"And what time of year wuz it, wuz it late in the spring or early in the summer, that them two Wizzel girls wuz took from his saloon drugged and unconscious, and not a hide or hair on 'em seen sence.
"And le'me see, wuz it on a Monday or a Tuesday, that them two men got into a drunken fight in his saloon and both on 'em got killed. No, it wuz on a Wednesday, for I remember I cut my bib apron wrong, I cut it ketrin ways, and jest as I wuz cuttin' it over, I hearn of that big railroad smash-up where two hundred got killed and maimed by a drunken engineer."
Them wimmen would bring up all them little petickulars agin that man, and his bizness lection day, jest to be mean, and to beat him. Every man and woman whiskey had destroyed, all the crime and agony and poverty it has caused, every fambly wrecked by it, every young man ruined, every young girl who went through the saloon into destruction, and the one hundred thousand deaths caused by it every year. They wouldn't know enough to keep their mouths shet at this time when it wuz so important to have 'em shet up; they'd jest clutter up the road to the pole with petickulars. And no matter how flourishin' a bizness that man wuz doin', and how much money he wuz makin', and how much he wuz willin' to pay for votes, helpin' the male community in this way, they'd carry the day agin him.
They can't seem to realize what a loss in propputy it is to the man they're a houndin'. And if you twit 'em of it they'll twit back and ask, What of the one billion, four hundred million dollars loss to the country every year, caused by strong drink, and ask you if you know that as many Americans are killed every year by it as has been killed in all the battles of the world since time begun. Havin' to ask all these little leadin' questions at jest that onconvenient time and take the advantage on him.
And then when they git him turned down and some favorite religious man elected in his place, oh, how their tongues would run agin, tellin' of all the good things he'd done and would do; agin it would be sez I, and sez he, and sez she, and sez they. Wimmen can't seem to learn to set still to home, and knit, no, they have got to meddle and interfere with men's bizness, as fur as they can, and woe be to us if they ever cut loose and run furder.
Why the Hullsale Liquor Dealers' Association will agree with every word I've said. They know what females are, and what they can do when they git their white ribbings on, and are banded together agin 'em, and they begin to tell petickulars. That's what makes 'em fight so agin Woman's Suffrage. They know where they and their bizness would be after a few years of wimmen's petickulars and votin', and they're willin' to pay well them that help 'em.
As I've intimidated before, to a smart hustlin' bizness man who looks out for his own interest, it is absolutely appallin' to see how Woman Suffragists stand in their own light. But in my talk about the shiftless ways of these wimmen, and their tetotle inability to see where their interests lays, I want to make a honorable exception of the modest retirin' She Auntys. Them wimmen, though females, have got some good horse sense; they know which side their bread is buttered and they lay out to keep it right side up. They know who helps butter that bread. They know it is better to ride round in palace cars to their lectures agin Female Suffrage, helped by them who hate that cause like pizen, than it is to walk afoot. And they know enough to grasp special priveliges, and enjoy 'em, and they lay out to help the ones that help them.
Liquor dealers have got oceans of horse sense, and oceans of money, and they let that money flow along where it will do the most good, into female channels if necessary. Anything to dam up the big waters of Reform from risin' up and washin' 'em away, and stop Woman Suffragists from ruinin' their bizness, and tellin' petickulars and votin'. And I'll ask this question of any man or woman with the brains of a angleworm or caterpillar—Hain't it easier to float along with the current, than to fight agin it and go in the other direction? Why a fool ort to know it is.