Carry Nation

Carry Nation with her hatchet.

Alcohol has always been a controversial topic. It was no different in the 1900s, when the Women’s Christian Temperance Union began pushing for complete and total abstinence from liquor. A drinking epidemic had seized the country, and nationwide Prohibition seemed to be the best answer. If the menfolk weren’t strong enough to put the bottle down, the womenfolk would yank it out of their hands.

The WCTU worked mostly through hymns and prayer rallies. But one woman, Carry Nation, took a more radical approach. Frustrated by the lack of response to prohibition laws in Kansas, she collected a pile of rocks and started smashing saloons in Kiowa. As the saloons were illegal in the first place, she was not arrested.

Carry Nation claimed to have been divinely appointed for the task of destroying alcoholism in a vision, which she recorded in the following quote:

"GO TO KIOWA," and my hands were lifted and thrown down and the words, "I'LL STAND BY YOU." The words, "Go to Kiowa," were spoken in a murmuring, musical tone, low and soft, but "I'll stand by you," was very clear, positive and emphatic. I was impressed with a great inspiration, the interpretation was very plain, it was this: "Take something in your hands, and throw at these places in Kiowa and smash them."

After destroying the saloons in Kiowa, Nation hopped on a train, traveled to Wichita, and laid waste to another barroom. Bang! Smash! Thud! Glass scattered across the floor. Paintings were bashed under her club. The customers fled, and finally a policeman arrived on the scene.

“Madam,” he said, “I must arrest you for defacing property.”

“Defacing?” Carry screamed. “I am destroying!”

Over the next ten years she went on to be arrested thirty times, becoming a household name in the process. The WCTU awarded her a medal for bravery. Two newspapers about her movement were kept in circulation. Carry upgraded her homemade club to a hatchet, which went on to become her trademark.

To be honest, I’m not quite sure what I think of Carry. On one hand, she seems sincerely devoted to the prohibition cause--but what’s worse? Drinking or murdering? She was going hatchet-crazy in a room packed with inebriated people. Somebody could’ve been killed. Besides, not everyone who drinks is a drunkard. Take Jesus for example. He turned water into wine. He drank wine himself. He told his disciples to drink. Wine even came out of his side when the soldiers stabbed him. I don’t think Jesus would tell Carry to spearhead a complete-and-total-abstinence movement.

Nation’s saloon-smashing crusade chugged ahead for several years, but lost steam as she grew older. Instead of ransacking bars, she started touring the country to sell commemorative hatchets, milking her dwindling fame. Eventually, she became to frail to even do that, and retired in Arkansas. Her daughter (who happened to be married to a saloon owner) provided financial support during her last days, and Carry Nation went to be with the God she loved so much on June 2, 1911. Just a few years before country-wide Prohibition came into affect.

An anti-Carry sign found hanging in saloons.

Sorry I haven't posted in awhile--I've had a nasty case of procrastination--but now I plan on posting something every Tuesday. Please help me stick to that goal!