KANSAS AND OTAGO

Evening Star, Issue 16663, 20 February 1918, Page 6

KANSAS AND OTAGO

A TIAXDSHAKE BY XO-LICEXSE ADVOCATES. Mrs AY. R. Don. of Dunedin, president of the Xew Zealand Women's Christian Temperance Union, lias received an interesting and acceptable present from America. Mr W. F. Horn, of Topeka County, Kansas, known in the United States as an enthusiastic Xo-license worker, is one of the big party there that looked forward to a visit from Mrs Don as ait event of importance to their cause, and as a personal compliment to Airs Don he, on behalf of Airs Horn and himself, procured some mementos for presentation on the occasion of the Xew Zealander's visit. Hearing subsequently that Airs Don was unable to travel to America. Air Horn sent on the mementos to Dunedin, and they have now arrived, accompanied by a letter conveying greetings from the Americans who have fought for Xo License. One of the articles is a gavel for use at the meetings of the W.C.T.U. The head of this gavel was made from a billiard ball (the brown ball that counts 4 in snooker) by a saloon-keeper of Oswatomte, Kansas, who, after bearinp a speech by .Afrs St. John (wife of an ex-Governor),- decided to close his saloon. The gavel was in the first place presented to Mrs St. John, and it was used by her on her tour of Kansas in 1880. Mrs St. John was one of the crusaders who went into the streets, and prayed, and Interviewed hotelkeepers begging them to give up their licenses, and this movement, in which Airs St. John took a prominent part,' was really the beginning of the W.C.T.U. Subsequently this gavel was wielded by Mrs Mary Ellen Lease, and by her beaten on the walls of tlio Kansas State Senate Chamber. At a later date the famous Carrie Nation handled it at Paola, and Governor St. John pounded it on the table at Denver at the Convention when the Liquor party in Colorado went down and our. ’ Mr Horn was given the gavel in 1916, and he now presents it to Airs Don, national president of the Xew Zealand W.C.T.U., as a mark of the deep respect of the Kansas people to her and to the organisation,, as well as to all Xew Zealand in general, the gift being accompanied by the hope that “this souvenir of our State will bring to all Xew Zealand the same or bettor conditions than now prevail in Kansas, resulting from the saloons having been driven from the State.” A smaller gavel, with a steel head, is also enclosed. Airs Don intends to pass this on to the chief of the Rechabite Order. A foot rule made of a cedar plank from the log house in which Abraham Lincoln was horn is another relic of value, and the enclosing box is of wood taken from the old Kansas Territorial Capitol at Lecompton—the building tli.it was the seat of government in Kansas when the Free State men marched to Lecompton, overthrew the bogus Legislature, drove the Missourians across the border, and established a Legislature frorn which the present State Constitution originated. It will thus been seen that the gifts are of historical worth. It is a high compliment to Afrs Don that the Kansas people have allowed them to leave America.