The Use and Need of the Life of Carry A. Nation Part 19

When I visited Chicago for the first time after the smas.h.i.+ng a Mr.

Brubaker called to see me. He was from Peoria and was hired by the Peoria Journal men to get me to edit that paper for one day. The arrangements were satisfactory to both parties. I went to Peoria. Mr.

Brubaker met me, took me to a hotel run by a woman who owned one or two saloons, but had none in the hotel she kept. I had not one line of copy for the paper but I got up at four in the morning and wrote continuously that day. I know G.o.d helped me. Mr. Brubaker took the copy. I never saw any of the Journal men until after the paper was out.

I went to see them, told them that only a small part of my copy that I wrote was in the paper. They said that several times they asked for my copy but Mr. Brubaker gave them his own. So he destroyed a great deal of my copy, supplying only what he wanted put in.

I spoke in the Opera House and this Mr. Brubaker was to give me fifty dollars for my lecture that night. After I had spoken I was asked to go into a noted saloon, Pete Weise's place. Mr. Brubaker said: "If you go I will not give you your fifty dollars," as the contract said I was to speak at no other place in the city. But as I had already spoken for him I did not feel bound. This man was posing as a prohibitionist but he was as loyal to the cause as Judas was to Jesus. I went to Pete Weis' place, one of the most expensive dance halls I was ever in. I spoke for the hundreds of poor, drugged and depraved men and women. There was a large picture or rather statuary of naked women among trees which I said must be smashed, Mr. Weis treated me very kindly and said: "I will have that boarded up," and so next day he did.

This Mr. Brubaker would not pay me a cent for my lecture and tried to garnishe the $100, the Journal was to pay me, and had it not been for a stroke of policy on the part of the Journal he would have taken every cent from me and left me to pay my expenses there and back.

Jesus said: "Beware of wolves in sheep's clothing." In a month from this time the saloon keeper sent me $50. The prost.i.tute loved more than Simon.

I saw in Peoria the largest distillery in the world. Not one of the hands are allowed to drink what they make. What would you think of a dry goods concern that would not allow its employes to use what they make? Mr. William McKinley was entertained here by Joe Greenhut, president of the "Whiskey Trust."

I was in Peoria when the prohibitionists held a convention there and was astonished that they would put up at a saloon or a hotel that run one.

I never eat or sleep in one. My conscience will not allow me. I never saw so many ragged children or dirty streets, as in Peoria.

WITCHCRAFT.

I heard so much of the "Weltmer treatment" for disease. I sent twenty-five dollars for a "mail course" so I could see for myself. This man Weltmer had a large inst.i.tution in Nevada, Mo., for humbugging the people. I always like to investigate these things myself, as I did Dowie, who I found out to be a false prophet. This Weltmer's papers were a complete treatise on witchcraft, spiritualism and hypnotism. I exposed this in every way I could. The Bible fully prepares people to expect such "lying wonders and miracles." The "Christian Science" is a witchcraft but very subtile. The most dangerous counterfeit bill is nearest like the genuine.

IN JAIL IN PHILADELPHIA.

The last jail I was in was in Philadelphia. I went down to lecture between the acts of "The Heart of a Hero." There was a very vile saloon kept by a Mr. Donoghue. This man stationed police to arrest me if I went in his place. In going home from the theatre at night I would look in and call to the poor victims not to be drugged and robbed.

This man had five or six bartenders handing out this poisonous drink to our boys, our mothers treasures. This man has ama.s.sed a fortune at this vile business and tries to pose as respectable, because he has a lot of this blood money. I was pa.s.sing there on the 14th of January, 1904.

I just opened the door when a two legged beer keg in the form of a policeman grabbed me and almost dragged me over the streets to the station. I was locked in and I spent the night in jail. Next morning I was discharged.

The next day when I went to the Pennsylvania railway depot to take the train a little ragged boy came to me and asked for a hatchet, the depot police shook the little fellow and hurled him away. The little boy began to cry and I said to the police: "Let that child alone! he is doing no harm to any one." He told me in a very angry tone to mind my business, and would not let the little boy take the hatchet from me. After this I was sitting on the bench waiting for my train, and a person came to me saying: "Let me see one of your hatchets." I opened my grip to show the little souvenirs, several came up to look at them. This same policeman was watching his chance to arrest me. He came up and said: "You will have to stop that." I said: "I am making no trouble, I have a right to meet people and talk to them and show my souvenirs too. You are the only one, making a disturbance here." Two policemen came up and caught me one by each arm, dragging me through the depot and down the elevator, and I was carried to the police station in a "black maria". This was done for spite and to show his authority. I spent a night in prison, and next morning I was fined ten dollars. I was my own lawyer. The magistrate before whom I was tried would not compel the officer to answer the questions I asked him.

In a few days I returned to Pittsburg and was invited by the Providence Mission to go out on the streets. Quite a crowd gathered and while I was speaking, I was arrested again by an officer who refused to tell me what I was arrested for. I was taken to the police headquarters.

The kind hearted matron wanted to give me a pillow and some bedding for I had nothing but a hard board in the cell. The Chief of Police forbade the matron to give me anything to make myself comfortable. He said: "That woman is giving us a great deal of trouble and we want to get rid of her." The matron came to me when no one was looking and advised me to give a bond of thirteen dollars and get out so that I might have a bed. I did this and went to my boarding house. I secured the services of a lawyer, Mr. Buckley. I was fined ten dollars which was afterwards remitted. This republican, rum-soaked police force make it a point to arrest me on every pretext. They have told me that if I win they will lose their jobs. Eighteen months before this I had been put in jail at Pittsburg, making three times all for doing my duty in that city.

CHAPTER XX.

WHY I WENT ON THE STAGE.--THE VICE OF TOBACCO.

I got hundreds of calls to go on the stage before I did. Gradually I got the light.

This is the largest missionary field in the world. No one ever got a call or was ever allowed to go there with a Bible but Carry Nation.

That door never was opened to any one but me. The hatchet opened it.

G.o.d has given it to me. My managers have said: "This is a variety house at, Watsons and the Unique, of Brooklyn, or the Boston on the Bowery. You do not wish to go there." Yes, those need me more than the rest; never refuse a call even from the lowest. If Jesus ate with publicans and sinners I can talk to them. Francis Willard said the pulpit and stage must be taken for G.o.d.

Persons often say: "Why do you take the money of such?" I say "I can do more good with the money than they can." After the battle the victor takes the spoils and is ent.i.tled to them. I will take all I can get in a good way. Money is a blessing, if used as such. I go on the stage to do good, I take their money for the same reason. The curse of it is when it is desired above the good of humanity. I am fis.h.i.+ng. I go where the fish are for they do not come to me. I thank G.o.d for this unspeakable gift. I take my Bible before every audience. I show them this hatchet, that destroys or smashes everything bad and builds up everything that is good. I tell them of their loving Deliverer who came to break every yoke and set the Captive free. When I look upon the hundreds of faces before me, I say: "Oh, these poor aching hearts! G.o.d give me a loving message." Words can not tell of the love I would like to bestow upon them. I often weep. "Oh, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how oft would I have gathered you as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings." Then I say: "There is one that loves more than you. He can make all things right."

There are but a handful comparatively that try to obey the commands of Jesus: "A remnant shall be saved." Caleb and Joshua were only two in six hundred thousand but they alone of this great mult.i.tude lived to see and inherit the promised land. Christ said. "Go out into the highways and hedges and compel them to come in that my home may be full."

Where are the highways and hedges: They are places where men and women are the most lost. How can they be compelled to come in? Love is the only compelling influence. If no one goes with love, how are these lost ones to know they are loved. Christ brought love down to us; He came down to do it. We must take His love to the low places--"Condescend to men of low estate." I praise my G.o.d for opening a door to me never opened to anyone else. I find the theatre stocked with boys of our country. They are not found in churches. I have not sought to get into the so-called "respectable set" but I have told my managers to get me into the worst cla.s.s. They need me most. They are as brands s.n.a.t.c.hed from the burning.

I am not only a reformer on the line of the licensed or unlicensed saloon, but on other evils. I believe that, on the whole, tobacco has done more harm than intoxicating drinks. The tobacco habit is followed by thirst for drink. The face of the smoker has lost the scintillations of intellect and soul it would have had if not marred by this vice. The odor of his person is vile, his blood is poisoned, his intellect is dulled.

A smoker is never a healthy man, either in body or mind, for nicotine is a poison. Prussic acid is the only poison that is worse. Nicotine poisons the blood, dulls the brain, and is the cause of disease. The lungs of the tobacco user are black from poison, his heart action is weak, and the worst thing to contemplate in the whole matter is that these tobacco users transmit nervous diseases, epilepsy, weakened const.i.tutions, depraved appet.i.tes and deformities of all kinds to their offspring.

Deterioration of the race is upon us, and unless there is some reform, idiocy, imbecility and extinction will be the legacy of the future generations.

A man that uses tobacco cannot have the nice moral perceptions on any point that he should have. I find him to be dulled and sluggish. The Bible says: "If thine eye be single, thy whole body is full of light. If thine eye be evil, thy whole body is full of darkness." The use of tobacco is a vice, and to the extent of that one vice, it degrades a mail. It opens the gate for other vices, for it is the gratification for one form of l.u.s.t.

It is a filthy habit, and I care not how often the smoker changes his clothes or washes his person, he is filthy. The stench from his breath indicates that his body repudiates such uncleanliness.

The tobacco user can never be the father of a healthy child. Therefore he is dangerous for a woman to have as a husband. If I were a young woman, I would say to the men who use tobacco and who would wish to converse with me: "Use the telephone; come no closer!" I would as soon kiss a spittoon as to kiss such a mouth. When a man begins to smoke he is taking his first lessons in drink. The two habits travel together.

A man never can attain his majority and use tobacco. He never can realize his full capabilities or his possibilities. He can always attain to a better standard without nicotine.

There is one objection that, from a business standpoint, every business man ought to make to tobacco. When he employs a man that uses tobacco he gets only a certain per cent. of his employee's time and of his brain, because the employee must serve his tobacco master part of his time and when he is not smoking his mind is preoccupied because he is thinking of smoking. Consequently, he cannot concentrate his mind upon his business.

I have heard poor, silly, empty-headed women say that it is manly to smoke. If it is manly to smoke, why isn't it womanly to smoke? The tobacco habit is the reverse of manhood and destroys manhood, for manhood means strength of character, not the gratification of l.u.s.t.

If tobacco is good for men, it is also good for women. I do not suppose that one could find a man so low and degraded as to walk down the street with a woman who had a cigarette or cigar in her mouth.

Women should make the same standard for men that men do for women.

Many women would smoke in public if men did not denounce it. MEN WOULD QUIT SMOKING IN PUBLIC IF WOMEN DENOUNCED IT AS MUCH.

I have heard some women say, "I like the smell of a good cigar."

I never smelled a good one. It is not made. They are like snakes; they are all bad. I never knew of but one good use that tobacco was put to, and that was to kill lice on cows. My father used it for that purpose on his farm. It does kill that kind of germs.

The evil has become so common that whenever you go abroad you are compelled to breathe the contents of somebody else's month. It would be rude of me to take a piece of fruit out of my mouth and throw it into somebody else's mouth, but anyone may throw his poisonous breath and smoke into my mouth and I have no defense. Spitting is forbidden in the cars. Smoking is a great deal worse, but the reason why it is not denounced is that people can get a revenue from men's smoking, while they have to clean up after spitters, and there is no money in that.

I can prevent a man spitting into my mouth, but I cannot avoid his smoke. A man seems to think that he is free to project his stinking breath in my face on the street, in hotels, in sleeping cars, coaches--indeed, in every public place. Now I would as soon smell a skunk. There is some excuse for a skunk; he can't help being one. But men have become so rank in their persons from this poisonous odor that they almost knock me down as they pa.s.s me. And when I say, "Man, don't throw that awful stench in my face," he answers, "You get away." I reply, "If I smelled as badly as you do, I would be the one to get away."

Oh, the vile cigarette! What smell can be worse and more poisonous?

I feel outraged at being compelled to smell this poison on the street.

I have the right to take cigars and cigarettes from men's mouths in self-defense, and they ought not to be allowed to injure themselves.

"Liberty is the largest privilege to do that which is right, and the smallest to do that which is wrong." Governments are organized to take care of the governed. I believe it ought to be a crime to manufacture, barter, sell or give away cigars, cigarettes and tobacco in any form.

Oh, for the success of the Prohibition Party that will bring in reforms along these lines--and this is the only party that will do it! Tobacco degenerates body and mind. Physical and mental culture demand its discontinuance.

Dr. Jay W. Seaver, a.s.sociated physical director of Yale University, says: "Among college students, the gain of growth, in general, is 12 per cent. greater among those who do not use tobacco than those who smoke.

It has also proven by tests in the laboratory that the nicotine in a fairly mild cigar will reduce a man's muscular power from 25 to 40 per cent."

Were it not for the tobacco habit, we would need no smoking car.

Suppose women had a vice that required them a separate apartment from the men when they travel. Even in the cars where the women travel there are rooms fixed up in luxuriant style while poor mothers with their babies have to sit upright and smell this rank and poisonous odor. But of course women have no redress, or are made to think they have none.

Shame to you men, a decent dog will not bite a female, while men the impulse of protecting their females they are lower than a decent beast.

While I was in New York City last week April the 2nd a Mr. Thomas McGuire, treasurer of the Fourteenth Ave., Theatre had his tongue cut out to prevent tobacco cancer from spreading. This was from smoking cigars. General Grants' tongue rotted from the same cause.

This is one of the best poems on the vice I ever read. Author unknown.

HE SMOKES.

"In the office, in the parlor; On the sidewalk, on the street; In the faces of the pa.s.sers, In the eyes of those he meets, In the vestibule, the depot, At the theatre or ball; E'en at funerals and weddings, And at christenings and all.

"Signs may threaten, men may warn him; Babies cry and women coax; But he cares not one iota, For he calmly smokes and smokes.

Oh, he cares not whom he strangles, Vexes, puts to flight, provokes; And although they squirm and fidget, He just smokes and smokes and smokes.