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 soon his power imperial, shone
O'er countless tribes, in widening zone;
And wine was banished from the board
Of Moslem millions, by the sword
And victor's hatchet.
So may it be with this great nation,
When woman tests her high vocation;
Persuasion proves a futile power
To quell the joints, but quick they cower
At 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-defense
She plies her hatchet.
When honor bright appeals to men
"The weak confounds the mighty," then
Side doors and slot-machines must close
And such games hide, when women pose
With sharpened hatchets.
'Else are men brutes, and all their pride
And gallant valor, they must hide
In coward shirking. This shameful end
They must accept, or else defend
The "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 sincere
Bow 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 name
Raises her hatchet?
'Tis she must grasp the nation's prize--
A pure, proud home, earth's paradise.
The joints must go, but, never till
Woman exerts her potent will
And holy hatchet.
As men, once slaves, their freedom gained
By force, and power at length attained;
So, cultured brains and force combined,
Shall mark the sphere of womankind
And 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 path
To public morals, by her own worth
And "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 pity
That Carrie Nation does not come here every day."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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