The Montgomery advertiser. [volume] (Montgomery, Ala.) 1885-1982, 1902-10-30
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Letters to The Editor.
Mrs. Nation in Texas.

~sRtAOh Al 4O<Nco'
Dallas, Texas, Oct. %. 1902.
Editor The Advertiser:
nave just read, in the columns of The
Advertiser, an article entitled THE
Smasher Smashed" from which l take
the following quotation:
1t is really surprising that Mrs. Nation
didn't have more sense than to go to
Texas, of all places in the world, 10 ex-
pioit her hatcnet stunts She would have
Jared better in Kentucky, for the Texans
are not at all patient people when one
attempts to interfere with what they look
on as one of the inherent and inaliena BILE
rights of men. They have about as large
a stock of chivalry as ordinary people.
but when Mrs. Carrie went into an Aus
tin saloon and set out to wreck 1t she
was promptly thrown into the street, and
that with little regard to the proprieties
or to her feelings. 1t is also noted that
she left the city under compuson on the
first train next morning
1t appearing that you have been mis-
led. as to what really transp!-ed on the
occasion of Mrs. Nations recent visit
to Austin, and taking 1t for granted that
you would be glad to have the facts, /
take pleasure in giving them to you, as
l was in Austin at the time named and
had ample opportunity for ascertaining
what really transpired. In the first place
Mrs. Nation lectured, on the night of
the 18th, in the Opera House. at Austin.
Her audience was rather small, but she
was given the most Courteous attention.
During her lecture. in which she recount
ed her frightful experiences. sjn Kansas,
during, and subsequent to, her smash
ing campaign, she stated that she would
never do any more smashing, but
would devote her energies to lecturing,
with view to raising funds for building
home Qn Kansas City, for drunkard' 5
wives. The following morning she made
an impromptu talk to a number of the
students of the University of Texas, on
the campus. After completing her pro-
fV, h. .t1 AnI 10
road station to take the train, but
stopped on the way to enter a saloon for
the purpose of reading the proprietor a
lecture. Upon her refusal. or failure, to
desist, she was taken by the arm and
escorted to the sidewalk, whereupon she
continued her course to the station and
boarded her train. She made no attempt
to wreck the saloon and was not prompt
ly thrown into the street" Moreover, |
do not believe. from what l have seen
of Texans, that there is man in the
State who could be induced to throw into
the street Mrs. Nation or any other old
woman. 1t is true, If her statement is to
be accepted, that she carries a broken
wrist, but this she brought from Kansas
with her.
Mrs. Nation is an interesting character
well worthy of study. Full of irrational,
volcanic enthusiasm as is fequently the
case with reformers; possessing nature
peculiarly intense, and smarting under
the defiant proecution of an illegal bus
mess. which she believed gravely hurtful
to her State and people, she sought, quite
unWiSely, | think, TO abate laWleSSneSS
with lawlessness. She seems to be the
John Brown of the prohibition cause but
whether her work is to exert any appre-
ciable influence upon the attainment of
the end desired by so many, is as diff
cult of ascertainment as would be the
task of measuring, with any degree of
accuracy, the part he of Ossawatomie
played in the reinstatement of the ne
gro. 1t were well if all advanced think
ers could be temperate and gently per-
suasive in the prosecution of their work,
but this cannot be, so long as human
beings are human. There will arise, from
time to time. enthusiastic volatile char
acterS who insist on hurrylng along their
reform without waiting for the slow pro-
cesses of social evolution to right things.
1T is even recorded of one great reform
err, who found monev changers defiing
the temple, that he procured 'cowhide'
and scourged them out without waiting
to have them indicted and tried in the
courts. l assume that no judicially-
minded man would endorse the employ
ment of violent means to accomplish any
reform that could be brought about by
the use of lawful methods, but this old
woman, in her plain garb of snowy white
duck, her gray hair brushed smoothly
back over her forehead, and her hand
holding her we'll thumbed Bible, while
she talks. is not, l submit, a picture
calculated to make any one, certainly
not real man. desire to throw her
into the street"
No, Texas grows about one-third of
the cotton crop of the United States,
plants 10000 acres of rice, has one line
of railroad using $50 Oil burning locomo-
tives, and does las well as has a num-
Der of other things to which one might
point with pride but she does not ILL
use old women, who are earnest, If mis-
guided. The spirit of fraternity, the love
of liberty and deep-seated hatred of
tyranny which developed Houston, Aus
tin, Bowie. Crockett and their comrades,
still abides, and the Lone Star State,
which holds sacred the memories of The
Aimo, Goliad and San Jacinto. endorses
as one of its cardinal tenets. fair play.
Much of the spirit here alluded to is,
doubtless, due to the tact that the census
of 1890 showed that there were residing in
the State 10000 native-born Aabamians.
Lucien V. La Taste.