第86章 CHAPTER XXIV.(2)

I had dates ahead that I disliked to cancel, because of disappointing the people and entailing a great financial sacrifice. Sister Lydia Muntz, also wrote me to come to Wichita immediately. I knew it meant smashing and imprisonment, possibly, loss of life, for I wrote Sister Wilhoite, "I am coming to do all I can to destroy the works of the devil, and if need be to die." At first, I told her to keep things quiet. Then I thought it best to give all an opportunity to have a part in this great work of saving life here and hereafter, so I wrote a letter to the Topeka Journal making a call for helpers setting Sept. 28 as the day. When I arrived in Topeka I learned that the W. C. T. U would be in convention session on that day in Wichita, and also that there was a carnival going on in the place, and thought it providential to have a crowd. I arrived in Wichita the 28th, the raid was postponed until the 29th. I took hatchets with me and we also supplied ourselves with rocks, meeting at the M. E. church, where the W. C. T. U. Convention was being held. I announced to them what we intended doing and asked them to join us. Sister Lucy Wilhoite, Myra McHenry, Miss Lydia Muntz, and Miss Blanch Boies, started for Mahan's wholesale liquor store. Three men were on the watch for us, we asked to go in to hold gospel services as was our intention before destroying this den of vice, for we wanted God to save their souls, and to give us ability and opportunity to destroy this soul damning business.

They refused to let us come near the door. I said, "Women, we will have to use our hatchets," with this I threw a rock through the front, then we were all seized, and a call for the police was made. There was of course, a big crowd. Mrs. Myra McHenry was in the hands of a ruffian who shook her almost to pieces. One raised a piece of gas pipe to strike her, but was prevented from doing so. We were hustled into the hoodlum wagon, and driven through the streets amid the yells, execrations and grimaces of the liquor element. I watched their faces and could see that Satan was roused in them beyond their control, making the most diabolical faces sticking out their tongues! at what? Just five women, who were doing with their might what their hands found to do, "Just five living hearts that dared to give their lives to save them. Just gray-haired women, mothers, and grandmothers, who, for love they could not contain, rushed in to save their loved ones, from ruin.

There never was such a sight. Angels wept and devils yelled with diabolical glee. We were taken to Police Headquarters, that is, four of us, the Police had not taken Blanch, who dodged them, and with her axe smashed out two windows, after which she went to Sister Wilhoite's home, and would not have been arrested had she not called to see us next day, and giving her name was immediately arrested and shut in with us. Water was standing in the low places in the cell we occupied, caused by a leakage in the pipes, I don't think this neglect was intentional, but it was none the less dangerous as it was below ground. The beds were shelves in the wall, very hard of course, but we might have had some degree of comfort if it had not been for the dirt and rats which seemed to delight in having some one to run around and over. It was so ordered that there was a bible in the crowd, and as we were not in stocks we had far more to rejoice over than Paul and Silas, holding a continuous praise and prayer service, reading and repeating the word of God. We were kept there from Friday till Monday morning without a charge against us. Sunday morning we squeezed the juice out of some grapes, some kind friends had sent us, and reading for our lesson where Jesus washed the disciples feet and partook of the sacrament, sister McHenry sprang to her feet after partaking of the emblems, said she saw the most beautiful cross on the wall, surrounded by a divine halo, exclaiming, "Now I know what it is to have a vision, I thought it might be imagination." We had quite a time one way and another. Our friends were not permitted to come into the jail or even to the door, so many of them came to the railing on the outside, where some of the officials threw water on them from the upper windows to keep them away. We were taken to the county jail on Monday and had a trial for malicious mischief on Wednesday.

We plead our own cases, and never in the history of the world did a nation or people see mothers tried for trying to save their loved ones from the slaughter of a government whose business is to protect women and their children. Tears were in the eyes of many when sister Lucy Wilhoite and sister McHenry told of their boys being led into vice by the officials of Wichita. Poor degraded Wichita with her corrupt officials and that vile "Wichita Eagle," and its Murdocks. But God has a people there and they will be victors in this fight. We were convicted of course, I got thirty days in jail and $150, the rest $150, except sister Muntz who only got $50. We employed Judge Ray to take our cases to the District Court.

At the present writing I am out on bail and so far as the jail is concerned, I do not dread it. God will liberate some when I am in bonds. Poor women, Poor Mothers. God who "tempers the wind to the shorn lamb" will come to her relief from a degradation worse than death.

AFTER TRIAL IN THE DISTRICT COURT.

I am out on parole under a jail sentence of four months and a fine of $250.00. This man Wilson who is in the place of a judge knows that it is a lawless outrage, but true to his party or trust he stands by the combine for as long as the Republican Liquor Power controls office motherhood is sacrificed to the greed of this boa constrictor that coils its huge body crushing out the life and soul of man, woman and child.

If Roosevelt had a sincere interest in increasing the population by urging women to bear children he would say something about what makes it a terror to do so.