NOT MRS. NATION, BUT-

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Mar 19, 1902

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 28, No. 12.

NOT MRS. NATION, BUT—

"I AM not Mrs. Nation; I have no hatchet; I am not crazy." These words came from the lips of a Lewes woman, as she met her husband face to face in a hotel barroom the other evening, says the Lewes Pilot. They were directed to the bartender and the loungers, as the former handed the woman's husband a glass of whisky. She continued: "That man has not done a day's work this winter, and I am worn out trying to support him and the rest of the family. I want to know if something can not be done to keep him from destroying his own life and starving his family." The woman was thin and pale. Her lips quivered as she spoke. Her frail body could hardly stand the strain of the unfamiliar environment. As she finished, the little girl by her side burst into tears. The bartender took back the whisky. The abashed husband stood with bowed head. One by one the loungers left the room. Presently the bartender, gazing at the poor woman, solemnly vowed that the man should not drink at his bar again. It was a pathetic scene; it was the last resort of a desperate woman.

Thousands upon thousands to-day are putting the same

kind of a plea into the mouths of the families which every instinct of manhood demands that they support, and the plea falls upon deaf ears and unfeeling hearts, because men have permitted themselves to be bound hand and foot and sold to the greatest and most unfeeling slave-driver in the world—Drink. It is the worst slavery, too; for it buys the manhood as well as the man, and compels the victim, while serving it, to live on the earnings—nay, the very life-blood—of those he had sworn to support.