Hatchet

There is a statue of the late Carrie Nation in Wichita, Kan. There is a Mrs. Maude Wilson living in Kansas City, Mo., 228 miles away. Mrs. Maude Wilson has an 18-year-old daughter who drank, last week, some gin in a speakeasy. When Mrs. Maude Wilson heard about this, she behaved not unlike the late Carrie Nation. Seizing a hatchet, she rushed to the speakeasy, swung high, swung low, shattered a mirror, windows, gin glasses. Barflies cheered her; bartenders ran out into the alley. Police came, but they did not arrest her. Cried she: "I warned them [bartenders] not to sell liquor to my daughter."

Two days later, at the hour of 4 a. m., somebody threw half a brick and a salt shaker through the window of Mrs. Maude Wilson's coffee shop.

In between the hatcheteering and the bricking, W. Harold Lane, chief of Federal Prohibition agents in Kansas City, let it be known that there are more speakeasies in Kansas City today than there were legitimate bars before Prohibition. Federal and State officials put heads together for an enforcement drive.