Carry Amelia Nation

“ Free men must be the sons of free women. To elevate men you must first elevate women. A nation can not rise higher than the mothers. Liberty is the largest privilege to do that which is right, and the smallest to do that which is wrong. Vote for a principle which will make it a crime to manufacture, barter, sell or give away that which makes three-fourths of all the crime and murders thousands every year, and the suffering of the women and children that can not be told. Vote for our prohibition president and God will bless you. ”

“ Many fortunes were built up by slave labor, but how many of them were left after the war? "Whatsoever a nation soweth that shall it also reap." What shall the harvest be from the wild sowing of the legalized saloon? Our own country is a partner in the business for the of revenue. I pray God that the liquor traffic may be abolished from America, without bloodshed, and yet who dares prophesy that it shall be so. Much blood has been let in these long years by drunken husbands and fathers. Many fortunes have been built up by the traffic. ”

“ A hundred thousand of our sons are being sent to drunkard's graves and a drunkard's hell every year. By a bold stand for the right, to defend our loved ones, let us rush between and stop this deadly strife, with the same heroism of the women of Rome, "over our dead bodies." Women will get the ballot in time, but it can be hastened only by women themselves. It will be a great victory for mankind when women can veto the curse of mankind. The mother impulse is stronger with women than any, and when she can protect her offspring, she will make a greater effort to do so than now. ”

“ It is like heaven to live in a city where there are no open saloons. There are thousands of public school children here, now nearly of age, who have never seen here a beer-wagon or a beer-keg! Recently a child who had never been out of the State, on going to Kansas City, Mo., looked out of the car window and saw a sign on a building, and spelled, "S-a-l-o-o-n, saloon," and then exclaimed, "Mamma, what is that?" There is no better city in the world in which to bring up a family of boys than Topeka, and many fine eastern families are coming here for that very reason. ”

“ This slavery of soul and body, is one that leads to eternal death. The forces of God are with the abolition, or prohibition of wrong. The forces of darkness and death are with those who are willing to be led captive by the Devil at his will, and to lead others under this grievous yoke of those who are trying to perpetuate the cause of evil.
There are men who desire to be loyal, who are voting for license or in license parties, because they do not stop to think. The people are generally right on all questions. They go wrong more for lack of thought, than for lack of heart. ”

“ That is all that is needed to build houses of prostitution and that is ALL that it requires to break up every impulse of justice and love and happiness. That is ALL that it takes to fill hell. How my heart is stirred when I see this: "Remember me, Oh, my God!"
Whiskey or tobacco never introduce their products by reason or arguments, they never appeal to thought, but suggestion or temptation, and as oft as the eye is lifted, as one walks up the streets of our cities there are hundreds of advertisements to meet the gaze; most every one has a false basis. ”

“ And when the victory shall be complete— when there shall be neither a slave nor a drunkard on the earth—how proud the title of that LAND which may truly claim to be the birthplace of and the cradle of both those revolutions that shall have ended in that victory! How nobly distinguished that people who shall have planted and nurtured to maturity both the political and moral freedom of their species! ”

“ Nation's champion or apologist; she needs neither. History that corrects the blunders of contemporary critics, will assign to her an honored place long after the paltry penny-a-liner and ranting pulpiteer are forgotten. It is a simple task for those to whom the curse of rum has never come close home, to condemn the methods of a woman, who, as a drunkard's wife and widow, drank to the dregs the bitter cup of woe. Mrs. Nation saw her brilliant and handsome young husband slowly transformed into a demon by rum. ”

“ These I cannot write, but let no erring, sinful man or woman think that Carry Nation would not understand this, for Carry Nation is a sinner saved by grace and I know He can save to the uttermost, all that come unto Him. "Heaven is made for redeemed sinners and hell for the proud and disobedient." When I see the proud glance, the boastful manner, the display of, "I am better than thou," I feel pity and commiseration for the poor dying creature and see "behind the face a grinning skull". I like the companionship of the servant in the kitchen more than the mistress in the parlor. ”

“ But a worse slavery is now on us. I would rather have my son sold to a slave-driver than to be a victim of a saloon. I could, in the first case, hope to see him in heaven; but no drunkard can inherit eternal life. ”

“ The National Prohibition Committee can not afford to look on letting matters take their course. The time has arrived for action on its part, that it may set the example before the world what the party it represents will do if placed in power. The very soul of every prohibitionist in the nation ought to be on fire in a determined fight for the triumph of prohibition in bleeding Kansas. I believe the struggle being had there now means more, either for the weal or woe of this country, than did the struggle against slavery on the same soil by John Brown and his followers. ”

“ Any physician that will prescribe whiskey or alcohol as a medicine is either a fool or a knave. A fool because he does not understand his business, for even saying that alcohol does arouse the action of the heart, there are medicines that will do that and will not produce the fatal results of alcoholism, which is the worst of all diseases. He is a knave because his practice is a matter of getting a case, and a fee at the same time, like a machine agent who breaks the machine to get the job of mending it. Alcohol destroys the normal condition of all the functions of the body. ”

“ This land cannot be the land of the free or home of the brave, until woman gets her freedom and men are brave and just to award it to her. No man can have the true impulse of liberty and want his mother to be a slave.
The constitution of the United States starts out by saying. "We, the people of the United States." Women are people as well as men. Therefore I advise all women to go to the polls and vote in spring and fall elections. We want the moral, intellectual electorate. The brewer, distiller, saloon man, their agents, even the colored man was given a vote, and never asked for it. ”

“ It is an ambition of mine to establish a Preparatory College in Topeka, Kansas, where girls may be taught, as women should be, that they in turn may teach others, how to wash, cook, scrub, dress and talk, to counteract the idea that woman is a toy, pretty doll, with no will power of her own, only a parrot, a parasite of a man. To be womanly, means strength of character, virtue and a power for good. Let your women be teachers of good things, says the Holy Spirit. ”

“ So I wish to make to myself friends of the mammon of unrighteousness and not enemies, for the hoarded dollars are bitter foes that will be witnesses against these rich men at That Day. I am praying that God may send me means to carry out a plan to save Kansas from traitors. The state has made herself a name, that will endure forever, because she began a warfare against a government at a time when few were wise enough to see that this revolution meant defiance to the rum-soaked republican rule. Every moral reform is a protest against this government we live under. ”

“ Just so, Moses is God's pen, with which he wrote the five books of the Pentateuch. Joshua was also a pen, and Ezra, Job, David, Solomon, and so with the writers of the New Testament. God guided them as we do our pen. The Bible carries within itself its own evidence of divinity. It requires no proof. It but weakens its own evidence, to appeal to human aid. The fulfilled prophesy, its inimitable poetry, is proof to the natural man to KNOW it to be above the human mind, and to a child of God it speaks with life, and love more potent than an earthly parent to their child. ”

“ It is not the man or woman who has no temptation to sin, who has the strong character, but the man or woman who has the desire but will not yield to sin. Some people ask: "Why did God make the Devil?" The Devil is God's fire. Like an alchemist God is purifying souls. The Devil is an agent in salvation. "Every Devil in hell is harnessed up to push every saint into heaven." ”

“ No animal but mankind will use this rotten slop, for the others by instinct know it is poison. No man would let his horses drink it, for they would be dangerous instead of being useful. The only way to make the brewer's business profitable is to have boys and girls as consumers. The brewer is not the worst to blame. It is the voter. Mothers would never vote for such a man to be the public guardian of the morals of their children. All liquor men, or liquor license men, are opposed to woman's suffrage, for the reason that should women vote, we would have prohibition or abolition of the vice. ”

“ All the Christian work I ever did seemed to meet with severe opposition from church members. This is a great stumbling-block to some. The church crucified our blessed Christ, that is, it was the hypocrites; for the church is the light and salt, the body of Christ. "If I yet please men, I should not be the servant of Christ." There is no other organization but the church of Christ that persecutes its own followers. The hierarchy in the church told Christ "He had a devil," but they could not meet the argument when He said: "A kingdom divided against itself will not stand." ”

“ 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 say "I can do more good with the money than they can." After the battle the victor takes the spoils and is entitled to them. I will take all I can get in a good way. Money is a blessing, if used as such. I go on the stage to do good, I take their money for the same reason. The curse of it is when it is desired above the good of humanity. I am fishing. I go where the fish are for they do not come to me. I thank God for this unspeakable gift. I take my Bible before every audience. I show them this hatchet, that destroys or smashes everything bad and builds up everything that is good. ”

“ What a shattered thing is betrayed confidence! Oh, husband, and wives, do not lie to each other, even though you should do a vile act; confess to the truth of the matter! There will be some trouble over it, but you can never lose your love for a truthful person. I hated lying because I loved the truth. I hated dishonesty because I loved honesty. I loved, therefore I hated. I love mankind therefore I hated the enemies of mankind. ”

“ Then for the first time this dangerous 'Trade' would have obtained that fixity of tenure which it has so long coveted, but which Parliament in its wisdom has always vigorously refused to grant; and the nation, which has already too long suffered under the oppression of the Liquor Traffic with its terrible licensed temptations, would then be permanently crushed under one of the most perilous of all the political tyrannies that ever sapped the strength and the freedom of a great people. ”

“ She is taxed the same in proportion as the brewer, who carries on the human butcher-shop that grinds up the six sons of the widow. He and his crowd (republicans and democrats) have the ballot that smashes the poor widow's boys and takes her substance to prosecute her boys after they are made criminals, to pay for their arrest, to build a jail for them. Her heart is broken, home is gone, and disgrace is hers. To accomplish this she is rendered helpless by having no voice or ballot to protect herself. God never made an animal that he did not give it some means of defense. ”

“ My life beyond dispute has been marvelous and no one that will stop to consider but will know and must admit that an unseen power, one super-human, has upheld me, "not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord." ”

“ The great thing to be accomplished is to elect a Prohibition President, as long as we have one in favor of license it is useless to expect prohibition by the government. The Anti-Saloon League tacitly effects the perpetuation of a license government and in that they have been traitors, we warn the people against them. If anyone is a real prohibitionist they will vote it. The Prohibition Party is really the only party that is loyal to Republican principles, protecting and saving the home from this onslaught. There is not a saloon vote in our party, which can be said of no other. ”

“ The body is a good servant, but a tyrant when it is master. A man must be master or slave. One must first, like Daniel, "purpose in his heart that he will not defile himself". Liberty or freedom is only attained by prohibition of opportunity to do wrong to ourselves or allow any one else to do so. Citizenship not only requires one to obey law but must see that others do so also. ”

“ The year has been marked by more detailed examination of the effects of alcohol upon the human system, with the result that progress towards its eventual overthrow as a medicine has been distinctly made. The greatest reforms are brought about quietly, but truth is mighty and does prevail. It will take time but gradually all will come to feel the suggestive power in the fact that "The table of nature is spread, and bountifully spread, for all its millions upon millions of guests, but wine and strong drink are not on the table." ”

“ Nation was unknown outside of Medicine Lodge, Kansas, but within the limits of sixty days she has achieved notoriety, if not fame, by her unique crusade against the Kansas saloon. Many methods have been adopted during the last two decades for the abatement of the liquor nuisance, but it remained for an American woman, under the spur of bitter memories, and a sort heart, to originate a method, at once so bold and radical as to sharply focus public attention upon the utter villainy and lawlessness of the Kansas saloon. ”