In the Fall of 1904, I received a letter from Sister Lucy Wilhoite of
Wichita, telling me of a vision, which I will relate here in her own words:
"During a severe illness, last July, the Lord appeared unto me and
revealed many wonderful things concerning our work in which I have been
engaged for seven years. Temperance and Prohibition.
My life was despaired of by my friends and I knew I was very near
the borderland, and as I lay on my bed of suffering in the still hour of
midnight, God showed me the awful desolation which our thirty eight
saloons and five wholesale houses were making in the homes of Wichita
and surrounding country, The sight so overwhelmed me, I cried unto
the Lord and said, "Oh my God! Have I done all I could during this life
of mine to dam up this fearful tide? Then I said, show me Lord, what
this means. Immediately a great cloud of human souls came rolling down
a steep decline and as my eyes followed them, saw them rolling on and
on until they finally fell into a pit from whence fire and smoke were
ascending. Then my eyes were turned again up the ascent from whence
the souls were coming. When, Lo! I saw the National Capitol, with her
Senate and Congressmen. I saw the Legislative Halls, and our Educational
Institutions. I saw our churches with her educated ministry, and
her secret societies, our public libraries and reading rooms, our National
State and Local W. C. T U's, all of them right in the track of this awful
tide of human souls, yet they still rolled on and on until they reached the
pit. Then I cried again unto the Lord and said, "Oh, Why do you show
me these horrible things, when I am on the brink of the grave? And
still the picture or vision remained before me, growing more and more
vivid every moment until I struggled to my knees, and said, `O God, if
I can do anything to dam up this fearful tide, just heal this body, and
let the healing be the seal that I can do something to help, and I shall
do it if it costs my life. Then a deep calm and soul rest settled over me
and I sank into a deep sleep, when I awoke I realized the pain was gone
and also the fever. I lay there, looking up to God and I said, "Now,
Lord, show me what you want me to do. Immediately, like a great scroll
reaching across the sky, these words appeared, written in letters of gold.
"Spill it out!" Then he showed me the very place I was to attack Mahan's
Wholesale Liquor House.
"For many weeks I pondered upon this vision and prayed about it
most earnestly, that I might not be mistaken and know of a truth that it
was God's will. I never found any soul rest until I wrote to Mrs. Nation,
and told her the time was ripe for God and that we must attack
Mahan's Wholesale Liquor House, that was helping to degrade so many
women and debase so many men. This resulted in an attempt to carry out
God's purpose on Sept. 30, 1904.
I was true to the "Heavenly Vision," which is only the beginning of
the fulfillment, for there are yet many things to be spilled out, not only
the liquor, but also the hypocrites in the church, and the false prophets
with sin of every kind, and our lives also.
The Wichita Eagle Reporter, uttered a profound truth, whether he
intended to or not, when he said, we walked into the Court Room like a
poem, a sort of a `Lead Kindly Light' poem, for we were lead of God,
who is the Light of the world. And we intend to follow on until this
vision is fully realized."
Yours for God's love for Him and suffering humanity,
MRS. LUCY WILHOITE.
I had dates ahead that I disliked to cancel, because of disappointing
the people and entailing a great financial sacrifice. Sister Lydia Muntz,
also wrote me to come to Wichita immediately. I knew it meant smashing
and imprisonment, possibly, loss of life, for I wrote Sister Wilhoite, "I
am coming to do all I can to destroy the works of the devil, and if need
be to die." At first, I told her to keep things quiet. Then I thought it
best to give all an opportunity to have a part in this great work of saving
life here and hereafter, so I wrote a letter to the Topeka Journal making
a call for helpers setting Sept. 28 as the day. When I arrived in Topeka
I learned that the W. C. T. U would be in convention session on that day
in Wichita, and also that there was a carnival going on in the place, and
thought it providential to have a crowd. I arrived in Wichita the 28th,
the raid was postponed until the 29th. I took hatchets with me and we
also supplied ourselves with rocks, meeting at the M. E. church, where
the W. C. T. U. Convention was being held. I announced to them what
we intended doing and asked them to join us. Sister Lucy Wilhoite,
Myra McHenry, Miss Lydia Muntz, and Miss Blanch Boies, started for
Mahan's wholesale liquor store. Three men were on the watch for us,
we asked to go in to hold gospel services as was our intention before
destroying this den of vice, for we wanted God to save their souls, and to
give us ability and opportunity to destroy this soul damning business.
They refused to let us come near the door. I said, "Women, we will have
to use our hatchets," with this I threw a rock through the front, then we
were all seized, and a call for the police was made. There was of course,
a big crowd. Mrs. Myra McHenry was in the hands of a ruffian who
shook her almost to pieces. One raised a piece of gas pipe to strike her,
but was prevented from doing so. We were hustled into the hoodlum
wagon, and driven through the streets amid the yells, execrations and
grimaces of the liquor element. I watched their faces and could see that
Satan was roused in them beyond their control, making the most diabolical
faces sticking out their tongues! at what? Just five women, who were
doing with their might what their hands found to do, "Just five living
hearts that dared to give their lives to save them. Just gray-haired women,
mothers, and grandmothers, who, for love they could not contain,
rushed in to save their loved ones, from ruin.
There never was such a sight. Angels wept and devils yelled with
diabolical glee. We were taken to Police Headquarters, that is, four of
us, the Police had not taken Blanch, who dodged them, and with her axe
smashed out two windows, after which she went to Sister Wilhoite's
home, and would not have been arrested had she not called to see us
next day, and giving her name was immediately arrested and shut in with
us. Water was standing in the low places in the cell we occupied, caused
by a leakage in the pipes, I don't think this neglect was intentional, but
it was none the less dangerous as it was below ground. The beds were
shelves in the wall, very hard of course, but we might have had some degree
of comfort if it had not been for the dirt and rats which seemed to
delight in having some one to run around and over. It was so ordered
that there was a bible in the crowd, and as we were not in stocks we had
far more to rejoice over than Paul and Silas, holding a continuous praise
and prayer service, reading and repeating the word of God. We were
kept there from Friday till Monday morning without a charge against
us. Sunday morning we squeezed the juice out of some grapes, some kind
friends had sent us, and reading for our lesson where Jesus washed the
disciples feet and partook of the sacrament, sister McHenry sprang to
her feet after partaking of the emblems, said she saw the most beautiful
cross on the wall, surrounded by a divine halo, exclaiming, "Now I know
what it is to have a vision, I thought it might be imagination." We had
quite a time one way and another. Our friends were not permitted to
come into the jail or even to the door, so many of them came to the railing
on the outside, where some of the officials threw water on them from
the upper windows to keep them away. We were taken to the county
jail on Monday and had a trial for malicious mischief on Wednesday.
We plead our own cases, and never in the history of the world did a nation
or people see mothers tried for trying to save their loved ones from
the slaughter of a government whose business is to protect women and
their children. Tears were in the eyes of many when sister Lucy Wilhoite
and sister McHenry told of their boys being led into vice by the
officials of Wichita. Poor degraded Wichita with her corrupt officials and
that vile "Wichita Eagle," and its Murdocks. But God has a people there
and they will be victors in this fight. We were convicted of course, I got
thirty days in jail and $150, the rest $150, except sister Muntz who only
got $50. We employed Judge Ray to take our cases to the District Court.
At the present writing I am out on bail and so far as the jail is concerned,
I do not dread it. God will liberate some when I am in bonds. Poor
women, Poor Mothers. God who "tempers the wind to the shorn lamb"
will come to her relief from a degradation worse than death.
