Rensselaer Journal, Volume 10, Number 35, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 February 1901 — Mrs. Carrie Nation.. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Mrs. Carrie Nation..

Kjansas Woman Who ts AttractRational Attention.

Mrs. Nation, of whom our readers may know something hy this time, has organized herself into a Prohibition party in Kansas, and is actually and almost unaided, forcing the saloons of Wichita to close their doors. Her career as a party has been brief, but very effective. Several saloons, among them three of the finest in Wichita, are in ruins as the result of her efforts. Mrs. Nation, it will be recalled, wrecking her first saloon, that in the Carey hotel, was sent to jail. There she remained, refusing to gitfe bail, for ten days. Then she was released on a writ of habeas corpus. While in jail Mrs. Nation gloried in her work of devastation and stated that as soon as she got out of jail she would resume it. The saloon men about’town were by no means anxious that she should get out of jail—and rather chuckled at her refusal to-give bail. They were badly chagrined when the Supreme Court released her. The Carey hotel bar episode was rather curious. It was the first of its sort .in the way of the modern prohibition work and may be set down as an unalloyed success from Mrs. Nation’s standpoint. Moreover, it was unique in the fact that Mrs. Nation carried it out by herself —unaided and alone, as the stories go. Mrs. .Nation appeared at the Carey hotel bar one day and startled the habitues of the establishment by shouting the one word “Sinners.” Several oldtimers, who were in the very act of raising their glasses to their lips, set them down. One more nervous than the rest dropped his on the floor. There was a crash of the glass and the nervous old-timer almost sunk to, the floor. He probably thought that his one little glass had been multiplied by a hundred thousand in falling. In this he was mistaken. In fact, the crash had been that of the great bar mirror, which now lay in something like minute fragments. A cobblestone which Mrs. Nation had brought in her apron had done the work. Mrs. Nation had flung the cobblestone through the mirror, and the stone then fell op the bartender’s foot. Naturally the bartender yelled. While the bartender was hopping about holding his toe in his hand, Mrs. Nation took a rapid inventory of the situation. The first thing that met her offended gaze was the statuette of a young woman. This she seized and hurled it with accurate aim at a picture, likewise of a young woman, hanging (the picture) on the wall. Picture and statuette crashed in pieces on the floor. The old-timers and the young-timers, the bartender and the porter sought'hiding places. The old-timers made haste for the back door. The younger and less experienced -rushed out of the front door. The bartender got down behind the bar and the porter, who is a colored man of political prominence when not working, hid behind the ice chest. All this time Mrs. Nation continued to shout, “Sinners, sinners.” All but two of the sinners had escaped, however—namely, all but the bartender and the porter. These two, being employes and needing the money, couldn’t escape. In jail Mrs. Nation was visited by sympathizing men and women—principally women—and by reporters and correspondents of the local and more distant papers. To these she imparted the information that she gloried in her work, would not give bail, and, if released, would carry her warfare into other saloons until she wrecked every drinking place in Wichita. Then she sat down and waited. Prohibitionists, of whom Kansas is well known to possess many, gloried in Mrs. Nation’s work fully as much as she did herself. They secured counsel, who found some technical flaw in the papers, and Mrs. Nation left jail. Since her release Mrs. Nation has kept intensely busy and enterprising newspaper correspondents have heard of her “proposed visits” to various saloon towns. Her name has struck terror into the liquor interests. She has already visited several towns, including the state capital, where she had a stormy interview with the governor. Mrs. Nation’s doihgs have not caused nervousness among saloonkeepers alone. of vested rights see in her a possible menace to society in general and are setting up a howl for her speedy suppression. Among the rough experiences encountered by Mrs. Nation was being mobbed by roughs of both sexes in Enterprise. She was driven from one saloon at the muzzle of a pistol. In smashing a glass case at the “Palace Bar” in Wichita one of her hands, it is said, was badly lacerated.