The Use and Need of the Life of Carrie A. Nation [47]
the Presbyterian for preaching, and at the close walked over to the Methodist
church for class meeting. I could not keep from weeping, but I
controlled myself the best I could. I did not know but that it would
be the last time I would ever see my dear friends again, and could not
tell them why. I gave my testimony at the class meeting; spoke particularly
to members of the choir about their extravagant dress; told them
that a poor sinner coming there for relief would be driven away, to see
such a vanity fair in front. I begged them to dress neither in gold, silver
or costly array, and spoke of the sin of wearing the corpses of dead birds
and plumage of birds, and closed by saying: "These may be my dying
words." At the close Sister Shell, a W. C. T. U. said to me: "What
do you mean by 'my dying words?' for you never looked better in your
life." I said: "You will know later." I never told anyone then of my
intention of smashing saloons in Wichita.
I took a valise with me, and in that valise I put a rod of iron, perhaps
a foot long, and as large around as my thumb. I also took a cane
with me. I found out by smashing in Kiowa that I could use a rock but
once, so I took the cane with me. I got down to Wichita about seven
o'clock in the evening, that day, and went to the hotel near the Santa Fe
depot and left my valise. I went up town to select the place I would begin
at first. I went into about fourteen places, where men were drinking
at bars, the same as they do in licensed places. The police standing with
the others. This outrage of law and decency was in violation of the oaths
taken by every city officer, including mayor and councilmen, and they were
as much bound to destroy these joints as they would be to arrest a murderer,
or break up a den of thieves, but many of these so-called officers
encouraged the violation of the law and patronized these places. I have
often explained that this was the scheme of politicians and brewers to
make prohibition a failure, by encouraging in every way the violation of
the constitution. I felt the outrage deeply, and would gladly have given
my life to redress the wrongs of the people. As Esther said: "How can
I see the desolation of my people? If I perish." As Patrick Henry said:
"Give me liberty or give me death."
I finally came to the "Carey Hotel," next to which was called the
Carey Annex or Bar. The first thing that struck me was the life-size
picture of a naked woman, opposite the mirror. This was an oil painting
with a glass over it, and was a very fine painting hired from the
artist who painted it, to be put in that place for a vile purpose. I called
to the bartender; told him he was insulting his own mother by having
her form stripped naked and hung up in a place where it was not even
decent for a woman to be in when she had her clothes on. I told him
he was a law-breaker and that he should be behind prison bars, instead
of saloon bars. He said nothing to me but walked to the back of his
saloon. It is very significant that the picture of naked women are in
saloons. Women are stripped of everything by them. Her husband is
torn from her, she is robbed of her sons, her home, her food and her
virtue, and then they strip her clothes off and hang her up bare in these
dens of robbery and murder. Well does a saloon make a woman bare of
all things! The motive for doing this is to suggest vice, animating the
animal in man and degrading the respect he should have for the sex to
whom he owes his being, yes, his Savior also.
I decided to go to the Carey for several reasons. It was the most
dangerous, being the finest. The low doggery will take the low and keep
them low but these so-called respectable ones will take the respectable,
make them low, then kick them out. A poor vagabond applied to a bar
tender in one of these hells glittering with crystalized tears and fine
fixtures.
The man behind the bar said, "You get out, you disgrace my place."
The poor creature, who had been his mother's greatest treasure, shuffled
out toward the