The Use and Need of the Life of Carry A. NationNation, Carry Amelia
History
The Use and Need of the Life of Carry A. Nation
Nation, Carry Amelia
Nation, Carry Amelia, 1846-1911; Social reformers -- United States -- Biography; Temperance -- United States
When I was at Coney Island, I was asked, what I thought of William
McKinley's administration? I said: "I was glad when McKinley
was elected for I had heard that he was opposed to the liquor traffic.
I did not know then that he rented his wife's property in Canton, Ohio,
for saloon purposes, and after his election he had been a constant
disappointment to me; that he was the Brewers' president and did their
biddings; that we as W. C. T. U. workers, sent petitions, thousands of them
to Mr. McKinley to have him refuse to let the canteen run. That we
were willing to give our boys to fight the battles of this nation, to die
in a foreign land, but we were not willing that a murderer should follow
them from their home shores to kill their bodies and souls." This
was said at the time that he was thought to be convalescent from his
death-wound. I said: "I had no tears for McKinley, neither have I any
for his assassin. That no one's life was safe with such a murderer at
large." This roused hisses; some left the hall and there was a murmer
of confusion. One man threw a wad of paper at me, but I said: "My
loyalty to the homes of America demand that I denounce such a president
and his crowd." It was a common thing to be hissed. Once I
spoke in Sioux City, Iowa, in the church where the martyred Haddock
preached. The crowd was so large, the church was filled and emptied
three times. I had cheers and hisses at the same time. At the first
meeting I was talking at the top of my voice, the audience was clapping
and hissing and a good evangelistic brother by my side kept pounding
his fist of one hand into the palm of the other and shouting: "She is
right! She is right!" That was a great meeting, and I shall never forget
it, neither will anyone who was there. I spoke three times to audiences
that night. I have been hissed, and after giving the people time
to think, have been applauded by the same parties. "Oh, fools and slow
of heart to understand," Jesus said.
Murat Halstead, who wrote the book called, "Our Martyred President
or the Illustrious Life of William McKinley", wrote some positive
falsehoods concerning me. This Halstead has always been a defender
of anarchy or the licensed saloon.
William McKinley was no martyr. He was murdered by a man who
was the result of a saloon and could not tell why he murdered the President.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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