I have been asked by my friends not to call it a “Home for Drunkards’ Wives and Mothers”, for it would be a reflection on the inmates.  Not at all.  The condemnation is on the party which makes a demand for such a home, by voting for saloons.  The question, Why? will arise in the minds of all who see on the arch over the entrance to this place, “Home for Drunkards’ Wives and Mothers”.  Why?  “Because of the saloon.  Let us smash the saloon and not these women’s homes and hearts.”  Miss Edith Short is the secretary and is at the home all the time, and she is the right woman in the right place.

There are many persons who would like to donate to such a place.  We are waiting for funds to enlarge the place, making rooms or flats for these dear ones.  A letter directed to “Drunkards’ Wives Home”, Kansas City, Kansas, will reach the place, for there is no other of the kind in the world.  It was such a relief to me when I saw that what means I could control was used in a manner God would bless, and it was a great source of joy to me to do something for this class.  I have been a drunkard’s wife myself and I know the desolation of heart they have.  This is a worse sorrow than to have one’s husband die.  A wife always feels that she might have done something to cause her husband to drink or to quit.  I believe that some men have been led to drink by women, but it is a cowardly resort, or excuse, and the man who would make this as an excuse is as bad as the woman that caused him to drink, if not worse.  The thief, the murderer, or any other class of criminals could just as well blame others for their own wrong doings.

{illust. caption = Mrs. Carry Nation’s “Home for Drunkards’ Wives and Children” One of two fine properties in Kansas purchased by Mrs. Carry Nation with the money she earned on her lecturing tours.  In this way she believes she can bring comfort into the lives now darkened and saddened by the saloon curse.}

When I was at Coney Island, I was asked, what I thought of William McKinley’s administration?  I said:  “I was glad when McKinley was elected for I had heard that he was opposed to the liquor traffic.  I did not know then that he rented his wife’s property in Canton, Ohio, for saloon purposes, and after his election he had been a constant disappointment to me; that he was the Brewers’ president and did their biddings; that we as W. C. T. U. workers, sent petitions, thousands of them to Mr. McKinley to have him refuse to let the canteen run.  That we were willing to give our boys to fight the battles of this nation, to die in a foreign land, but we were not willing that a murderer should follow them from their home shores to kill their bodies and souls.”  This was said at the time that he was thought to be convalescent from his death-wound.  I said:  “I had no tears for McKinley, neither have I any for his assassin.  That no one’s life was safe with such a murderer at large.”  This roused hisses; some left the hall and there was