The Use and Need of the Life of Carry A. Nation Part 17

Taft, of the noted 'Taft' Cigar has position of lecturer, and the inference is, there will be more vile cigars smoked than ever, under such patronage.

Oh, mothers and fathers! Rise in protest against these outrages, slaughter, b.l.o.o.d.y anarchy, and treason.

CHAPTER XVIII.

PROHIBITION OR ABOLITION.--WHAT IT MEANS.--THE FREE METHODISTS AND OTHER MINISTERS ENDORSE THE WORK.--A CATHOLIC PRIEST'S ENDORs.e.m.e.nT.-- MODERN DEBORAH.--JOHN P. ST. JOHN.

G.o.d is a politician; so is the devil. G.o.d's politics are to protect and defend mankind, bringing to them the highest good and finally heaven.

The devil's politics are to deceive, degrade and to make miserable, finally ending in h.e.l.l. The Bible fully explains this. The two kinds of seed started out from Abel and Cain, then Ishmael and Isaac, Esau and Jacob.

There are but these two kinds of people. G.o.d's crowd and the Devil's crowd. The first law given and broken in Eden was a prohibition law.

G.o.d said: "Thou shalt not." The devil tempted and persuaded the first pair to disobey. He did it by deceiving the woman. The fact of redemption now is to bring them back to the law of G.o.d. What is law? G.o.d says that sin is a transgression of law. Blackstone says: "Law commands that which is right and prohibits that which is wrong." Law is one, as truth is one. It is not possible to make a bad law. If it is bad, it is not a law. We have bad statutes. Law is always right. Nothing is wrong that is legal, and wrong may be licensed, but never legalized. I find lawyers who do not understand this. I often hear the term "legalized saloon".

When I was pa.s.sing the building of the supreme court in New York City, on Madison Avenue, I read an inscription on one of the marble statues representing a judge with a book on either side of the door: "Every law not based on wisdom is a menace to the state." This is a false, misleading sentence for all law is wisdom. It might have read: "All statutes not based on wisdom, are a menace to the state." Then at the base of the statue of a soldier, on the other side of the entrance, was this statement: "We do not use force until good laws are defied." Which ought to read: "We do not use force until laws are defied." Such ideas as these are corrupting courts, and biasing the public mind, and the injury is more than apparent to the observer. If law is not a standard, what standard can we have? We must have one. We repeat again: "Law commands that which is right and prohibits that which is wrong." Any statute that does this is lawful. Any that does not, is anarchy.

G.o.d is truly the author of law. The theocratic form of government was perfect and the only perfect government that ever existed, we need no other statutes than those that G.o.d gave. He said: "We must not kill a bird sitting on her young; must not see our enemy's beast fall under his burden and not help him rise." And the refinement of mercy was taught in the statute that said: "You must not kill the mother and lamb in one day; must not seethe a kid in its mother's milk; must not muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn." The use, and the only use, of law is to prevent and punish for sin. All law has a penalty for those who violate it. Governments that are the greatest blessing to its citizens are those who can prohibit, or abolish the most sin or crime. Crime is not prevented by toleration, but by prohibition. Nine of the ten commandments are prohibitive and begin with: "Thou shalt not."

The success of life, the formation of character, is in proportion to the courage one has to say to one's ownself: "Thou shalt not." It is not the man or woman who has no temptation to sin, who has the strong character, but the man or woman who has the desire but will not yield to sin. Some people ask: "Why did G.o.d make the Devil?" The Devil is G.o.d's fire. Like an alchemist G.o.d is purifying souls. The Devil is an agent in salvation. "Every Devil in h.e.l.l is harnessed up to push every saint into heaven."

Those who are counted worthy to enter into the delights of that heavenly land are those who have had their "fiery trials," tried and made white. Man would have no credit and could not hear: "Good and faithful servant;" if he had no temptations to do otherwise, man would be but a mere machine.

G.o.d has never used for his work, any but those who prohibit evil.

The pilgrim fathers were forced from the mother country because this principle of prohibition burned in their hearts. When England would oppose the colonies, it was prohibition that smashed the tea, over in Boston harbor. George Was.h.i.+ngton was put at the head of the colonial armies that prohibited, by much bloodshed and suffering, the oppression from the mother country. Our Civil War was the result of the principle to abolish or prohibit the slavery of the colored race. Now we have a worse slavery than England threatened us with or the poor blacks suffered at the hands of their taskmasters. This slavery of soul and body, is one that leads to eternal death. The forces of G.o.d are with the abolition, or prohibition of wrong. The forces of darkness and death are with those who are willing to be led captive by the Devil at his will, and to lead others under this grievous yoke of those who are trying to perpetuate the cause of evil.

There are men who desire to be loyal, who are voting for license or in license parties, because they do not stop to think. The people are generally right on all questions. They go wrong more for lack of thought, than for lack of heart. Edmund Burke, the greatest English stateman, said: "The people have as good government as they deserve." Because the people have always had the power, and in America especially, they are sovereign. The president and all others in office, are but servants of the people. In another chapter I have given what the supreme court says about the impossibility of licensing wrong by law, or according to law.

Hear the language of the Declaration of Independence: "We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created free and equal, that they are endowed by their creator, with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, that to secure these rights, governments are inst.i.tuted among men deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed." The licensing of intoxicating drink results in suicide and murder, whether or not the saloon- keeper or state be held responsible. Some one is. Who? The man who consents to or aids by his vote is most criminal. It is said that drink kills a man a minute. Suppose that we had a war that killed a man every five minutes. Would there not be howling for an end of bloodshed. This is more than ten times worse, for the soul is more valuable than the body.

Freedom or liberty in animals is following instinct and underlying appet.i.te. Not so with man; to the reverse. It is the freedom of conscience and will, from the bondage of ignorance of the person, the gratification of appet.i.te and pa.s.sion. The body is a good servant, but a tyrant when it is master. A man must be master or slave. One must first, like Daniel, "purpose in his heart that he will not defile himself". Liberty or freedom is only attained by prohibition of opportunity to do wrong to ourselves or allow any one else to do so. Citizens.h.i.+p not only requires one to obey law but must see that others do so also.

The principles of government are founded on liberty and self-control.

Drunkenness is a loss of self-control. Anything that animalizes men, is a menace to the life of the state and prevents the purpose of government.

Thus replacing the weapon of destruction in the hands of its foes and the danger is great, because so many citizens are under the domination of their own will and pa.s.sion. This cla.s.s is being multiplied by this licensed crime. These willing cla.s.ses are an integral part of the nation. By licensing rum, we are fostering a power that is increasing the weakness, and preventing the self-control of its citizens. This is conspiracy, treason, black as night. Some plead the revenue of our wealth. Our wealth is in our citizens. The state can not add to its treasury at the expense of its manhood without punis.h.i.+ng herself. The state must guard the character of its citizens. It can not make them honest but it must punish dishonesty; can not make them humane, but it must prohibit an act of inhumanity; and should oppose and forbid every license that man would desire or try to obtain that which would allow such gratification of the animal over the moral.

The nation is what its homes are. The family first, then the nation.

Nothing can injure an individual or a family that is not an injury to the state. The fight for firesides means a fight for our national life.

Our revolutionary sires fought for this. This is the fight that Carry A.

Nation is making. It is the heart of love, liberty and peace. Some of these thoughts I have copied from an article I read on a few leaves of a torn pamphlet, no name. But the writer has the true meaning of government.

I am a prohibitionist because I am a christian. I want to get to heaven. None but prohibitionists ever do. h.e.l.l is made for those who take license to sin.

h.e.l.l'S CONSPIRACY.

England has the same struggle that we have. The government conspiring against the people. This article from the pen of Lady Carlisle tells of the same vile plot the Prime Minister of England sustains, the brewer against the people, just as Roosevelt and his crowd here:

THE PEOPLE'S STRUGGLE AGAINST THE LIQUOR TRADE.

(Spirited appeal by Lady Carlisle.)

Throughout the past year we have been face to face with a grave crisis in the history of our temperance movement, but the present Session of Parliament is the moment of our most imminent peril.

In March, 1903, the Prime Minister, surrendering to the threats of the liquor trade, recklessly attacked the Magistrates because in the public interest they had here and there reduced the number of licensed houses, and he declared to the Brewer's Deputation that in so doing the Magistrates had been guilty of "gross injustice," and that "to such unjust confiscation of property the Government could not remain indifferent." In April the Government supported Mr. Butcher's Compensation Bill, and in August Mr. Balfour gave a pledge in the House of Commons that the Government would introduce legislation "at the earliest possible moment in the following Session," which would put an end to the present "wide- spread feeling of insecurity on the part of English license-holders."

Since the Prime Minister made these p.r.o.nouncements, our forces have everywhere set themselves in array to fight the impending legislation, by which the 'Trade' is to be endowed at the expense of the nation's welfare, and is to have its privileges and its powers greatly increased.

The government, having yielded to the dictation of the Publican interest, indicated that either the Magistrates must be hindered from exercising their ancient power of not renewing annual licenses when in their discretion they deem such renewal to be against the public good; or else that some measure of compensation must be enacted, whereby this wealthy liquor monopoly should have its huge financial profits made permanently secure by the grant from Parliament of a vested interest in their licenses. If after the pa.s.sing of such a measure the Magistrates should, for the protection of the people, refuse the renewal of a license, the holder of that speculative public-house investment would be by law guaranteed against loss. He would thus no longer need to insure himself against the risk of non-renewal, for the State would have turned this annual license into a freehold property. Then for the first time this dangerous 'Trade' would have obtained that fixity of tenure which it has so long coveted, but which Parliament in its wisdom has always vigorously refused to grant; and the nation, which has already too long suffered under the oppression of the Liquor Traffic with its terrible licensed temptations, would then be permanently crushed under one of the most perilous of all the political tyrannies that ever sapped the strength and the freedom of a great people. For these Liquor Traffickers have proclaimed cynically their anti-social aloofness, from the ideals of good citizens.h.i.+p; "they know no interest but their own," and their defiant boast is heard at all elections, "Our Trade our Politics."

Today the people and the 'Trade' have come to close quarters in their conflict; and all Temperance workers must join with dedicated fervour in unremitting and widespread agitation, till the danger is past.

Deep and living must be the zeal and the faith that inspire our work.

The campaign of protest and of "active resistance" has started vigorously, and it must never slacken till victory is won. Day by day the pressure of public opinion must increase, till the impression made on Parliament by resolutions and pet.i.tions shall be overwhelming. The struggle against the 'Trade' and its Government backers is hard, but we must fight straight on, for the issue is of vital importance and we should be ready to make a determined and triumphant resistance to the Prime Minister's sinister and unashamed attempt to sell our immemorial rights to England's most dangerous foe, that gigantic Drink Trade, which lives and thrives on the sorrow and degradation of our people.

The worth of our temperance party as a fighting force is once more being tested, and I trust that we shall not be found unworthy servants of the great cause which is in our keeping. It rests with the Temperance stalwarts, leading the conscience of the nation, to win the day. They fought and they won the same battle in 1888, and again in 1890, and the achievement of those years can a.s.suredly be repeated today, if we rightly grip the principles that underlie our old Temperance beliefs, holding fast to them without wavering or losing heart, and if we work ever zealously, glowing with the cheerful faith which belongs to those who know that Right will win in the long run, if only reformers are patiently steadfast in their task, even when the ultimate goal is not yet in sight. We must spend ourselves, still marching with our faces set.

ROSALIND CARLISLE, President North of England Temperance League.

President British Women's Temperance a.s.sociation.

THIS ARTICLE IS FROM THE TEMPERANCE WITNESS OF NORTH OF ENGLAND.

This explains the danger to honest trade. The reason why we have capital against labor. The concentration of money without compensation to labor. The funds that acc.u.mulate corrupt the government and enslaves the people:

THE CAUSE OF BAD TRADE.

"Every s.h.i.+lling invested in the liquor traffic inflicts a distinct injury to the cause of labor, for there is no trade which pays less wages in proportion to its receipts than the traffic in intoxicants. If therefore the capital which is now invested in the manufacture and sale of these liquors could only be turned into other channels there would be no difficulty in finding an honest wage for an honest day's work for every unemployed laborer in the land. Let us ill.u.s.trate this. In a blue book on wages and production, issued from the Board of Trade in 1891, it was stated that for every L100 received in mining, L55 went in labor; of every L100 in s.h.i.+pbuilding, L37 went in labor; of every L100 in railways, L31 went in labor; of every L100 in cotton manufacturies, L29 went in labor; but of every L100 in brewing, L7 only goes into the pocket of the workman. The same result was shown in another way by Mr. W. S. Caine, M. P., when he said: 'He was in Scotland, in the neighborhood of a very large soap factory. He was shown in the locality twelve old cottages and one hundred new ones. A short time ago the soap factory was a distillery, and then the twelve old cottages sufficed for all the men the industry employed; but when it was turned into a soap factory it became necessary to build one hundred cottages to accommodate the extra hands which the manufacture of soap required.'

The shutting up of the distillery and the building of these hundred cottages meant increased trade to all the local shopkeepers, and in turn this benefited the wholesale trade and caused increased employment. The way in which labor is starved by the liquor traffic is further ill.u.s.trated by the following facts:-

The Publicans' Paper says: "Two breweries in Sheffield turn out 50,000 barrels of beer a year each, but they only employ 660 men. An Edinburgh Distillery with a turnover Of L1,500,000 a year only employs 150 men. An Iron Ore Company in c.u.mberland, with a turnover of L250,000 a year, employs 1,200 men. Our largest ironworks employ 3,000 men each for the same turnover that the distillery employs 150."

Say She Is Insane. From a minister, Rev. William Ashmore, D. D.-- "They say Mrs. Nation in insane. The wonder is that tens of thousands of mothers and widows are not insane along with her. The wonder is that instead of one hatchet slas.h.i.+ng away among the decanters there are not ten thousand of them all over the land. To stand by the grave of a husband or son ruined by drink is enough to drive a woman crazy.

Instead of criticising Mrs. Nation, let us turn on those heartless saloon- keepers and the negligent and responsible judiciary and that indifferent and callous community. They are the ones who put the edge on Mrs.

Nation's hatchet. The Master said: 'If these should hold their peace immediately the stones would cry out.' It is because those pledged to public order hold their peace that Mrs. Nation's hatchet is flying about."

A Catholic Priest. Mendota, Minn.--"Mrs. Carry Nation. Dear Sister:--These days back the season's routine duties of a Catholic priest have prevented me from expressing to you my sympathy and my admiration for your pluck. You are the John Brown of the temperance cause.

Your smas.h.i.+ng of saloon fixtures has been but a very little thing beside the effect it had, and was bound to have, all over the country, and the world, in building up backbone and courage and holy emulation in hundreds of thousands of those reading of it. You are a credit to womankind and humanity; you are infinitely more deserving of the grat.i.tude of the country than are the men at the head of our armies and fleets in needless and demoralizing war. I want to send you $2.00 but have some fears it may not reach you safely if I enclosed it herein. Praying that the Lord may comfort and sustain you, I am yours very respectfully, MARTIN MAHONY.

Trinadad, Colorado, Feb. 28, 1901.--Dear Carrie Nation:--Go on save all you can. If it had not been for the drink and dance halls I would not be at deaths door at the age of 28. I am thankful to have enough life to repent, MINNIE MAY.

Mrs. Nation a Modern Deborah.. Thus Saluted by the Boston, W. C.

T. U., at Memorial Service in Honor of Francis Willard. Boston, Ma.s.s.-- Mrs. Carry Nation, the strenuous Kansas temperance reformer, was hailed as a "modern Deborah" at a meeting of the local W. C. T. U.

yesterday afternoon in the vestry of Park Street Church. Not a dissenting voice was heard from among the gathering of perhaps 200 women, but all over the room there was audible expressions of approval of the Characterization, which was applied by Mrs. Mary H. Hunt, a prominent member of the local branch of the union. Mrs. Hunt said that Mrs. Nation is like Deborah of the Book of Judges, who led an army of 10,000 men to victory against her country's enemies, when not a man could be found to lead the enterprise. She aroused unmistakable evidences of indors.e.m.e.nt from her audience when she remarked that the lady with the hatchet can truly say, "Until I arose, there was no man to punish unpunished rebellion against the law." Mrs. Hunt concluded by saying that thoughtful reformers are waiting with much interest to see what will be the result of Mrs. Nation's cyclonic campaign.

A Son Wrecked By Liquor. "Some day the mothers of this country will burn all the saloons and never a man in all the land will dare to check them."--New York Journal.

DEAR MRS. NATION:-I am one of these mothers and would be willing to help you to wreck or burn these saloons. I have a son who is a wreck from the accursed stuff. Oh! 'tis a dark blot on this republic. Even Mohammedans do better than we, a Christian people, for in all Turkey one can not purchase strong drink. But it follows our flag wherever it is planted. Let me know if I can help you. MRS. P. D. OLIVER.

Helen M. Gougar, Lafayette, Ind., writes: "I want to thank the editor of the SMASHER'S MAIL for the good she has done by her unique method of campaigning against the liquor traffic. Her message has gone around the globe for everybody has heard of Carrie Nation and her hatchet. By the way I think the funniest thing on the pages of history is the scare that has caused men (G.o.d save the mark!) to bolt and bar their doors and turn pale with fright, because one little, old enthusiastic lady was headed their way!! Oh, ye braves!! You are almost as brave as if you used your opportunities to protect your offspring from the accursed liquor traffic. Let the smas.h.i.+ng go on."

Far Away New Jersey. Camden, N. J.--"Mrs. Carry Nation: DEAR SISTER:--When our New Jersey Prohibition Conference was held at Trenton February 14, we sent a telegram to you endorsing your work in Kansas, a prohibition State. It was signed by our former candidate for governor, Rev. Thomas Landon, Rev. James Parker, a former state chairman, and myself, who offered the resolution. Not having received an acknowledgement, I do not know that you received it; if so, will you kindly let me have a word from you to give to our State Convention that will be held May 7? I wish New Jersey had either statutory or const.i.tutional prohibition, there would be some smas.h.i.+ng done here, too. Yours for the extermination of the liquor traffic, D. W. GARRIGUES."

What St. John thinks of my work in Kansas: John P. St. John, who was governor of Kansas twice and once headed the National Prohibition ticket as candidate for President of the United States, warmly indorses the acts of Mrs. Nation in her crusade against the liquor traffic.

In a letter written to Judge W. J. Groo from Olathe, Kans., he likens her crusade to that of John Brown against slavery. The letter was not written for publication, but Judge Groo secured permission to give it to the World. It says: "My dear Judge: It was almost like grasping the hand of an old friend to receive your letter of the 31st ult. Mrs.