The record-union., 1897-10-02
KANSAS WOMAN ORATOR.
MRS. ST. JOHN TALKS ON SOME
NATIONAL ILLS.
Chief Among Them She Places the
Liquor Trafic-A Bright
Speaker.

Mrs. Eugenia st. John, the noted w.
G. 7. u. lecturer from Kansas, address
ed a small but intelligent audience at
the Congregational Church last even
dng. Nearly all her hearers were OF
her own sex.
But Mrs. st. John talked just as earn
estly and eloquently as If burn
ing her words into the hearts OF thou-
sands She is a talker from away
back and deals in strong Anglo-SaXol
language, though her manner IS gehtle
and womanly. She has evidently tfaF-
eled a great deal, and stored her mlno
with facts and figures that enaple her
to speak knowingly on all topics al
fecting the moral, financial and poItlcaI
standing of all parts of the nation
Mrs. St. John spoke at length OF the
great work in the cause Of morallty'
temperance and good government that
is being carried on by the Woman
Christian Temperance Union, which or
gandzation. she said, is strongly en-
trenched in every city and town OF any
size in the Union. She told Of its lnstI-
tutions for the care, comfort and edu-
cation Of those who have been made to
suffer from the evils of intemperance,
and Of what the women hoped to ac-
complish, and what they would have
accomplished ere this if the men-espe-
cially the lawmakers Of the States or
the NatIon-had done their duty in the
past.
The members of Congress We're
''roasted'' for the Indifferent manner in
which the women's appeals for laws to
restrain vice were treated, and the
speaker said that If the men would only
acknowledge their inability to deal with
social wrongs and step down and al
low the women to show what they can
do. the country would soon realize the
difference. When the four pillars of
our social systematic home, the
church, the school and the law-become
undermined through the operation Of
lax methods, what hope is there left?
Speaking of the liquor traffic, and OF
the Governments encourage cement and
aid thereto, she said that young men
are taken from the refining influences
of good homes and placed in the army
for the protection of the Nation, but
she ventured to declare that once in the
army they are made drunkards. The
0ONGiIlIACnl gives permits IOF army
traders to sell liquor to the men of the
different army posts, and she ventured
TO say-after having visited many of
them-that there is not an army post
OF a thousand men in the country where
one hundred can be found who have not
fallen into the liquor habit
If 1 had twelve sons" she said, ''I
would rather lay them all in the grave
than see them enter the army Of this
great and glorious nation"
Continuing in this strain, Mrs. ST.
John said that this republic had much
on which to pride itself, but it is also
sponsor for many evils. In a country
blessed with all the advantages that
God could give, there is not city or
town of any size that is not burdened
with a bonded debt. No country, she
declared, can long run on in this way
rolling up bonded debts to oppress and
snslave the coming generations. There
are towns in Kansas of a few thousand
inhabitants that have incurred bonded
debts of $4,000 that couldn't pay
$1,000, and never expect to pay.
In New York City the revenue from
liquor licenses looks big. 1t amounts
TO about S1,700000 per year, but look
at the other side of the account. 1t
takes that sum and two millions more