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The Anti-Saloon Crusades"You'll Never know what joy it gives you to smash up a Rum shop!"
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The Basic Facts:
The Details
Her passion for temperance didn't start with a sudden calling from God. It started when her marriage to Dr. Charles Gloyd went sour due to his extreme drinking. Then after two years of marriage and a challenged child, Gloyd died of alcoholic poisoning. From that moment on Carry Nation warned others to avoid this fate by not drinking--Temperance.
Along with a personal reason against alcohol, Carry soon realized that it was her devine calling to spread Temperance by smashing up bars. Along with the hymn-singing women from the WCTU (Women's Christian Temperance Union), Nation would march into a bar reasoning and praying while destroying bottles of liquor and furniture in the bar. She was a woman who could produce chaos one minute, then sway crouds with logical conversational words.
In her own words, from her memoir, Carry explains her Main Strategy:
"...If some ordinary means had been used, people would have heard and forgotten, but the 'strange act' (of smashing saloons) demanded an expanation..and people wanted that..." (Use and Need of the Life. rev. ed. [1905]. p.126)
The biggest smashing of a saloon Nation ever accomplished was the destruction of the Senate Saloon while she was in Topeka, Kansas (the state capital). The Senator Saloon was the main hang out for all the legislators, this was a place where booze was being illegaly sold. The booze was illegal because technically saloon sold booze was not alloud in the state of Kansas at that time.
Because of her actions, she did gain the legislature's attention and made progress within the state of Kansas...but not everyone approved of her actions. (For more info on obstacles go to "Opposition to Nation's Way" link @ bottom of page)