Grayson County TXGenWeb 

Mary Elizabeth Lease






Herald Democrat
August 15, 2012

Denison Women's Christian Temperance Union
by Donna Hunt

I've not hear from anyone who can identify the author of the account of Denison's earliest days, so I will continue sharing some of the very interesting information.
Only one paragraph was dedicated to the Women's Christian Temperance Union although it said that the temperance movement had reached Denison in the early 1880s and that resulted in its organization.  I've written a couple of times about the WCTU and included in this column is information that I have gathered.
Mary Elizabeth Lease gave women a new "lease on life" when she spoke in Denison in the 1880s at a meeting of the newly formed Denison Women's Christian Temperance Union.  That speech was one of her first moves down the road to national fame, being called the Populist Party's "Joan of Arc."
Today it's not unusual to find a woman in a leadership role in a company, a city, a county, a state or even the national government.  Women have been told for many years that they can do anything they set their minds to do.  Today we believe it if we are willing to work hard enough.
Roles we play in every aspect of life have reached new heights as what was known as "the weaker sex" has come out of the shadows and taken a leading role.  Times were different a little more than 100 years ago.
Mary was born in Ridgeway, Pa., in 1853.  Her father and two brothers died during the Civil War, her father at the notorious Andersonville Prison in Georgia, and subsequently she hated the Democratic Party which she considered responsible for the war.
Shortly after graduating from St. Elizabeth's Academy in Allegheny, N.Y, she moved to Osage Mission, Kansas to teach at St. Anne's Academy and in 1873 she married Charles L. Lease, a pharmacist's clerk, and move to Kingman County to live on a farm.  They lost their farm and stock in the financial panic and in the summer of 1874 started over in Denison after they were told that "on the other side of the Indian Territory was Texas, according to information in the book, Queen of the Populists, by Richard Stiller.
Mary Elizabeth and Charles had hoped that he could find work as a druggist or maybe even own his own druggist shop here.  Stiller described Denison at the time as "a town full of rough, wild, desperate men - a thieves' and murderer's capitol."  But Stiller also said Denison was a respectable place with Main Street reserved for respectable businesses and Skiddy Street, a block away (now Chestnut Street) limited to "disorderly houses, tippling shops, barrooms, bawdy houses and other tough establishment.
The young couple found a frame house at the corner of Walker Street and Houston Avenue and Charles got a job as a clerk in Dr. Alex Acheson's drugstore on Main Street between Rusk and Austin Avenues.  They lost two children in infancy and four others, Charles, Louisa, Grace and Ben Hur, survived.  Ben Hur was named for the Christian hero of Lew Wallace's popular novel.
Dr. Acheson's wife, Sarah, invited Mary Elizabeth to give a short address at the historic meeting of the newly formed Women's Christian Temperance Union in her home.  The temperance movement was second only in women's hearts to the growing campaign for women's suffrage.  This possibly was the first public speech that Mary Elizabeth ever made.
By 1875 about 150 communities in Texas had adopted local prohibition laws and Grayson County was a stronghold of the temperance movement, primarily because Denison was such a heavy drinking place.
Dr. Acheson, Charles Lease's employer during the family's stay here, was one of Denison's most colorful pioneers whose more than 90 years were highlighted by service as mayor.  Sarah Acheson also left her imprint on early Denison as an organizer and officer of the Women's Christian Temperance Union.  She probably was the influence that brought Mary into the WCTU and thereby launched a career that later achieved national scope.
In 1971 a New York author, Dorothy Rose Blumber, was in Denison compiling information for a book she was writing on Mary Elizabeth Lease, whom she said "had a beautiful speaking voice."  A check with amazon.com shows that the book Mary Elizabeth Lease, Populist Orator : a profile, published in 1978, is no longer available.
The women at the meeting found that Mary was not a quiet person once she had the floor and had something to say.  She got very vocal when she talked about the evils of drink and the importance of making Denison a respectable and moral community in which she wanted to rear her children.  It is said that she enjoyed every minute of the speech and she had a natural gift of speaking.  The women made a big fuss over the shy young wife of the drug clerk, who like most men of that time wasn't overly pleased with his wife's actions.
In the spring of 1883 Charles and Mary Lease and their children gathered up their savings and belongings and moved back to Kingsman, Kansas, where Mary Elizabeth went on to rally the farmers by telling them, "What you farmers need to do is raise less corn and more hell," as she campaigned vigorously for the Populist Party.
She spoke before crowds as large as 20,000 people, both men and women, who gathered to listen.  Although her lectures and speeches covered a wide range of subjects, she was a promoter of Women's Liberation.



Kansas Memory
Courtesy of the Kansas Historical Society


"Lectures"
"Opinions of the Press"


An ardent believer in women's right to vote, she had followers all across the nation.  When the National Council of Women had its first meeting in Washington D.C., Mary was invited to speak on "Women in the Farmers' Alliance," which also was known as the Populist Party.



Mary told her story which made such an impression on the New York Review of Books that it called her "the Joan of Arc of the farmers and working men in Kansas."

The Sunday Gazetteer
Sunday, June 16, 1895
pg. 3

HAS OCCULT POWERS
Mrs. Lease of Kansas a Telepathic and Hypnotist.
How She Hypnotized a Republican - Reads Unseen Letters.

Mary E . Lease, of Kansas, is possessed of the power of hypnotism to an unusual degree.  To a correspondent she spoke freely of her accomplishments along these lines.  She said:
"Nothing is impossible in this day and age.  The process of evolution has progressed as far as it can, and the developments of science are a demonstration to us that our eyes cannot see as well as a camera.  We have for years been able to convey messages to great distances by telephone and there is no reason why we should not convey them with equal accuracy by thought.  I have frequently sent thought messages to San Francisco and received accurate answers to them.
For many years I have known that I possessed a large amount of electricity.  The same words addressed to an audience, with the
same gestures and the same intonation of voice, will not have any effect if not coupled with magnetism.  It is this power of magnetism, hypnotism or mesmerism, or whatever you may please to call it, that gives the wonderful influence possessed by evangelists.
"I refrained from making public my powers because I do not think it a subject which should be spoken of indiscriminately.  I have often exercised my hypnotic powers on individuals in my audiences.  Once, while speaking to a republican audience, made up largely of old soldiers, at Mount Pleasant, Iowa, in the campaign of 1892, I saw a crippled veteran standing up in the crowded hall and invited him to step forward and take a seat on the table at my side.  He replied that he guessed he could hear all that he wanted to of my speech while standing, but he kept edging toward where I was talking and finally seated himself on the corner of the table, as I had invited him to do.  As I walked by him in addressing the audience I occasionally caught his eye, and when making gestures would make a pass before his face.  Soon I had the satisfaction of seeing t hat I had him completely under my control.  When I had nearly concluded my speech, I said I would call upon him to testify as to the truth of all the statements I had made.  He responded promptly and made a most eloquent speech in support of the position I had taken.  He was one of the most
rabid republicans in Iowa, and his friends were more than surprised at the flights of oratory he indulged in, as well as at the radical change that he had undergone in his political beliefs.  He was no doubt more surprised than his friends.
"I once had rather an interesting experience at a reception tendered me by my sister, Mrs. E.C. Timmins at her home in Englewood, Chicago.  For the entertainment of the guests I proposed to read accurately any letter that might be given by simply placing it between the palms of my hands.  A gentleman handed me a letter, and I not only read it to him, but told the name of the writer and gave a description of him without opening the envelope.  At a meeting of Occult club in Detroit I gave a similar exhibition and read 23 letters in the same way without an error.
"I do this by intuition, which, by the way, is a power that is much more highly developed in woman than in man.
"Without any spirit of egotism I wish to say that I possess powers that will astonish the world.  Without any religious cant or professing to control any force that it is not possible for any man or woman to acquire, I assert that I can do anything I want.  I think that the day is not far distant when men will accomplish with ease any or all the miracles performed by Christ.  They will literally turn water into wine and walk upon the sea with the ease that they now move over the land.
"In all my work upon the rostrum I adopt the ethics of Christ.  I do it sincerely and find its effects are wonderful.  If one does not think evil, he can do no evil, and his powers are greatly increased in every direction.  The ordinary faculties of mankind must give way to the new development which is rising above the common senses, and the true man will take the place intended for him by the Creator." - - - San Francisco Examiner


Soon after 1896 Mary divorced Charles and moved to New York City with her four children, where she worked as a lawyer and lecturer.  In 1905 Mary's son, Charlie, became quite ill, eventually dying and being buried in an unknown place in Denison, Texas.

The Wichita Daily Eagle
Wichita, Kansas
Sunday, 1 October 1905
pg. 8

Gusts of City News
D.E. Fuller received a letter from Amos McClain, who is enjoying the sights in New York City.  He says Charlie Lease is very sick having passed through three operations for appendicitis, but there is some hope for his recovery.  He would bring him back if he could stand the journey.

About three months later, the death of Charlie Lease was announced in the Denison Sunday Gazetteer.

The Sunday Gazetteer
Sunday, December 24, 1905

Dr. Acheson received the intelligence of the death of Charley Lease, who died at New York City of appendicitis.  The deceased is the son of the celebrated Mrs. Lease formerly of this city.  He was 30 years of age and will be buried in Denison.


Contrary to the above news item stating that Charley would be buried in Denison, he is buried with his mother and three siblings in Cedar Grove Cemetery, Flushing, Queens Co., New York.  (FAG Memorial #92731378)
She spoke on behalf of Eugene Debs when he ran for president in 1908, then became an admirer of Theodore Roosevelt and supported his bid to recapture the presidency under the banner of the "Bull Moose" Progressive  Party.
Before she died in 1933 she saw the passage of many of her goals - prohibition and women suffrage as well as much of the Populist platform.



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