Bismarck weekly tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, Dakota [N.D.]) 1884-1943, 1890-03-21

mbS. bhOOhS. MHS. CARMlCdAEL.
JOHN A. CROSS.
The plan was simple. The ladies of a small
city or village formed in bands, took up
position at the door of a saloon and sang and
prayed till the proprietor fled or capitulated.
Every leading newspaper in rne state soon
had its correspondent describing the work.
The noted lecturer on hygiene, DR.. Dio Lewis,
with his once notorious convert, John Calvin
Van Pelt, traversed the state, organizing the
crusade. The public streets of almost every
place resounded with song and prayer, and at
the end Of two months the central committee
announced that they had closed LOO saloons
and had 1000 more "under conviction" Then
came the inevitable reaction-the dying out
Of enthusiasm, the %reopening Of saloons, in
Guiding that kept by the notorious Van Pelt
(who, by the way, soon after got a five years
sentence to the Missouri states prison for
stealing a pair Of gears, the regular war
over license, and then the Murphy movement.
The w. c. T. u. came next, and in due time
split on the rock of politics, and now the
ladies are devising some new scheme against
King Alcohol. LMthrop has had the common
experience. For q long time there was no
licensed saloon In the place, but there was q
drug store" with all that the quotation
marks indicate; the temperance people made
the usual fight, scored the usual failure, and
explained it by the usual charge-that the
officials had winked at the violation Of the
law. The real reason was, as in so many fail
ures in laws aimed at social customs, the i'm
possibility of finding witnesses who could
remember" No other drug of mans inven-
ton produces such oblivion of memory as
whisky.
The ladies then took the matter in hand,
and eighty-lve signed a pledge to extermi-
nate liquor selling in Lathrop. By this time
there were two saloons. Late in January
Abe Scruggs stabbed John L. Brooks-both
drunk. Mrs. Brooks appealed to the women
and declared that If one would help her she
would smash the saloon. She got help. On
a mild afternoon they appeared on the main
street, their line of march directed on
Thomas Wards saloon. He bolted and
locked the door, imprisoning some dozen men
who had been interested in a game of. bill
iards. On the opposite side of the street a
large crowd had gathered. The maple trees
there were full of spectators.
"Break inl" shouted one Of them. A lady,
name not reported, dashed in the glass win
dow, and, thrusting in her hand, unlocked
the door.
Then pouring after through the gaping space.
A tide Of women flows and fills the place;
The Greeks behold, they tremble and they fly,
The floor Is splashed with rum and tumult rends
the sky.
No, it wasn't quite so Homeric as that, but
it was exciting. The sight of the beer bottles
and whisky barrels melted the women to re-
newed action. Pretty misses gathered bee,
bottles from the cases and rushed with them
into the streets, mothers rolled filed whisky
barrels about as if they were empty, and
with axes, hatchets and rocks knocked in the
tops and let the contents flow on the floor.
Barrels were rolled into the streets and the
crowd cheered to the echo. Hatchets and
axes were again applied with effect and tho
whisky flowed in the cutters.