The Use and Need of the Life of Carrie A. Nation [119]
smoking made her ill, treated all her follow-inmates to the little white
cylinders, and set them at work puffing vigorously. Chivalry and humanity
seemed, for the time being, to have faded from men's minds.
In these different immurments, she had time to write her friends and
even published a paper, called, "The Smasher's Mail." She told how she
came to do this work: it was, she claimed, by the direct command of God.
She had promised Him that if He would forgive her many sins, she
would work for Him in ways no one else would; and He took her at her
word--ordering her to go and smash saloons. This, of course, provokes
a smile, among most people, but Mrs. Nation is not the first one that has
worked under God's command--whether real or supposed.
At last, so many fines were heaped up against her, which must be
paid before she could be liberated, that it seemed to her as if she would
never get free; but in this dark hour, a lecture agent appeared, and said
he would pay the amount if she would give him some "dates." She
laughingly says now, that she did not know what she meant: and actually
wondered if he thought she was a fruit dealer. But when he explained
what he meant by "dates," a chance to go on the platform and give the
people a reason for the hatchet that was in her hand, she saw the gates
were opened; and enthusiastically went from jail to the lecture platform.
She became immediately a drawing card--in assembly halls in some
churches, and even at county fairs. She often made "big money" by selling
miniature hatchets as souvenirs. She worked, tirelessly and industriously,
to pay back the lecture agent for the sums he had advanced;
and after a time found surplus amounts on hand.
She did not hesitate very long as to the purposes for which they were
to be applied. Her personal expenses were very small; she dresses plainly;
and believes that God is entitled to her financial gains.
"A home for drunkards' wives," was her first thought, after paying
the fine money, and she set about it, and is working for it now.
After her platform work had proceeded for a time, it was decided that
she should star in the play, "Ten Nights in a Bar-room." As all know,
who have witnessed this simple but powerful drama, every act of it is
a prohibition lecture, and Mrs. Nation's part, that of the mother of the
murdered boy, was a lecture of itself. In one scene, she was represented
as smashing a saloon, most thoroughly; and this business was the most
popular of anything in the play--even at theatres that drew most of their
patronage from habitues of saloons.
Mrs. Nation's reasons for stepping from the churches to the footlights,
is not without its logic, in these days. "People go to the theatres
more than they do the churches," she says, "and I want to go where there
are plenty of people to hear me, and where they need me."
From the regular theatre she passed, and for the same reasons, to the
vaudeville, and did her regular "stunts" along with the singers, the dancers,
the harlequin's, acrobats, and the burnt cork humorists. The writer
of this has seen her in one of these performances, and considers it entirely
unique and unmistakably commendable.
It was in one of the most "free and easy" vaudeville shows in Greater
New York, and the audience, composed of men and boys, was a hilarious
one, and could have even become a turbulent one, if anything had occured
that did not please them. Many were half drunk, or nearly so.
"Smoke, if you want to," was lettered on a conspicuous sign, and most
of this audience wanted to. In the midst of the exercises, an interlude
occurred, in which the audience was invited to a saloon down stairs, where
they could proceed still farther in the liquid burning out of their bodies.
On the same stage of this same vaudeville theatre, John L. Sullivan, the
retired prize fighter, had, only a week before, appeared "in monologue,"
and had sometimes been so drunk that he could not go through with his
part.
In the midst of all this, Carry Nation was announced,