The Story of Mary

Mary Elizabeth Lease, Wichita Library Lawn

Rudyard Kipling wrote, If history were taught in the form of stories, it would never be forgotten.  I love that quote!  Although I never put it so simply, it is exactly what I am trying to do in telling the story of Isaac B. Werner, his community, and the populist movement of the late 1800s.  The story about the populist movement, in which working class people--farmers, factory workers, miners, ranchers--came together politically to confront what they saw as excessive political influence by the wealthy men of the Gilded Age, is a great drama which most of us today know little about.  Isaac recorded in his journal a first hand account of the movement and the many leaders he heard speak, and one of those influential Populist speakers was Kansan, Mary Elizabeth Lease.  Let me tell you her story!

Mary Elizabeth Lease came to Kansas to teach in the Osage Mission, met and married a successful man, and enjoyed a comfortable life until the economic depression of 1874.  They moved to Texas and started over, from scratch, and it was there that she became involved in the Women's Christian Temperance Union.  Her organizing and speaking activities for the WCTU led to her involvement in women's rights, declaring, "There is no difference between the mind of a smart man and that of a smart woman."

Plaque, Wichita Library Lawn

They returned to Kansas, first living in Kingman, where she published articles in the local paper and studied law at home, juggling all of this with responsibilities as wife and mother.  They moved to Wichita, where she supplemented her legal studies reading law with a local attorney, and she was admitted to the Bar.  Her political involvement began with the Union Labor Party, but as the non-political Farmers' Alliance morphed into the People's Party she, like most other populists in Kansas, shifted her allegiance to that party. She became a paid speaker and a newspaper editor, always focusing on Prohibition, women's suffrage, and economic reforms.  In 1890, when the Populists challenged Republican US Senator Ingalls, Mrs. Lease traveled Kansas in support of William A. Peffer, giving 160 speeches on his behalf during the campaign season.  Following Peffer's victory, Mrs. Lease was often called, "the woman who beat Senator Ingalls."  At a time when women did not have the vote, she made a difference.

She was one of the most effective Populist orators and strategists, but she was provocative and intolerant of being marginalized by leaders who either disagreed with her or were disinclined to regard a woman with full respect.  Her place in the populist movement declined with the decline of the movement itself, and she is too little remembered and respected in history.

Mary Elizabeth Lease

Isaac B. Werner was among her strongest supporters, and he traveled to hear her speak, was published in her newspaper, and corresponded with her regularly.  It was through his journal entries that I first became acquainted with Mary Elizabeth Lease, and finding research about her was challenging.  You can imagine my surprise and delight when I discovered that a larger-than-life bronze statue of Mrs. Lease stands on the lawn between the Wichita Public Library and Century II!  She was a strikingly beautiful woman, nearly six feet tall and quite slender for a woman of her times who had borne five children.  She could hold the attention of a crowd for three hours, modulating her voice from a whisper to a challenging call to arms.

Remember her story!  Mary Elizabeth Lease made a difference, not only to the Populist Movement in Kansas but also to all of us today who take for granted many of the Populist ideas that have become a part of our nation.

(You can enlarge the images by clicking on them.)

Romance on the Prairie

From the County Capital

Touring a personal library is a lot like going through someone's family photo album.  Quote from "The Man Who Loved Books Too Much" by Allison Hoover Bartlett

 

Isaac B. Werner captured my heart when I discovered his passion for books.  Having spent nearly three years studying the lists of books in his journal and in the inventory from his probate records, and having acquired many of those books to read, I feel that I have toured Isaac's personal library and know a great deal about him. 

 

At Isaac's estate sale there were so many books to sell that not all of them could be auctioned individually, and some were boxed to be sold together.  Among the books sold was one titled "Marriage & Family," and knowing that, I am sure that Isaac never intended to spend his entire life as a bachelor.  Why else, when money was dear and he took such pains to select the books he could afford to buy, would his library have included a book about marriage?! 

 

With Valentine's Day at hand, I find myself thinking of the ladies in Isaac's life after he came to Kansas, trying to imagine someone to whom he might have wished to send a Valentine.  He did leave some clues, and one of the most intriguing involves a lady named Ellen.  His journal mentions receiving letters from Ellen or Elle Green, and he was obviously pleased to receive them and prompt to reply.  One day, however, there was a cryptic entry in his journal, "second refusal," and after that day there were no more mentions of Ellen.

 

Another possible candidate was neighbor Isabel Ross, to whom he referred in his journal as Mrs. Ross, using her given name only once.  Mrs. Ross had divorced her husband on the grounds that he was abusive to her and their four children, and following the divorce, she staked a homestead claim as a single woman on land adjacent to Isaac's timber claim.  Gradually, a friendship developed between them, and Isaac was especially kind to share corn husks for fuel and make sure her soddy was readied for cold weather.  If they came to care for each other romantically, Isaac never mentioned such feelings in his journal.

 

The most obvious infatuation he revealed was toward a young woman who came to St. John to deliver temperance lectures.  The first evening he heard her speak, he wrote in his journal:  "...heard Miss Hazelett deliver a first class prohibition speech with magic lantern views, a splendid political speech from a quite young lady probably 23 years of age a nice & good sensible talker."  A few days later he heard her speak again, this time a political speech when she ran as the Republican candidate for County Superintendent of Schools.  It may have been the only time he had something positive to say in his journal about a Republican candidate!  The following month he visited Dr. & Mrs. McCann, the couple with whom Miss Hazelett resided.  Isaac wrote:  "...paid a visit or made a call on Miss Blanche B. Hazelett at Dr. McCann's residence.  Some pleasant surroundings and agreeable company to talk to."  Unfortunately, Miss Hazelett lost the election and resumed traveling on the temperance lecture circuit, and a few weeks later the McCanns left St. John for a different city.

 

From the County Capital

Isaac was regarded as a "good catch" for the ladies.  After a visit to Isaac's farm, newspaper editor John Hilmes praised Isaac's farm as one of the finest in the area.  In that same issue of the paper, the local reporter described the abundant trees Isaac had cultivated and added:  "We think the rooster of the sand hills ought to take some fair damsel under his wings." 

 

The most outright teasing Isaac received followed his lecture at a Farmers' Alliance meeting about ideas from Edward Bellamy's book, "Looking Backward."  That book, still read today, was very popular with Populists who admired some of the social changes Bellamy described in his future world.  Perhaps Isaac mentioned one change--that it was socially proper in that future time for a woman to propose marriage to a man.  In the County Capital newspaper the week after Isaac's lecture, the local reporter teased that the eligible women of Isaac's community had discussed taking him up on that idea, and if he wasn't willing to agree to the propriety of a woman extending the marriage proposal to a man, they didn't want to hear any more talk from Isaac about Edward Bellamy and his future society!

 

Isaac lived and died a bachelor, never having need to use the information contained in his own copy of "Marriage & Family."  Yet, I believe he had not meant to live his life alone.  To read about Isaac's flirtations and marriage plans as a younger man, visit my Feb. 9, 2012 blog, "A Young Man's Fancy." 

Before Carrie Nation--Prohibition in Kansas

Frances Willard

Ask most Kansans to name the woman who led the crusade against liquor, and they will think of Carrie Nation and her hatchet; however, prohibition in Kansas has a much longer history.

 

When Isaac Werner was a young druggist in Rossville, Illinois, selling liquor was part of his business, and one of the reasons he chose to sell his business was concern about the changing liquor laws.  By the time he arrived in Kansas in 1878 to claim his homestead, he was sympathetic to the prohibition cause, although he was never an active member of the Prohibition Party.

 

In 1880 Kansas voters (which would have meant men at that time) approved an amendment to the Kansas Constitution prohibiting all manufacture and sale of "intoxicating liquors."  The statewide ban went into effect January 1, 1881, and Kansas laws remained among the strictest in the nation for nearly seven decades, the statewide prohibition lifting only in 1948.  That year the Constitution was amended by authorizing the legislature to regulate, license and tax the manufacturing and sale, as well as the possession and transportation of intoxicating liquor, but open saloons were "forever prohibited."  Gradually, liquor laws were changed to bring Kansas more in line with other states.  

 

Despite the strict early laws of the state of Kansas, exceptions allowing sales of liquor for medicinal purposes and original container laws that permitted sales in the original containers under interstate commerce allowed liquor into the state.  During these years, a letter to the editor of the County Capital asked just how it was possible in a prohibition state for anyone so inclined to go to St. John or Stafford and get drunk!

 

While Isaac was living in Kansas, the Prohibition Party was a significant political influence, and at the center of the movement was the Women's Christian Temperance Union led by its second national president, Frances Willard.  Elected in 1879, she held that post for nineteen years.  At a time when women did not have the vote, WCTU women nevertheless championed prohibition through lobbying, petitioning, marching, preaching, publishing, and educating. 

 

Advertisement from the County Capital

The Prohibition Party created problems for the Populist movement, for among the People's Party were members who both favored prohibition and those who saw no reason to oppose responsibile consumption of liquor.  Whether Populist candidates supported prohibition or ignored the issue, they were bound to offend some portion of their members. 

 

In 1888 a young lady named Blanche Hazelett arrived in St. John and made her home with dentist Dr. McCann and his wife.  She had come as a WCTU prohibition lecturer, and when Isaac heard her speak at a meeting in Livingston one evening, he wrote in his journal that despite her youth, she was by far the best speaker of the evening.  It was not long before Isaac paid a social call at the McCann residence, and he recorded in his journal the "social time in pleasant surroundings."  Miss Hazelett became the Democratic candidate for County Superintendent of Schools, and her political biography during the campaign included the fact that she had served as secretary to Frances Willard.  When she lost the election, she resumed her travels as a prohibition lecturer, and Isaac enjoyed no further social calls on Miss Hazelett.

 

Frances Willard expanded the activities of the WCTU beyond prohibition, advocating for education, better working conditions for laborers, improved sanitation and health regulation, child protection laws, and work relief for the poor.  But foremost among her goals was what she called "Home Protection," which she felt could be best achieved by securing the vote for women above the age of twenty-one.  For those women who found the suffragists too strident and unladylike, home protection offered a socially acceptable way to work for enfranchisement.  With the vote, women believed they could impact laws concerning the issues important to protect their homes and families, including stricter laws to enforce prohibition.

 

Frances Elizabeth Caroline Willard died in 1898, but the Women's Christian Temperance Union carries forward its mission to this day.




Membership certificate of Ester (Esther) Hoopes

A friend shared this wonderful family document with me after reading this week's post about the WCTU.  The certificate belonged to her great grandmother, and she added the note that her ancestor was buried wearing her Carrie Nation pin.  Anthony, Kansas, where Esther Hoopes lived, is not far from Medicine Lodge, Kansas, home of Carrie Nation.  Thank you, Helen, for this wonderful addition to my post!