Ax Woman

Last week Alton, Ill., famed as the home of Giant Robert Wadlow, was publicized as the theatre of operations of a latter-day Carry Nation, a Mrs. Irene Kite, 32. Last December Mrs. Kite got an ax, went to seven taverns in Alton & environs, grimly reduced their slot machines to broken metal. Last fortnight, with her ax she demolished two more--as she called them--"one-armed bandits.'' Charged with malicious destruction of property, Mrs. Kite was arrested, jailed because she declined to sign a bond for $750.

Much as U. S. ministers approved of Carry Nation's activities two generations ago, the Ministerial Association of Alton backed up Mrs. Kite last week. Its 16 members announced that they "endorsed and appreciated" her accomplishments, declaring: "We note that this lady with the ax is to be prosecuted. . . . We wonder at the sudden zeal of the officials.

. . . This appears to us to be a case of vindictive persecution covered by a thin veneer of legal Phariseeism."

Changing her mind about signing a bond, Mrs. Kite was released from jail.

Cried she: "I've got a lot of new axes --about a dozen of them--and I'm not going to quit until every machine is out of the city." In Alton's Methodist Church, lay men and churchmen held a mass meeting to raise funds for her defense. Oddly, none mentioned the real reason for Mrs.

Kite's activities, which they all knew. By her own admission, she had smashed slot machines out of pique, because Alton officials last May had closed down a dice game her husband Dan was running.

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