(Dedicated to Mrs. Carry Nation.)
When Kansas joints are open wideTo ruin men on every side,What power can stem their lawless tide?A woman.
When many mother's hearts have bledAnd floods of sorrow's tears are shed,Who strikes the serpent on the head?A woman.
When boys are ruined every dayAnd older ones are led astray,Who boldly strikes and wins the fray?A. woman.
When drunkenness broods o'er the home,Forbidding pleasure there to come,Whose hatchet spills the jointist's rum?A woman.
When rum's slain victims fall around,And vice and poverty abound,Who cuts this up as to the ground?A woman.
When those who should enforce the lawAre useless as are men of straw,What force can make saloons withdraw?A woman.
When public sentiment runs low,And no one dares to make them go,Whose hatchet lays their fixtures low?A woman.
Who sways this mighty rising tideThat daily grows more deep and wide,Until no rum shall it outride?A woman.
Who then can raise her fearless bandAnd say 'twas "Home Defender's" bandWho drove this monster from the land!A woman.—DR. T. J. MERRYMAN.
The world reveres brave Joan of Arc,Whose faith inspired her fellowmanTo crush invading columns dark.So, modern woman's firmer willTo conquer crime's unholy clan,Crowns her man's moral leader still.
A century was fading fast,When o'er its closing decade passedA matron's figure, chaste, yet bold,Who held within her girdle's foldA bran' new hatchet.
The jointists smiled within their bars,'Mid bottles, mirrors and cigars—The woman passed behind each screen,And soon ocurred a "literal" scene—Rum, ruin, racket!
At first she "moral suasion" tried,But lawless men mere "talk" deride:—'Twas then she seized her household axAnd for enforcing law by acts,Found nought to match it.
The work thus wrought with zeal discreet,Has saved that town from rum complete;Proving that woman's moral forceLike man's, is held, as last resource,By sword or hatchet.
And following up that dauntless raid,The nation welcomes her crusade;All o'er the land, pure women charmed,Are eager forming, each one armedWith glittering hatchets.
Talk of "defenders of the nation!"Woman's slight arm sends consternation'Mong its worst foes, on social fields,Worse than the "Mauser," when she wieldsThe "smashing" hatchet.
Mahommed sought by arts refined,To raise his standard o'er mankind;But found success for aye denied,Until at length he boldly triedThe battle-hatchet.
When soon his power imperial, shoneO'er countless tribes, in widening zone;And wine was banished from the boardOf Moslem millions, by the swordAnd victor's hatchet.
So may it be with this great nation,When woman tests her high vocation;Persuasion proves a futile powerTo quell the joints, but quick they cowerAt the whirling hatchets.
True chivalry must come again,And men, more noble, but less vain,Responding to its modern sense,Guard woman, while in self-defenseShe plies her hatchet.
When honor bright appeals to men"The weak confounds the mighty," thenSide doors and slot-machines must closeAnd such games hide, when women poseWith sharpened hatchets.
'Else are men brutes, and all their prideAnd gallant valor, they must hideIn coward shirking. This shameful endThey must accept, or else defendThe "home-guard" hatchet.
'Tis woman's crucial, fateful hour,Her fine soul's test, 'gainst man's coarse power.In war, she can not be man's peer,But for home's weal, all men sincereBow to her hatchet.
Man's "Vigilance" is oft condoned,When Vice and Crime has been enthroned.Shall women then, be more to blame,When she In Virtue's sacred nameRaises her hatchet?
'Tis she must grasp the nation's prize—A pure, proud home, earth's paradise.The joints must go, but, never tillWoman exerts her potent willAnd holy hatchet.
As men, once slaves, their freedom gainedBy force, and power at length attained;So, cultured brains and force combined,Shall mark the sphere of womankindAnd surely reach it.
In valor, more Joan d'Arc's are needed,Woman's high social power's conceded,But she herself, must blaze the pathTo public morals, by her own worthAnd "Little Hatchet."—C. BUTLER-ANDREWS.
Dr. Howard Russell told in his address at Kokomo, Sunday, March 24, how when Mrs. Nation was on her way from Topeka to Peoria recently, a passenger on the same train came into the car where she was and sang a song of his own composition. He was evidently a farmer with a large stock of mother-wit. He was lame, and limped into the car, and hopped up and down while he sang. A great deal of merry enthusiasm was aroused, and the car, packed full of people, expressed their appreciation by round after round of applause. It is evident that Mrs. Nation is quite popular in that part of the country.
The song is as follows:
Hurrah, Samantha, Mrs. Nation is in town!So get on your bonnet and your Sunday-meeting gown.Oh, I am so blamed excited I am hopping up and down,Hurrah, Samantha, Carrie Nation is in town!
Get you ready, we are going to the city,Where the "Home Defenders" are all feeling gay,And the mothers all exclaiming, "Its a pityThat Carrie Nation does not come here every day."
I want to hear that mirror-smashing music,And to look in Mrs. Nation's blessed face,And to see the saloon men all cavortingWith that hatchet bringing sadness to their face.
Hurrah, Samantha, Mrs. Nation is in town!So wear your brightest bonnet and your alapaca gown.Oh, I am so jubilated I'm a-hopping up and down,Hurrah! hurrah! Samantha, Mrs. Nation is in town.
(Found in manuscript among the personal effects of a prostitute, 22 years of age, who died in the Commercial Hospital, Cincinnati, O.)
Once I was pure as the snow, but I fell,Fell like the snowflakes from heaven to hell;Fell to be trampled as filth on the streetFell to be scoffed, to be spit on and beat;Pleading—cursing—dreading to die,Selling my soul to whoever would buy,Dealing in shame for a morsel of bread,Hating the living and fearing the dead.Merciful God, have I fallen so low?And yet I was once like the beautiful snow.
Once I was fair as the beautiful snow,With an eye like a crystal, a heart like its glow,Once I was loved for my innocent grace—Flattered and sought for the charms of my face!Fathers,—mothers,—sisters,—all,God and myself have I lost by my fall;The veriest wretch that goes shivering by,Will make a wide sweep lest I wander too nigh;For all that in on or above me I know,There is nothing so pure as the beautiful snow.
How strange it should be that this beautiful snowShould fall on a sinner with nowhere to go!How strange it should be when the night comes again,If the snow and the ice struck my desperate brain.Fainting,—freezing,—dying alone,Too wicked for prayer, too weak for a moan,To be heard in the streets of the crazy town,Gone mad in the joy of the snow coming down;To be and to die in my terrible woe,With a bed and shroud of the beautiful snow.
Helpless and foul as the trampled snowSinner, despair not! Christ stoopeth lowTo rescue the soul that is lost in sin,And raise it to life and enjoyment again.Groaning—bleeding—dying for theeThe crucified hung on the cursed tree,His accent of mercy fell soft on thine ear,"Is there mercy for me? Will He heed my weak prayer?"O, God! in the stream that for sinners did flow,Wash me and I shall be whiter than snow.
You are coming to woo me, but not as of yore,For I hastened to welcome your ring at the door,For I trusted that he, who stood waiting for me then,Was the brightest, the noblest, the truest of men.
Your lips on my own when they printed "Farewell,"Had never been soiled by the "Beverage of Hell,"But they come to me now with the bacchanal sign,And the lips that touch liquor must never touch mine.
I think of that night, in the garden alone,When whispering you told me your heart was my own,That your love in the future should faithfully be,Unshared by another, kept only for me.
Oh sweet to my soul is the memory still,Of the lips that met mine when they murmured "I will,"But now to their pleasure no more I incline,For the lips that touch liquor must never touch mine.
O, John! How it crushed me when first in your face,The pen of the "Rum Fiend" had written "Disgrace,"And turned me in silence and tears from that breath,All poisoned and foul from the chalice of death.
It shattered the hopes I had cherished to last,It darkened the future and clouded the past,It shattered my Idol and ruined the shrine,For the lips that touch liquor must never touch mine.
I loved you, O! dearer than language can tell,And you saw it, you proved it, you knew it too well;But the man of my love was far other than heWho now from the "tap room" came reeling to me.
In manhood and honor, so noble and right,His heart was so true and his genius so bright,And his Soul was unstained, unpolluted by wine,But the lips that touch liquor must never touch mine.
You promised reform; but I trusted in vain;Your pledge was but made to be broken again,And the lover so false to his promises now,Will not as a husband be true to his vow.
The word must be spoken that bids you depart,Though the effort to speak it would shatter my heart,Though in silence with blighted affections I pine,Yet the lips that touch liquor must never touch mine.
If one spark in your bosom of virtue remain,Go fan it with prayer, till it kindle again,Resolved, "God helping," in future to beFrom wine and its follies unshackled and free.
And when you have conquered this foe of your Soul,In manhood and honor beyond its control,This heart will again beat responsive to thine,And the lips that touch liquor must never touch mine.—Unknown.
From the Royal Arch News, the warhorse of the booze hoodlums, the snapdragon of the jungle, the siren of Hades.
"The Lips that Touch Liquor Shall Never Touch Mine," so sings— Miss Cora Vere, who writes jingle for the Anti-Saloon press, and this is the reply that the R. A. News would make:
The lips that touch liquor don't hanker to touchThe lips of a maiden like you—not much!If a man—not a milksop—should happened to wedA creature like you, he had better be dead;For never a moment of peace would he seeUnless he would bow to your every decree,If he smoked a cigar, or drank beer, you would makeA hell of his home, and perhaps you would breakInto court and denounce him, in search of divorce,And fools would uphold you, as matter of course.Perhaps, like the Nation, a hatchet you'd takeAnd his bottles of beer and cigar-boxes break,And get your name blazoned in all of the papers,By your rowdydow talk and unwomanly capers,No! the lips that touch liquor don't hanker to touchThe lips of a female like you are—not much!
I am not a poet myself but I am fortunate in having a friend that is, so I called on him to meet this antagonist with a nobler steel, and behold the defeat of this champion of a dying cause:
AN AMERICAN COUNTESS, OR LADY VERE."The lips that touch liquor, shall never touch mine;"The meaning is clear, the sense is divine,Bespeaks a clear head, an unsullied heart—A fortune from which no sane man would part.O, God! give us more of such women, we pray,Then slop-pots of whisky we'd urge to the fray.The hatchets of "Carrie," and Cora Vere,Would knock out the spigots and bungs of whisky.
An army like those would drive them pell-mell;For safety they'd Hazen, and think they did wellTo escape from the jury of women turned looseWho have drank to its dregs the damnation of booze.
The idea that women would "hanker" to touch,The lips of a demijohn; I guess not—"not much;"A forty-rod pole should line up between,No nearer than that a fair lady be seen.
So now, "Indiana, of Royal Arch News,"You've taken great pains to give us your views;I take up the gauntlet, and venture reply;I stop not to argue, but simply defy.
You say in one case one had better be deadThan with a good woman in wedlock be wed:But somewhere I've read your kind do not die;But passing from earth, 'are hung up to dry."
Besotted with whiskey,—unfitting to tell,Even Satan himself avoiding the "smell;"Before then we part, I would bid you adieu,Reform while you may—begin life anew.
If you have a surplus—like Lady Vere,Please pass them around, turn them over to me;"A la Hobson"—I'd venture to sample the store,And look o'er the field—yes! and "hanker" for more.Sparta, Mo. D. E. GRAYSTON.
May she live to see the day,When the liquor traffic will be no more,When the traffic of the devilWill all be swept awayAnd God's peace remain supreme from shore to shore.
God bless the hatchet wielder,May it never cease to strike,Till it drives the cursed intemperance from our landLet us stand for God and duty,Till we gain the Eden of beautyAnd be what God designed for us,A happy union band.
God bless our Carrie Nation,Give her courage, strength, and might,To go forth in former battlements arrayed.Till this cursed intemperance,Will be driven from our shore,From every village, hamlet and the glade.
O, God raise up a million,Of our Carrie Nation minds,That they may fight for freedom, from the thrall.Let's join our hands with CarrieAnd do not let us tarry,Oh, let us toil for Jesus one and all.
Ere Yankee Doodle came to town,And routed king and tory,Three words sublime were writ by timeTo live in song and story;"George Washington"—immortal nameThere's few or none can match it;His father's favorite cherry tree,And "George's little hatchet."
In Boston's harbor next we traceThe little hatchet's story;In smashing up the Crown's tea-chests,It won a crown of glory.And every time Wrong shows his head,That weapon "bald doth snatch it,For patriot hands are ever foundTo wield the "Yankee hatchet."
A century and more has passed,With blooms and blizzards blowingO'er Kansas' plains—where corn and grains,'Round happy homes are growing;Where statutes pure close each "joint" door,Forbidding to unlatch it,There, in the fight, defending Right,We find our "loyal hatchet."
The boy who 'could not tell a lie,"The flag of freedom planted,He shelled "Corn"—wallis to the "cob"On Yorktown's field undaunted.Since then, our tea is duty freeNo Briton dare attach it;While the new woman in the case,Now poses with the hatchet.
She dares to fight a gorgon fight!A cruel monster hell-born,Whose hungry maw, ignoring law,Mocks misery's tears to scorn.She may not slay the beast, but ayeHer blows will badly scratch it;All praise is due the woman true,Who wields the "home-guard" hatchet.
When time shall build the marble guild,That marks man's reformation,Its arch of fame shall bear the nameOf dauntless Carrie Nation.Her righteous scorn of rum and wrong—May all creation catch it,And join the "Woman's World Crusade,"Armed with "our nation's" hatchet.
—Minna Irving, in Leslie's Weekly. Revised andsecond stanza added by C. Butler Andrews.
(Dedicated to Mrs. Carry Nation.)
Oh, woman, armed with one little hatchet.Fighting for justice and right,And with your brave mother courageKnowing your cause was right,
You've done more to hasten God's kingdom,And to crush satan's power o'er men,Than countless numbers of creation's lords,With the power of the ballot thrown in.
You've awakened the mothers to actionWhose powers have long dormant been,While the minions of satan have strained every nerveTo ruin our boys and our men.
Rouse, mothers, too long we've been sleeping,Shall one of us let it be saidThat we calmly stood by while those who are dearWere down to destruction led.
American mothers, hear me,If you think God will not send the warningIn hieroglyphics upon the wall?God is not mocked, He is just the same,
And has given the power to you.If you're weighed and found wanting our nation will fallBecause you did not your duty do.Then let us unfurl our broad banners,Fling their folds to the breezes high,Let this still be our motto,"We'll trust in God, and keep our powder dry."—CARRIE CHEW SNEDDON.
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"The Use and Need of theLife of Carry A. Nation."
Revised Edition. 25,000 Copies.
Finely Illustrated.Fancy Paper Covers, 50c. Cloth, $1.00BY MAIL POSTPAID.ADDRESS ALL ORDERS TOCARRY A. NATION, Guthrie, Okla.—————————————————————Prohibition Federation.
Organizers wanted. We want earnest men and women to take the field and do active, aggressive work for us.
Send for literature and instructions to headquarters,Guthrie, Oklahoma.
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"The word of God is quick and powerful and sharper than any two edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit."
The Home Defender.The Home Builder.
"Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home."
TO CUTOUTTHE EVIL———————————————————————————————————
The above is the heading of my paper which I am now publishing atGuthrie, Okla.
I know that the mass of the people are in the dark concerning my work and the need of it, because of the misrepresentations of the rum-bought press. I have written my book which gives the facts of God's calling me into this work because He loves the people and has heard the mothers' prayers.
I want every person who reads this announcement to send for a free sample copy of the "Hatchet." It will open your eyes. It will make prohibition votes.
The aroused motherhood of this nation SHALL rescue her children and stop the soul-destroying, vote-protected, licensed-for-money liquor traffic in its annual slaughter of a hundred thousand of her sons.
If you want a prohibition paper that even the enemies of prohibition will subscribe for and read, write to "The Hatchet" for terms. It is a sixteen page illustrated monthly magazine, 25cts per year. It is a "hit" and smashes where it hits.
Special offer: Send the names of ten of the most active prohibition men and women of your neighborhood and ten cents, and you will receive "The Hatchet" for one year.
Full time workers can make good wages and many converts to prohibition by selling my book. "The Use and Needs of the Life of Carry A. Nation." For terms write "The Hatchet," Guthrie, Okla.
Special Offer: Send us 50cts and we will send you the book and also "The Hatchet" for one year. After receiving the book if you are not satisfied return it in good condition inside of seven days and we will refund your money.
DO IT NOW. While you wait, liquor wins! Procrastination is the thief of time—of votes—of souls!
Address, "THE HATCHET," Guthrie, Oklahoma