Carrie Nation died 100 years ago yesterday.
Nation started a local branch of the Women's Christian Temperance Union and campaigned for the enforcement of Kansas's ban on the sales of liquor. Her methods escalated from simple protests to serenading saloon patrons with hymns accompanied by a hand organ, to greeting bartenders with pointed remarks such as, "Good morning, destroyer of men's souls."Personally, I think the anniversary of her death requires marking in suitable fashion. A weekend of shit-faced debauchery should get her spinning nicely in her box, I reckon.
Alone or accompanied by hymn-singing women she would march into a bar, and sing and pray while smashing bar fixtures and stock with a hatchet. Between 1900 and 1910 she was arrested some 30 times for "hatchetations," as she came to call them.
Suspicious that President William McKinley was a secret drinker, Nation applauded his 1901 assassination as a tippler's just deserts.
17 comments:
It appears that several members of her family suffered from mental illness and her mother had delusions of being Queen Victoria.
Seems she had all the genetic qualities required to be a member of the 'righteous.'
Already on it!
Although I would have thought that walking into a saloon in the turn of the century America and breaking stuff with a hatchet would have gotten you shot with a 6 gun.
(Word verification is prefilin. Is that like pre-loading?)
"A weekend of shit-faced debauchery..."
Mine started a couple of hours ago, I'm glad to see it's in a good cause this time round.
"Personally, I think the anniversary of her death requires marking in suitable fashion. A weekend of shit-faced debauchery should get her spinning nicely in her box, I reckon. "
I'll drink to that!
Toper: It does seem to be a recurring theme, for sure.
Bucko: Yes, thought the same, but if she was one of these, perhaps they didn't want to mess with her!
MW & Nisakiman: Followed by curry, I hope? ;)
Dick - You're right. Bullets would probably bounce off thoses skins
I shall have a...erm...drink to her memory.
Or several.
Hopefully she didn't have that much of a miserable life, poor soul. I mean, everyone needs a hobby and at least they were still allowed to carry hatchets back then...
Edit: 'pickslyt' as a word verification? You're not in thrall to Big Porno as well as Big Tobacco, are you? I think that we should be told!
Good timing. I've just picked up a discounted bottle of Black Bottle for the evening. Also took advantage of a 3 for 2 offer on Blackthorn cider. I am stocked and ready to go.
Pity I won't be around for the 100-year anniversary of the Dreadful Arnott's death, but I hope to be around for the funeral. It would be worth it just for the irony.
I'm not sure about seeing Arnott's funeral - I'd like her to get old. Really, really old but still lucid (well, as lucid as she gets).
I want her to wade in her excrement while nurses ignore her pitiful cries for attention. I want her to enjoy nappy rash again. I want her to feel thirsty for hours.
Nation lives on through Arnott and Schenker. The sad lesson is that tyrants never really die.
You're a dreadful lot. Hasn't it occurred to you that she may have suffered dreadfully from PMT?
My admiration goes to the two husbands. :)
Fucking Smashed Good 'n Propped!;-)
CF
doing well, but will leave the absinthe for tomorrow
It's only 9.45am so maybe I'd better wait for an hour!
There won't be a funeral for the Dreadful Arnott, she's surely already one of the living dead.
Jay
Although there were separate anti-tobacco and anti-alcohol “crusades”, those in the temperance movement were typically anti-both.
For example, Carrie, the dear, who was most identified with anti-alcohol, “hissed” a shot at President Theodore Rooseveldt for being a “cigarette fiend” (addict). [The anti-tobacco Lucy Page Gaston also represented the WCTU]
CARRIE NATION HISSED.; She Called President Roosevelt a "Cigarette Fiend" -- Rockaway Beach Sunday Theatre Crowd Resented It.
Carrie Nation caused an outburst of indignation in Morrison's Theatre, in Rockaway Beach, last night, which for a moment threatened to cause trouble. The audience had allowed her to proceed with a ten-minute tirade against drinking and smoking until she assailed President Roosevelt by name, and the moment she did her sentence was drowned by hisses and these were followed by cries of "Throw her out!" and "Kick her out!"
1903
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9404E0DE1439E433A25754C0A96F9C946297D6CF&scp=127&sq=smoking&st=p
MAY START TOBACCO CRUSADE.; W.C.T.U. Considers an Anti-Smoking Amendment to the Liquor Pledge.
PORTLAND, Me., Oct. 18 -- The second day's sessions of the National Woman's Christian Temperance Union was attended by 1,500 delegates. Reports of organizers and physical exercises conducted by Mrs. Frances W. Leiter, National Superintendent of Physical Education, occupied the time until the evangelistic hour, during which Miss Greenwood of New York presided.
1902
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9A06E4D81E39EF32A2575AC1A9669D946397D6CF&scp=77&sq=smoking&st=p
ALCOHOL
A DANGEROUS AND UNNECESSARY MEDICINE
HOW AND WHY
What Medical Writers Say
BY
MRS. MARTHA M. ALLEN
Superintendent of the Department of Medical Temperance
for the National Woman's Christian Temperance Union
Published by the
DEPARTMENT OF MEDICAL TEMPERANCE OF THE
NATIONAL WOMAN'S CHRISTIAN TEMPERANCE UNION
1900.
HISTORY OF THE STUDY OF ALCOHOL
"If the medical profession is responsible for the wide-spread belief that alcoholics are of service to mankind both as food and medicine, it should not be forgotten that it is to members of the same profession the world is indebted for the correction of these errors."
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/26774/26774.txt
The interesting thing is that both alcohol and tobacco had previously been considered to be of medicinal benefit.
Our current views of both as purely recreational and therefore heavily sin taxed, would seem to be their lingering legacy.
Perhaps we should take a closer look.
Rose
I will be delighted to help as the anti-alcohol wretches have already had a go at me.
Teetotallers are the 'new pariahs' - Health Secretary warns on Britain's drink habit - 2009
"Teetotallers should be celebrated instead of shunned as pariahs, the Health Secretary will say today."
"Instead, Mr Johnson will demand a wider, fundamental shift in attitudes to alcohol. In a speech to the Royal Society of Arts, he will liken the 'disdain' with which nondrinkers are treated to that of non- smokers in previous decades" ??
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1163092/Teetotallers-new-pariahs--Health-Secretary-warns-Britains-drink-habit.html
It will be a distinct pleasure, just for once,for them not to be able to dismiss my thoughts by saying that it's only the "drug" speaking.
Rose
They just get a bit more subtle and try to get laws changed and do a PR job etc. Prohibitionists are fools. Alcohol prohibition didn't work just drove it into organised crime hands. Has drug prohibition worked? Oh No! Driven it into the hands of criminals. Don't they ever learn? Don't we ever learn? Deride these idiots!
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