The weekly chieftain. [volume] (Vinita, Craig County, Okla.) 1905-1913, 1911-06-23
The Tragedy Of Carrie Nation
HER FORMER PRESS AGENT

When the newspapers of June 10
flashed the news that Carrie Nation,
the Kansas saloon-smasher, had died at
| lLeayenworth, Kans, the night before,
plying smile went over the country.
The notice of her death served only to
bring back to the minds of the public
the Carrie of ten years ago-the fiery,
fearless, saloon-smashing journalistic
joke, who served to hit the national
sense of humor as the acme of the
screaming ridiculous.
And therein lies the grim tragedy of
the life of Carrie Nation. The pathos
of this gray-haired, broken-hearted,
fanatical old woman is inseparable
from the humor she aroused. Both
pathos and humor were her through
the years when she thundered damna
tion to saloonists and wreaked de-
struction to their places of business.
1t was many times more in evidence
at her death-bed when, broken in
spirit and mind, she breathed her last
with none of those with whom and
for she had fought to soothe her dy-
ing hours Two nices, strange hos
pital surgeon and head nurse were
her only attendants.
The two dominant features of Carrie
Nations character were Numerically
opposed. On the one side was the
crusader the leader, the fearless fan
attic boldly defying the world; greedy
for money and seeking the best method
for getting it; alive to the value of ad-
vertising and quick to grasp the dra-
matte and sensational; a CRATER of
the lowest kind; a miser in her love for
gold; a glutton for publicity; a leech
a money-yampire.
On the other hand was her simple,
motherly character, as lovable as that
of any woman | have ever known.
Sometimes she would make one won
der how she could be the termagant
she was. She rarely referred to her
smashing tour and when she did it
was with quiet little Taught, her gray
eyes sparkling and her fist clinched
as she would describe how the men
would flee the saloon by the rear door
when she entered the front. The waste,
the injustice, the criminal side of her
actions, never seemed to enter her
head.
Many of Carrie Nations sensational
deeds were inspired by her press
agents or the press agents of the thea
ters in which, during few years, she
worked. She was keen, too, in making
her contracts. She received from $3.50
to 81 900 a week for lecturing at thea
ters, and always with the privilege of
selling in the lobby her little gold
hatchet pins and the history of her life.
This pricilege would net her from $1O0
to $3.50 week extra.
The first work I did for her was as a
press agent for a theater in Atlanta,
Ga. The house was putting on sensa-
tional plays at popular prices, and
Carrie Nation was signed for two
twenty-minute lectures each day, for
which she received $500 for the week
with the usual lobby privileges The
house manager chose Ten Nights in
a Bar Room" for the weeks produc-
tion, and Mrs. Nations profits for the
period amounted to nearly $1,000
In spite of the money she made, she
refused absolutely to stop at a first
class hotel. She preferred rather to
go to cheap place, because. she said,
she needed her money more than the
hotel-keepers did.
Not single suggestion made by me,
with view to making her stay in At
lanta more sensational, was rejected
by her. She arrived Sunday night and
early Monday morning began her cru
sade. There was big advertisement
for cigarettes in drug store window
in the center of the city, in which a
man made up to represent a manikin.
with electric wires attached, smoked
cigarettes. I suggested that Mrs. Ma
tion pull him out of the window back
wards.
OF course there was a big crowd in
front of the window and the little old
woman saw her first chance for a SEN
sation. She marched determinedly in
to the store. stopped in the center and
began TRADE against cigarette smok-
ing. Then, when the store became
crowded with people, she went to the
window, opened the back of it, grasped
the performer inside by the scruff Of