can learn nothing from them. They are not interested in the subjects

that are improving to young men. They read only trash." Also

they say: "I cannot afford to marry. I cannot support a woman. Their

wants are so many.' Dress is a remnant of barbarism. The Indians

delight in different colors, the plumage of birds, the skins of animals,

even rattle-snakes. We retrograde to their level when we attract the

vulgar gaze to such vanities.

God said: "I will make man a HELPMATE," a partner, a helper, not a

hinderer to success in any way. What kind of mothers will this class

of women make? It is said that a mother does more to mold the mind

and heart of the child before it is born than can be done by any one from

its birth up to twelve years. God sent an angel to the mother of Samson;

told her "not to drink wine or strong drink" before the child was

born. Why? God wishes here to teach that mothers can injure their

children or entail on them vices before they are born.

Women will triumph in this battle. The devil knows it and has put

forth every effort to forestall this great reform. Look at the shop windows,

loaded with every style and fashion to attract the eyes of the passing

woman. Things that will be but a burden to her, will cause her to use

the earnings of her husband and the patrimony of her children and destroy

her mother influence and bring upon her just censure of her husband.

This is not the rule but the exception, for women, if they are not false,

spend more for the advancement of their families than themselves. There

never will be a club or other organization of women that will ever make

any regulation that will in any way injure the welfare of their offspring.

And the interests of men are safe in the keeping of good women.

Woman is also a power for evil. Solomon, the wisest, was not wise

enough to keep out of the toils of bad women; and Samson, the strongest,

was not strong enough to break away from the bad influence.

Oh! the degradation among women from intoxicating drinks! These

degrade women and she degrades men. "Rise up ye women who are

at ease in Zion!" The drinking places in the cities, especially in New York,

by every device get women in their dens that they may entice men.

Suffrage is not to give woman greater opportunities to be bad but to

strengthen their powers to resist evil and help men to do the same. To

cause her to think more of the inmates of her home than her raiment.

Woman's greatest sins and vices are those of vanity of appearance and

dress to attract or please their male companions. The prostitutes do

the same thing. Women should be taught to avoid the arts of such.

When I see a woman arrayed as I do these women in these homes of

sin I think, "There is sympathy."

CHAPTER XIII.

ECHOES OF THE HATCHET.

MRS. NATION AND THE SALOON.

It was a crisis in prohibition enforcement in Kansas. The first

smashing was like the opening of a battle. The crashing glass sent a

thrill through the community and resounded o'er the land a talisman of

destruction to the liquor traffic. It set everybody to talking, even the

public school children and students in all the higher institutions were

profoundly interested. The press and the pulpit broke their silence and from

all over the state came the echo. It was the firing of the signal guns.

The response came desultory, as the rattle of musketry in a skirmish,

then heavier from the bigger guns, as is the case in all reformatory work.

The criticisms and comments were varied, often amusing, reflecting the

agitation from far and near and everywhere.

A few months ago and the name of Mrs. Nation was unknown outside

of Medicine Lodge, Kansas, but within the limits of sixty days she

has achieved notoriety, if not fame, by her unique crusade against the

Kansas saloon. Many methods have been adopted during the last

two decades for the abatement of the liquor nuisance, but it remained

for an American woman, under the spur of bitter memories, and a sort

heart, to originate a method, at once so bold and radical as to sharply

focus public attention upon the utter villainy and lawlessness of the Kansas

saloon.

As was to be expected, Mrs. Nation has been subjected to unhandsome

treatment. A section of the press and the pulpit have joined

forces with the rum brigade in holding her up to ridicule. She has been

burlesqued, abused and belied; but when all the facts are soberly and fairly

weighed, it will be found that the scale of justice inclines, very positively,

toward this sorely tried woman and her hatchet. I do not pose

as Mrs. Nation's champion or apologist; she needs neither. History

that corrects the blunders of contemporary critics, will assign to her an

honored place long after the paltry penny-a-liner and ranting pulpiteer

are forgotten. It is a simple task for those to whom the curse of rum

has never come close home, to condemn the methods of a woman, who,

as a drunkard's wife and widow, drank to the dregs the bitter cup of woe.

Mrs. Nation saw her brilliant and handsome young husband slowly transformed

into a demon by rum. She saw him land in an early and dishonored

grave. She saw her baby cursed by the father's sin. She saw

her early hopes blighted, and poverty haunting her door. She saw a

favorite sister grieving her heart out over a fallen husband--fallen in

purse, in character, and station. With this black catalogue of domestic

griefs "deep printed on her heart," is there a man--surely there is no

woman!--who could blame Mrs. Nation, if she turned upon the guilty

gang who had blighted her life and smote them right and left. When

the infernal record of rum is recalled, it is not so surprising that there

is one Mrs. Nation, but that there is not one in every home in the United

States.

M. N. BUTLER.

A CONTRIBUTION TO HOME FOR DRUNKARD'S WIVES.

Dear Madam:--I see you have purchased property to make a home for

drunkard's wives. I send you five dollars to aid you.

Yours very truly,

Oakwood, Ills. JACOB F. ILER.

I hope thousands will follow the example of this man. Oh! how

the cry comes in: "I want a place in your Home. My husband or son

is a drunkard." Help the poor innocent results of the licensed curse.

Persons have often remarked, "How did you feel, when you went

in these places?" Imagine a burning house, a frantic mother, for her heart

treasures, her babes, are in that building. She hears their cries, she sees

their little arms, waving behind the closed window, amid the smoke

that soon will be a flame. She seizes an axe or hatchet near at hand,

with which she breaks open door or window to let her darlings escape.

Is there a mother in all the land that would not act thus? The mighty

ocean, in its anger is lashing a frail vessel, storm tossed, the captain

orders the cannon to boom! boom! boom! arousing and calling for help

to save the crew. We amputate the diseased limb with a knife, we pull

the aching tooth with an instrument of steel. Why? In order to save.

Just so, the people are asleep, while our precious ones are in danger of

being engulfed in ruin. The smashing is a danger signal, and I kept

it up, to prevent the people from relaxing into indifference, just as a

frantic, living mother would think only of the salvation of those she

loved.

AN APPEAL TO THE NATIONAL PROHIBITION COMMITTEE TO CONCENTRATE THE

FORCES IN KANSAS.

(Emmett L. Nichols, Wilkesbarre, Pa.)

It is a fact beyond dispute, that wherever prohibition is carried in a

state, the liquor dealers' association of the nation in a menacing manner

demands the dominant party in such state that she sees to it that liquor

is allowed to be sold in enough places, at least, to make it appear that

prohibition is a failure, they knowing that the people once made to see

the beneficial effects of prohibition will adopt it generally, as the true

solution of the liquor question, as it really is, all other methods having

been proven to be absolute failures. The politicians fearing the influence

of the power of rum, organized as it is, for self defense yield to the

demands of liquorocracy. Mrs. Carrie Nation has shown this to be the

true state of affairs in Kansas in her hatchet raid upon the joints of that

state. She has shown up to public ridicule the officials of that state, in

different places, in demonstrating the fact that they not only refuse to

enforce the prohibition law, but screen and protect the violators thereof,

and arrest any citizen who attempts to perform the duty which they were

sworn to perform. This state of affairs is most exasperating to every

lover of country. I contend that Mrs. Nation's hatchet has been the

means of bringing about the most critical period of the prohibition reform

movement in its history. It has laid open before the world the fact that

prohibition does not prohibit in certain portions of Kansas, simply because

public officials in violation of their oath of office will to have it so. Now

I further contend that unless these officials are forced to prohibit in

Kansas, prohibition will eventually be repealed in that state, and the way

thereby made all the more difficult for the triumph of the truth if the

officials of Kansas are allowed to continue their work of perfidy in refusing

to enforce the prohibition laws there, prohibition will not only be

repealed in that state, but the securing of national prohibition by peaceful

means will be an impossibility. Viewing the conditions in Kansas

as I do, I am moved to make this appeal to the National Committee of

the prohibition party to concentrate its forces in that state, with the view

of arousing sufficient sentiment among the people there to drive every

"joint" from within her borders. "On to Kansas" should be the battle

cry of the prohibitionists of the nation. It is more important that

the will of the sovereign power in Kansas be enforced in the matter of

prohibition than it was on the principle of the squatter sovereignty there

during the days of slavery. It seems to me that it is the bounden duty

of the National Prohibition Committee to make this fight. I fail to see

any work within its grasp comparing in importance to it. The agitation

which Mrs. Nation created with her hatchet is bound to subside unless

some organization, having the cause at heart will take the matter in hand

and add fuel to the fire of righteous indignation which has been sweeping

the state. The National Prohibition Committee can not afford to

look on letting matters take their course. The time has arrived for action

on its part, that it may set the example before the world what the party

it represents will do if placed in power. The very soul of every

prohibitionist in the nation ought to be on fire in a determined fight

for the triumph of prohibition in bleeding Kansas. I believe the struggle

being had there now means more, either for the weal or woe of this country,

than did the struggle against slavery on the same soil by John Brown

and his followers.

National Prohibition Committee, I repeat, "On to bleeding Kansas!"

A CO-LABORER IN TEXAS WRITES.

Columbia, Texas, February 23, 1901. Mrs. Carrie Nation, Topeka,

Kansas.--Dear Madame and Co- Laborer in the Cause of Humanity--I

have thought for some time that I would write to you, but knowing that

you were burdened with correspondence I have put it off from time to

time, but at last I venture to consume a little of your valuable time in

reading a letter from me. I have been fighting the liquor devil going

on nine years. Constantly have been called here by the citizens of this

place to deliver a series of lectures. I learn that you once lived here

and I see from today's Houston Post that you once lived at Richmond,

Texas. I find that the lady with whom I am stopping while here knows

you (Mrs. G. W. Gayle). Now Dear Mrs. Nation, I wish to say to you

that I believe that God has called you to a great work--a work that is

much needed, and that is calling the attention of the people of the United

States to the magnitude of the liquor traffic--the devil's great agent in

peopling hell--and I believe you commenced at the right place, the capital

of Kansas--the battlefield. Kansas being somewhat the center of the

United States, the eyes of every state in the union is fixed on it as a

guiding star relative to prohibition. If prohibition could be proven to

be a success in Kansas it would not be long until other states would follow

in its steps and on and on until our nation would be free from ruin,

but I doubt whether that will ever come, short of a great war such as we

have not seen or read of. If it is God's will, let it come, for there is

greater cause for war on this line than there was for the liberation of the

Cubans from the Spaniards. Now we see published in the papers down

here that you have gone into a newspaper enterprise to defend the Negro

race. I don't believe this for I know that there will be many things reported

by the liquor traffic to destroy your influence. I shall deny this

report as far as I can until I hear from you, for I know that the liquor

traffic is as wise as serpents and as harmless as the devil, and will do

anything they can to sidetrack you from the main issue, and that through

your supposed friends, so keep both eyes wide open. Then when they

fail in that they will lie on you. God, give you wisdom and may you

stick to your bush is my prayer. Oh, pray much and look out for enemies

in the guise of friends. They will fool you if you don't look out, for you

are doing more good than all the temperance workers combined. God

bless you; keep at it, and nothing else, for your work is only the beginning

of the greatest temperance and prohibition reform that has ever

been. Now it all depends on your not being sidetracked by supposed

temperance reformers. Don't allow any mortal person to stop you, but

push the battle to a finish. I have known of so many reformers making

a good start but about the time the thing begins to boil right well and

a prospect of doing something, some supposed helpers come in and capture

the whole outfit and put a stop to the move. But I trust in the Lord

that this is not a case of that kind. If you have time I would appreciate

a reply from you. Write me here as I will be here for about ten days,

after that my mail will be forwarded. My permanent address is Fort

Worth, Texas, care Polytechnic College.

Yours for liberty from rum,

J. G. ADAMS.

AN OLD SOLDIERS APPEAL.

Old Soldier's Home, Leavenworth, Kan., February 14, 1901.--Mrs.

Carrie Nation:--As I have read of your grand success in Topeka, and

elsewhere I wish to congratulate. For God's sake come to the Soldier's

Home and save the Old Veterans. Bring your hatchet along and clear

out the Canteen in the Home. Congress recently passed a law for all

Canteens to be closed on United States reservations, the officials of the

Home claim the law does not apply to the Old Soldiers' Home. Last

year the officials of the Home were very anxious to have the saloons

closed in the Klondike near the Home, for the protection of the Veterans;

as it did not bring the revenue into the Home, we are to be paid in one

week. Come at once and close the joint in the Home. Over 70 half-

barrels of beer are sold in on day at the Home after Pension day.

Respectfully, OLD SOLDIER.

A TRAVELING MAN'S LETTER.

Indianapolis, Ind.--"Mrs. Carrie Nation, Wichita, Kan:--As a preface

I feel it my duty to extend to you my sincere apology for encroaching

these lines for your consideration during the trying hours of your

incarceration, but as the purport of my letter undoubtedly differs, materially

in text, from the countless hundreds you have received, I feel assured

that the sentiment involved, originated as it has, solely from the spirit

and intrepid aggressiveness you have exploited in the suppression of that

paramount curse of mankind, Drink! will, in a measure, justify you in

condoning these lines.

For years the writer has been a traveling salesman, occupying positions

of trust and responsibility. As is the universal trait among the

larger element of my class, I contracted the indulgence of liquor. From

its inception and social intercourse, it gradually developed until I became

an irresistible slave to those base affinities--lewd women and whiskey. The

result, inevitable as death, produced its dregs; shattered health, separation

of family, and social and business ostracism. Prior to a month ago,

reparation and redemption from medical arid spiritual aid, had proven

valueless; with no alternative, I became resigned to the results of a mis-

spent life, when, from the West came the voice and heroic deeds of a

woman. Simple yet fervent, intrepid yet unique. You aroused the press

and the people. Your mission was born. Thousands, you may have

"influenced," but me you have "redeemed." I have read your words with

intenseness. Your forcible acts have impressed me. I resolved and have

conquered. God bless you! I am now organizing a temperance league

among my brother traveling men, paradoxical as it may sound, and am

meeting with a fair support, yet I believe an impetus and a stronger

influential lever can be extended through the expression of your well wishes

and any timely topics you care to extend in furtherance of the cause.

Asking your kind indulgence, and with best wishes for your ultimate

welfare, believe me. Your loyal supporter, W. S. SANFORD.. Care Terre

Haute House, Terre Haute, Ind.

FROM A HEART-BROKEN MOTHER.

Patterson, New Jersey, Sept., 2nd, 1901--Dear Mrs. Nation:--Will

you come to this city before going home? The conditions here are worse

than in any place in the whole country. One thousand saloons run day

and night, every day in the year. Come for God's sake. You can do so

much good, and if you smashed fifty or sixty of the hell holes here you

would be called an angel. Do Come! and save the young of both sexes.

Yours, A HEART-BROKEN MOTHER.

CHAPTER XIV.

CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE.

The life of a soul moved on by the Holy Spirit is beyond human

expression, as well as human understanding. "He that is spiritual judgeth

(examines) all things. Yet he himself is judged or examined of no

man." The spiritual man can see the condition of the unregenerate for

he was once in darkness, but the unregenerate can never understand the

condition of the regenerate. The impulses that move one born of God is

one of the puzzles not possible to be known by the wisdom of the wise

of this world. 'Tis a secret, 'tis hidden, and can come only by Divine

Revelation and is always a miracle, the greatest ever performed. It

raises from the dead, never to die again. It opens the eyes never to be

closed again, 'tis an armor that causes us to handle serpents (devils)

without harm and we can hear or drink deadly poisons, or doctrines but

they will not kill our soul. "These signs shall follow them that believe.

The real Christ life is and always will be hateful to the world. I have

often heard it said of me; "I cannot bear that Carry Nation!" I would

only to do the people good. I do not blame these as I once did; "For

the natural man is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be."

"Marvel not that the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it

hated you." I know that when I was ten years old I felt the movings of

God's spirit--got an answer of peace, but like a little infant pined away,

for lack of care and nourishment. Nothing but the divine mercy of

Almighty God could have directed the affairs of my tempest-tossed life.

I now know there are no accidents. A sparrow falls by a special providence.

There are no sins or temptations that I can not say: "My God

delivered, saved and forgave me for that." I go to prisons and all kinds

of houses of sin. I say: "I can tell you of one who can save and forgive

you for that, he forgave me, and he will forgive you, for I was as

bad, or worse, than you." I have never seen anyone whom I thought had

committed more sin than I. Many will lift up horrified hands at this

but 'tis true. I never saw the corruption of but one life, one heart,--that

was mine. I was never so shocked, so disgusted, so distracted with

remorse over any life, so much as my own. My heart was the foulest

place I ever saw. I do not know what is in other people's hearts. Paul

meant this when he said: "Christ Jesus came into the world to save

sinners of whom I am chief;" Said, this, "is worthy of all acceptation"

or was, a good testimony. Because one can never see how bad the heart

is, until God sheds the light to see it. So many people are deceived, as

a blind man. They may be in filth, and do not know it. It is there,

but not seen, for lack of light.

I was first condemned by reading the Psalms. I said: "If Christians

have impulses to "rejoice", clap their hands, and "shout", I do not

know what it is. I find no response of gladness in my heart." I trembled

with fear to think of God and the judgement day. This continued from

youth up to the age of forty. At this time I received from Christ the

"Gift of the Holy Ghost", the "Unction", that which "leads unto all

truth." There are many names for this; I call it the Bible name. "Hold

fast the form of sound words." Before this I had never spoken a word

for God or prayed in public. At one time I was called on to do so, and

was terrified and mumbled out something, that was no prayer. Now all

was changed: "I was glad when they said unto me, let us go into the

house of the Lord." I was anxious for my time to come to tell how

good Jesus was to me. When I met my neighbors I would be heavy-

hearted, because they talked of servants, house cleaning, the new fashions,

and these seemed so vain, so frivolous. I liked to direct their minds to

speak of the Scriptures, and of the ways of doing work for God. I

soon found out I was not welcome, I was looked upon as an intruder,

was often avoided, I could see the frowns and glances of impatience at

my presence. These would cause me many a cry and mortification. My

best companion was the Bible. I then knew what David meant when he

said: "More to be desired are they, than gold, yea than much fine gold;

sweeter also than the honey and the honey comb." I often kiss and

caress my Bible; 'tis the most precious of all earthly treasures.

I wonder how people can live any kind of Christian life without

reading the Scriptures and prayer. If I neglect this one day I feel

impatient, restless,--a soul hunger. Spurgeon is my favorite of all ministers.

I read where he said, "Being a Christian was something like taking

a sea bath. You go in up to the ankles and there is no pleasure, then

to the knees is not much better, but if you wish to know the pleasure of

a bath take a 'HEADER' and plunge. Then you can say, How glorious."

Christian life is like a journey. There are flowers and fruit and streams;

thorns, dark valleys and fires; rocky steeps from whose summits you

can see beautiful prospects. There is rest, refreshment, sleep and bitter

tearful watchings. 'Tis a great pleasure to me to be in a spiritual meeting.

To know by the testimony how far they have traveled. Some one

in the garden of delights; he wonders why that one tells of the dark

valley. One at the base of the hill cannot understand why others see

what he cannot. The young beginner tells of the beautiful sights and

songs; and maybe the one who has been on the road almost a life time

will tell of the "continual heaviness, hours of darkness, and the smoking

furnace, and the lamp." I have found that the warrior is never as bouyant

as the new recruit, in his dress parade. We humor children, and call

on men to labor. Few, comparatively, get to the place where they prefer

hard labor; to endure desolation of heart; to seek self in nothing;

to see all loved but himself; to see others exalted but only abasement for

self; to "endure hardness as a good soldier; to lay on the ground; to

eat hard tack; to make long, weary marches; footsore and still fight on;

to suffer traveling over rocks and thorns; to endure the loss of all

things." I will take this last for mine. 'Tis the best, Oh my God, give

me this! "He that goeth forth and WEEPETH bearing precious seeds shall

doubtless come again rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him." I do

not ask this because I enjoy suffering but to prove my love and gratitude

to Him who loved me, and gave Himself for me.

After we moved to Medicine Lodge the Free Methodists came there

and held a meeting. I had never heard the doctrine of the "second

blessing" or "sanctification" taught. It was very interesting to me. Three

women called to see me in my home, to ask me if I had ever "had the

Gift." I told them I had something peculiar given me from God in

Texas; asked them to pray to God to give this great blessing to me or a

witness that he had done so. These sisters were Mrs. Painter, Green and

Marvin. I also prayed for myself. In about ten days from that time I

was in my sitting room. It was raining. A minister and his daughter

were at our house (Mr. Laurance, a Baptist). We were all quietly reading

in the room. I was in meditation, praying and saying: "Just now,

blessed Father, give me the witness." Then a wonderful thing took place,

which it is not "lawful" or possible for me to utter. Something was poured

on top of my bead, running all over and through me, which I call divine

electricity. The two persons who were in the room, Mr. Laurance and

his daughter, were very much startled, for I jumped up, clapped my hands,

saying: "I have this from God, this divine Gift." I went below in the

basement that I might give vent to my gratitude, and under my breath

I walked up and down, thanking, praising, crying and laughing.

Like the woman that found the piece of silver that was lost, I had

to tell my neighbors. I wrapped myself up to be protected from the

rain, and ran to Sister Painters, near by, then to Sister Dollars and Marvin's

and several others, to tell them of my great blessing.

When I returned I opened my Bible. Every word and every letter

was surrounded with a bright light. I turned over the leaves, and I

saw the meaning on the pages at a glance. There was a new light and

meaning. I have never been able to express that experience in any other

way than to say I was "eating" the word of God. I could now understand

why we do not understand the figures and expressions used in the

Bible, because I have had several experiences, that were impossible to

explain by human language.

I told Mr. Nation that the Bible was a new book to me, tried to

explain to him; told him I now saw the meaning of everything. He

said: "Explain Lazarus and the rich man." I turned to it instantly.

The divine light gave a new meaning to me. I commented thus as I

read it: "This rich man is the Jewish nation, with its gorgeous temple

service. The poor man is the Gentile nations called dogs, no temple, no

altar, no God, no healing; like a man with an incurable loathsome disease.

These begged from the Jews the crumbs that fell to their dogs. This rich

man had much goods. He could have shared to bless, but through lack

of charity he withheld.

The beggar died, and angels took him to Abraham's bosom, the very

place the Jews thought was only for them. This is a figure of the

death to sin, and the life to righteousness. The natural must die before

the spiritual can live. The rich man died, and was buried. The Jewish

nation died as it is here predicted, and in hell, he lifted up his eyes, being

in torments. It is not said that the Gentiles, or Lazarus were buried.

The Jews as a nation are dead, never to be resurrected. They have been

scattered abroad in torments, a people without a land, a hiss and a by-

word, as God said. The Jew sees the Gentiles with the good things, he

once had. Has time and time again begged relief from them. The Jews

wish no companionship in their misery, have no missionaries. Five is

a number applied to humanity.--five senses, five fingers, five toes. The

gulf spoken of as being impassable, is the separateness of the Jews from

all others.

The rich man wants one from the dead to go to his five brethren, or

humanity. Abraham or the Gospel reminds the Jew that Moses and

the prophets were as convincing; they would not believe them. Christ

said: "If ye had believed Moses, ye would have believed me for he

wrote of me. If ye believe not him, neither will ye believe, though one

arose from the dead." Christ in this parable prophesied of his own

death and resurrection, they did not believe when he arose from the dead.

Scripture was given a meaning I had never heard of before. This

light continued for about three days. Oh! if I had devoted all my time

then to reading while I had this divine light! We never know the value

of any blessing, until it is gone. Persons almost universally say of me:

"You have studied and remember so much of the Bible," but this is a

gift from God. I know why God gave this to me. Because I have always

been a reader and a student of holy teachings, even when it was sealed,

and often to me, contradictory. "If any will do His will, they shall

know of the doctrine." Jesus said: "Search the Scriptures." "Study to

show thyself a workman well approved unto God, that needeth not to

be ashamed, rightly divining the word of truth." 'Tis a sweet love letter

by an independent God to a dependent people. "Oh! the depth of the

wisdom, both of the knowledge and power of God! How unsearchable

are his judgements and his ways past finding out." Yet His love can

be felt and known by all. Not one of the severe judgements of God but

they reflect this tender love of God, in destroying that which love hates,

because sin is the enemy of love, the bitter foe to the happiness of mankind;

therefore 'tis an evidence of the intensity of love to destroy sin.

Take for instance the destruction of the Amalekites. This people was a

curse to the earth and the enemy of all good. "Remember what Amalek

did unto thee, by the way, when ye were come forth out of Egypt."

"How he met thee by the way, and smote the hindermost of thee, even

all that were behind thee when thou wast faint and weary; and he

feared not God. Therefore it shall be when the Lord thy God hath

given thee rest from thine enemies, thou shalt blot out the remembrance

of Amalek from under heaven." God waited four hundred years from

this time. They still were murderers. Then he told Saul to utterly

destroy this cruel nation. The state kills a man now. This is not a

cruelty but a mercy, "And those which remain shall hear and fear and

shall henceforth commit no more any such evil." "'Tis a righteous

retribution to recompense tribulation to those who trouble you."

Persons often argue that the books of the Bible are written by man

and cannot be said to be written by God. I illustrate the way God wrote

the Bible by this: You have a package of letters from your mother.

Some are written with red ink, some with black, some with a stub pen,

some with a fine point, some with a pencil, etc. You do not say, the pen

wrote me this letter and the pencil wrote me that. No, this is not spoken

of or considered. You say: "My mother wrote these letters to me."

Just so, Moses is God's pen, with which he wrote the five books of the

Pentateuch. Joshua was also a pen, and Ezra, Job, David, Solomon, and so

with the writers of the New Testament. God guided them as we do

our pen. The Bible carries within itself its own evidence of divinity. It

requires no proof. It but weakens its own evidence, to appeal to human

aid. The fulfilled prophesy, its inimitable poetry, is proof to the natural

man to KNOW it to be above the human mind, and to a child of God it

speaks with life, and love more potent than an earthly parent to their

child. The Holy Spirit only can interpret his own words: "'Tis foolishness

to those who perish, but unto us who are saved it is the power of

God."

I have a great benediction on my work. Wherever I go the dear

mothers shake my hand and kiss my face, saying: "God bless you. I

want to help you. You did what I wanted to do." It is the heart of

motherhood running over with love. "The gentle are the brave, the loving

are the daring."

I got a telegram from a man saying: "Your article in Physical

Culture on the use of tobacco has cured me of the vice." One man from

Omaha, Nebraska, wrote: "Three years ago I was a drunkard. I had a

drug store. I was losing business and going to ruin generally. When

I heard of what you did, I said: 'If that woman can do that to save

others, I ought to do something for myself.' So now I am a changed

man. My wife is a changed woman. I have to thank you and Almighty

God. My business is growing every day."

Upon several occasions I have had people to put five dollars in my

hand. While I was lecturing in Pasadena, California, for the Y. M. C.

A. one young man put in my hand what I thought was a silver dollar,

but on looking it was a twenty dollar gold piece. I said: "I will lay

that up in heaven for you." And so I have. I never learned his name

but he will certainly find that twenty dollars in the bank of heaven with

interest.

When I first started out in this crusade I was called crazy and a

"freak" by my enemies, but now they say: "No, Carry Nation, you are

not crazy, but you are sharp. You started out to accomplish something

and you did. You are a grafter. It is the money you are after." Jesus

said: "John came neither eating or drinking and ye say, Behold a wine

bibber and a glutton." So it is the world never did understand an

unselfish life. It is a small thing to be judged by a man that withers

as grass. "If I yet please man, I should not be the servant of Christ."

CHAPTER XV.

SPIRITUAL AUTHORITY FOR MY CHRISTIAN WORK.

There have been from the first time I started out persons who understood

that God moved me. These were students of the Old Scriptures.

Jesus told the people before the New Testament was written to "search

the Scriptures--these are they that testify of me. ALL Scripture is given

by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for correction, for

instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be thoroughly

furnished unto every good work." To be thorough one must know the

old as well as the new. In all the sermons of Paul, Peter and the rest,

they quote from old Scripture. So did Jesus. Read Peter's first sermon

on the day of Pentecost. There is a tendency to study the New

Testament more than the Old. It is not possible to understand the New,

unless we first study the Old. One of my favorite books is Deuteronomy,

the dying words of Moses. He here repeats the great mercy, consideration

and power of God's dealings with his people. Tells the kind of

characters God will bless. How God loves the pure and good. How He

hates the wicked. We here see that God creates good and evil, and holds

us responsible for the choosing. While God rules in all things we have

the power to bring on ourselves blessings or cursings. This book declares

the man or woman invincible that abandons himself or herself to do

God's will.

"True merit lies in braving the unequal.

True glory comes from daring to begin.

God loves the man or woman, who reckless of the sequel,

Fights long and well, whether they lose or win."

In the seventh chapter of Deuteronomy, God commanded the

children of Israel to "destroy the images," "break down" the altars

and "burn the graven images" of the Gods of the heathen. This was

smashing. Also said to them: "If you do not drive them out they shall

be thorns in your sides." God gave them power and ability to do this,

then he required them to do it. God supplies man's cannots, not his

"will nots." In Numbers twenty-fifth chapter, Phineas was given God's

covenant of peace and the priesthood, because he slew the woman and

man that were committing sin: "Because he was jealous for his God

and made an atonement for the children of Israel." This was smashing.

God himself smashed up Sodom and Gomorrah. In the seventeenth

chapter of Deuteronomy, God says: "The idolator and blasphemer shall

be stoned with stones till he die. So shalt thou put away evil from you."

This is smashing. I could write a book recounting the incidents recorded

in God's Word.

"What is in thine hand, Abel?"

"Nothing but one wee lamb, O God, taken from the flock. I purpose

offering it to thee, a willing sacrifice."

And so he did. And the sweet smell of that burning has been filling

the air ever since, and constantly going up to God as a perpetual sacrifice

of praise.

"What is it thou hast in thine hand, Moses?"

"Nothing but a staff, O God, with which I tend my flocks."

"Take it and use it for me."

And he did; and with it wrought more wondrous things than Egypt

and her proud king had seen before.

"Mary, what is that thou hast in thine hand?"

"Nothing but a pot of sweet-smelling ointment, O God, wherewith I

would anoint thine only One called Jesus."

And so she did; and not only did the perfume fill all the house in

which they were, but the Bible-reading world has been fragrant with the

memory of this blessed act of love, which has ever since been spoken of

"for a memorial of her."

"Poor woman, what is it that thou hast in thine hand?"

"Only two mites, Lord. It is very little; but then it is all I have, and

I would put it into thy treasury."

And so she did; and the story of her generous giving has ever since

wrought like a charm, prompting others to give to the Lord.

"What is it that thou hast in thine hand, Dorcas?"

"Only a needle, Lord."

"Take it and use it for me."

And so she did; and not only were the suffering poor of Joppa warmly

clad, but inspired by her loving life. "Dorcas Societies" even now continue

their benign mission to the poor throughout the earth.

"What is it in thine hand, Shamgar?"

"Only an ox goad, a stick with which to drive oxen. I slew six hundred

enemies of God and man delivering from slavery God's people."

"What is it in thine hand Samson?"

"The jaw bone of an ass which was a power in the hand used by God,

to slay a thousand wicked cruel infidels."

"David why do you lay aside the armor of Saul and meet the giant,

with only a sling?"

"My God will give me the power to slay the foe to mercy and truth."

"Carry Nation, what have you in your hand?"

Sometimes a rock; sometimes a hatchet; God told me to use these to

smash that which has smashed and will smash hearts and souls. The

sound of this loving deed will stir conscience and hearts and while I

can not finish the smashing, the voter of this nation will use their ballots

that will, and this impulse will Carry A. Nation.

God sent an angel from heaven to tell Gideon to smash up the altar

and image of Baal. By divine command Achan and family were smashed.

God would not give Joshua victory until this was done. Saul was commanded

by God (through his prophet Samuel,) to utterly destroy the

Amalekite's nation, and all their substance. He was disobedient and saved

the king. Samuel hacked or smashed up Agag, although Saul was the

regularly appointed one. This is a case directly in point. The officers

in Kansas were oath-bound to do what Carry A. Nation did.

Our Savior's mission on earth was to "break (smash) every yoke

and set the captive free." Upon two occasions he made a scourge, of

small cords and laid it on the backs of wicked men who were doing unlawful

things. He came into this world "to destroy the works of the devil",

to "bruise" or crush the "head of the serpent". We are told to "Abhor

that which is evil", to "resist (or fight) the devil and he will flee"'. We

are not to be "overcome with evil but to overcome evil with good".

How? Resist the devil. God blessed the church at Ephesus, because

they "hated the evil workers, tried them and found them liars". The

hatred of sin is one mark of a Christian. Just in proportion to your love

for God will be your hatred of evil. I will here give you a Bible reading

on the subject. These are some instances of smashing. The ten plagues

of Egypt and the overthrow of Pharaoh, were smashing. The death of

of the first born also.

Gen. 19:24 30:15-19 6:25 9:5,6

Josh. 7:25, 26 7:20 4:7-11 7:10,11 15:15

Lev. 19:17 10:24-26 9:53

Num. 33:55,56 23:7

1 Sam. 15:33

Deut. 7:2-5 7:10-13

2 Chron. 34:4,5 21:1-9 19:20

Neh. 13:8-25 21:18-21

Judg. 2:3

Isa. 28:21 13:12-18 3:10 54:16 17:5-7 3:31

Matt. 21:12 19:13-20 4:21

John 2:13-23 25:17-19 5:7

Acts 13:8-11.

If I could I would turn the key on every church in the land, so as

to teach some preachers to go out, and not stay in, and compel poor sinners

to stay out. I yield no territory to the devil. Let us take every

saloon, every house of prostitution of men and women for God. "There

shall not a hoof be left behind." "The kingdom of heaven suffereth

violence, and the VIOLENT take it by force," which means that where the

evil is aggressive, we must be more so, and take, compelling surrender

by the determination never to yield.

I feel that I have been peculiarly favored to go into these places, to

"cry aloud and spare not and show my people their sins." I find this

class so hungry for something better. These poor actresses, who dress

in tights and sing indecent songs, are a weary, tired, heart-sick lot of

slaves. I mingle with them as a sister. When I can say a warning word

I say it. I call them affectionate names and mean it. God will judge

both of us. He knows who loved much; he can forgive much. Christ

said to a lot of men who took the amen pews: "The publicans and harlots

will go into heaven before you." Why? They "repented when they

heard". "How are they to bear without a preacher?" I never see a man

or woman so low but as a sculptor said of the marble: "There is an

angel there." Oh, God, help me to bring it out!

Jesus received sinners and ate with them. He left a command that

Christians should invite these to feasts in their homes. Oh! what a

revival of religion there would be if the homes of Christians were opened

to the lost and sinful, who are dying for some demonstration of love.

If the Son of God, the lovely, the pure, the blessed ate with sinners,

ought it not to be a privilege to follow Him. We are commanded to

"warn, rebuke, and reprove with all long suffering and doctrine." People

will work in a revival to get sinners saved, and will pass them day

after day on the street and not a word of Scripture, do they use to

remind them of God's judgements. Jesus said: "The world hateth me

because I testify that the works thereof are evil." I have had men to

swear at me, call me names and threaten to knock me down. At first

this caused me to feel mortified but that passed off. These very men

have afterward told me I was right and they were wrong. The devil

"threw some on the ground and they foamed at the mouth" before he

was cast out. I have often taken cigars and cigarettes out of men's and

boy's mouths. I wished to show them the wrong and that I was a friend.

Would you let one you love take a knife to open a vein or cut himself?

Oh! the sweetness and force of that promise: "Your LABOR is never in

vain in the Lord." This covers all cases, if you, for the love of God, do

anything. I often say to myself, after rebuking for sin: "You made a

mistake in the way you did this or that, and are you sure it was done

for the love of God and your neighbor?" "Yes." Then "your labor is

never in vain in the Lord". It is not WHAT we do that prospers, but what

God blesses.. "He that planteth is nothing and he that watereth is

nothing, but it is God that giveth the increase." And it matters not how

awkward the work, if it be done from love of God, it will prosper. Like

other things, the more you do, the better you can do.

All the Christian work I ever did seemed to meet with severe opposition

from church members. This is a great stumbling-block to some.

The church crucified our blessed Christ, that is, it was the hypocrites;

for the church is the light and salt, the body of Christ. "If I yet please

men, I should not be the servant of Christ." There is no other organization

but the church of Christ that persecutes its own followers. The

hierarchy in the church told Christ "He had a devil," but they could not

meet the argument when He said: "A kingdom divided against itself

will not stand." "If I, by the spirit of Beelzebub, cast out devils, by what

kind of a spirit do your children cast them out." The devil never destroys

his own work. If the saloon is of the devil, the power that destroys it

is the opposite. If a mother should see a gun pointed at her son would

she break the law to snatch the gun and smash it? The gun was not

hers. It may have been worth a thousand dollars. The saloon is worse

than the gun which could only destroy the body.

It is a great blessing to know your mission in life. I know why

Christians are waiting with folded hands, not being able to see their

mission. They are not willing to pay the great price for their commission.

The rich young man could have been a follower of Jesus, the greatest

honor in earth or heaven, and could have had eternal treasure in heaven

for the transient gain of earth. He would not pay the price. You must

give all, to get all. The effect of smashing has always been to cause

the people to arouse themselves. The Levite that severed his dead concubine

and sent parts of her body to the different tribes of Israel was

to cause the people to "consider, take advice and speak." Then they

acted and four hundred thousand men presented themselves to redress

this wrong.

The smashing in Kansas was to arouse the people. If some ordinary

means had been used, people would have heard and forgotten, but the

"strange act" demanded an explanation and the people wanted that,

and they never will stop talking about this until the question is settled.

Let us consider the character of Moses. It is said this man disobeyed

God but once, and he was the "meekest of all men". We are first attracted

to him peculiarly because he "refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's

daughter, rather suffering afflictions with the people of God than to

enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season." Rather be counted with the poor

despised, afflicted slaves under the taskmaster's lash than be a king or

an absolute monarch. This brought out his characteristic prohibition of

sin,--the renouncing of every worldly ambition, He here made the choice,

at the time when the temptations were greatest, for all that the world

could offer was his. He gave all and paid the price it requires to get all.

On the banks of the Nile he sees one man oppressing another. That

spirit of prohibition of this great wrong caused him to strike (smash)

the oppressor.