62 Nebraskaland • January-February 2024
country's most prominent Democrat — for not speaking up
enough in its favor. Never tolerant of half-heartedness or
political calculation, Nation wrote in her autobiography,
"From that time forth I knew Bryan was for Bryan and what
Bryan could get for Bryan."
Nation's followers shared her uncompromising fervor.
While she was in Lincoln, news broke that a woman had
horsewhipped the mayor of Topeka, Kansas, for failing to
shut down the city's saloons. Nation applauded the attack.
On April 1, newspapers reported that a dozen veiled women
had entered a saloon in Eddyville, Nebraska, smashing
furniture and emptying out liquor bottles.
Nation herself never did anything veiled. She was soon
back in Omaha touring the city's notorious Third Ward in the
company of several newspaper reporters. A crowd followed
her to Goldsmith's saloon at Ninth and Capitol, "possibly the
toughest joint in town," according to the Omaha Bee. "With
wild peals of laughter the women raised their glasses of beer,
blew the foam from the amber fl uid so that it almost fell upon
the 'smasher's' dress and drank to her health."
She received a harsher welcome in a Nebraska City saloon
a few days later when she tried to get behind the bar —
presumably to break things — and in the ensuing scuffl e was
reportedly slapped by a bartender. Nation took it in stride. In
her autobiography she boasted, "I reeled and fell and while I
knew he struck me with his clenched fi sts as hard as he could,
so it seemed to me, I did not have a bruise." Ejected from the
saloon, she came back later and was arrested and jailed.
Saloon in Wheeler County, Nebraska, circa 1900. HISTORY NEBRASKA, RG3542-7-5
Nation toured Omaha's vice district accompanied by
reporters. OMAHA BEE, MARCH 30, 1902
