These
things destroy love and confidence between husbands and wives. 'Tis
not all men's fault, for there are some drinking women.
A man came to me just before I went on the stage at Newport, and
said: "Carry Nation, step aside here, I must speak to you. I am in so
much trouble. Give me some advice. My wife is at home drunk; she
is that way most of the time. We have six children and they feel disgraced.
What can I do? I am almost wild."
I asked: "Did you ever drink with your wife?"
He looked confused. I said: "Women do not usually go to saloons
but you men bring it home and use it on the table and women are just
as apt to catch the disease of alcoholism as men. This may be the way
your wife learned to be a drunkard. Wives have been nursing their
drunken husbands for years; now the chickens have come home to roost,
and you are nursing your drunken wives."
Poor man! He, indeed, seemed distracted; and he is not alone,
there are hundreds of cases.
I met a lovely creature on the train, who had been married a few
months. Her husband was a lumber merchant in Chicago. She sat by
me and told me her sad story. She had been a poor girl and dearly loved
a man whose mother opposed the match and prevented the marriage.
The young lumber merchant, left rich by the death of his father, proposed
and she married him. In a month, the mother of the man she
loved first, died and the obstacle was removed.
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