Weekly Caledonian. (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1919-1920, 1919-02-26
...EditOrial...
"A Wreath for Carrie"

Great reforms are not easily won
nor arc they even won without rc-
sort to methods of Il nature to arouse
and disturb the sclf-satisfed and con-
tcntcd,' comments The Christian
Science Monitor (Boston), introduc-
ing brief appreciation of the part
played by the late Carrie Nation i'll
the prohibition movement that has
just swept the country. Reform
pioneers are likely, as she did, to
make themselves both ridiculous and
disliked. Time may convert them
into popular heroes, but while they
are actively engaged in the work that
i; destined TO make them blessed
l,crcfatci, they are considered dema-
gogs Or fanatics, OF, at least, public
nuisances. The Monitor presents US
typical the case of the lady with
the hatchet:
Carrie Nation caused great deal
of annoyance in Kansas, a state that
meant very well, indeed, but that was
content for long while with merely
meaning well. Having become pro-
hibition state in 1880, many of Il:
people thought it had gone f
enough.
Throughout the larger part of il
the State prohibition law was en-
forced, and dryness was characteris
tic of all Kansas areas in which
the anti-liquor clement was ever
watchful and alert; but the liquol
interests, through collusion with To-
cal authorities, were shipping intox-
icants into the State regularly from
Nebraska, Iowa, and Missouri, and in
some parts of Kansas, particularly in
the west and southwest, distillers and
brewers, despite the preponderance
of aati-liquor sentiments, did not even
take the trouble to mask OF conceal
the traffic by rcsorting to the "speak-
cay" or the "blind-pig."
Carrie Nation was daughter of
Kentucky, a State once noted for its
distilleric3. She had married, in her
girlhood, a man who had become
dicted to drink, and this had destroy
cd their happiness.
The loss of her husband filled her
with intense aversion to the saloon.
and she determined to devote her
life to tho work of arousing public
anta"onism against the barrocm~
Removing to Kansas, she marie
David Nation, who sympathizcd with
her prohibition tendencies.
At first she went about her work
in an argumentative fashion. She
would enter barrooms and address
the proprietor, if he were present,
but, at any rate, the bartender and
the patrons.
But she soon realized that little
real progress was being made, and
that, while obtaining a great deal of
notoriety in the press, she was max.
ing very little headway in the mat
ter of arousing the better clemert
of the public to recognition of the
real meaning of her work. So she
decided to make a departure. Armed
with a hatchet, she entered the ella
borately appointed barroom of the
Carry Hotel in Wichita, on December
Ct, 1900, and proceeded to smash"
her first saloon. Before she could be
stopped she had irreparably injured
yomc of the highly polished and
costly furniture. Going to another
~aloon she repeated her performance
In the following months she "smash-
cd'' saloons by the score, not only
lacking the furniture but breaking
the mirrors and glassware.
Thousands of people of the con-
tented type in Kansas were, as a re-
suit of Carrie Nations crusade, sur
piizcd to learn that there were so
many saloons illegally wide open in
the State. Her activities exposed
other conditions of which the COM
placent were ignorant. She produced
evidence for the anti-liquor movement
that was invaluable in legislative in
vestigations. The people of Kansas
as whole began to demand that the
day of farcical prohibition should be
brought to an end. New and strin-
gent laws were adopted and, better
still, enforced. Carrie Nation. in fact
forced upon Kansas the decision to
live up to its pretensions, as Neal
Dow had, thirty years earlier, forced
like decision upon the people Of
Maine.
Carrie Nation saw the barrooms
of Kansas not nominally but actually
closed, and then she entered Nebraska
and other States, even going as far
east as New York on her lecturine
tour. She was not generally pOpu
lar at any time. To the end of
her career her methods were severely
....itirivod She MaS nftpnpr abused