The Use and Need of the Life of Carry A. NationNation, Carry Amelia
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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
Mr. Dodds told me that Sam Amidon would have a cab at the back
door of the jail and would take me out. I consented. John, the Trusty,
said to me, "Don't you leave this jail, there is some plotting going on,
and they mean mischief. I asked him to get me a wire to fasten my door,
which he did, and I wound it around the open places in the door and to
the iron beam it shut on, and then John brought me the leg of a cot.
I watched all night, listening for some one to come in my cell to drag me
out. With the cot leg I was going to strike their hands if they attempted
to open the door. I know what it is to expect murder in my cell. God
said, 'He would stand by me, and who but He, has."
I got so many letters from poor, distracted mothers, who wrote so
often: "For God's sake come here." In some letters there was money.
One letter from a United Brethren church in Winfield, Kansas; the minister,
Bro. Hendershot, wrote me that he took up a collection in their
church for me of $7.38. How I cried over that letter and kissed it! I
knew that I had some friends who understood me; and just after this
letter, one from a Catholic priest came, which was a great comfort. The
many letters I got from all kinds of vice was a great encouragement to
me. I must say: "All hell got hit, when I smashed the saloons." For
I never, until then, knew that people thought, or could write such vile
things; letter after letter, of the most horrible infidelity, cursing God,
calling me every vile name, and threatening me.
I was not allowed a pillow; I begged for one, for I had La Grippe,
and my head was as sore as a boil. Mr. Dodd frequently brought
me the papers, and nearly every time that Wichita Eagle would have some
falsehoods concerning me, always giving out that I "was crazy," "was
in a padded cell," "only a matter of time when I would be in the
insane asylum;" that I used "obscene language" and "was raving." The
bible says: "All liars shall have their part in the lake that burns with
fire;" so the Murdocks of Wichita ought to tremble. I associate the
name "Murdock" with murderer. The real depravity of such people
was shown, when a lone old woman with a love of humanity, was in a
cell suffering so unjustly, that these people should have left nothing
undone to prejudice the people against her. Even when my brother
died, this Murdock paper spoke of me "raving in jail," and I was not
privileged to go to him in his dying hours. Such people drove the nails
in the hands and the spear in the side of Jesus.
This Wichita Eagle is the rum-bought sheet that has made Wichita
one of the most lawless places in Kansas.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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