Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1884-08-01
Sounding the Kew Note.

NeN~' ~ CQltO1 VI lil0
tion City Union was formerly state
printer of Kansas; he was member OF
the late legislature, and was and is now
the recognized leader of the independ,
ent element of the republican party of
Kansas. He refused to support St
John two years ago, and the course he
mapped out was followed by thousands
of others in this state, it appears, for
st. John was defeated and by splen-
did majority, too.
This year Geo. y. Martin again re-
fuses to be driven, and this tirt1e he
not only kicks against the head of the
ticket, but he refuses to support any
part of the ticket.
He sounds the key note in long writ.
ten article in the last issue of the Junc-
tion City Union, and we copy the arti-
Gle in full below. Republicans can
rest assured that Mr.. Martins views
are not out of time, and that he will
haye as many followers as he had two
years ago. Here is the key note:
1.-The prohibitory question, its re-sub-
mission to vote, is wholly and absU=
lutely the only issds pending before
the people of Kansas. We have had
three years experience under n law
Which has not only failed to accomplish
any good but has engendered ill-will
and strife, and in accordance as the
courts have refused to give preference
to it or shystered in its alleged enforce
ment the people have taken sides in
uproarous approval or bitter denuncia-
tion. We cannot conceive OF a more
demoralizing condition of government
or society than when an elective judi
ciary is submitted to the clamor grow
ing out of attempts to regulate indi-
vidual tastes and dhabits-rights or priv
ileges not yielded even by many of those
who assume to vote to regulate others.
We have believed the whole theory
wrong in principle, disastrous to the
general field of thofals, and in the par
ticulat line iii which good is sought on
ly an aggravatiofi of evil. The entire
history of the question has been that Of
failure, and has been condemned as
such in several states of the union. As
a matter of party policy it has been
damaging. 1t has bred only deceit,
duplicity; and cowardice-and no one
need go any further than the republi-
can managers of Kansas to see oceans
of this. 1t has already made scores of
democratic counties in Kansas, al d
given us democratic governor. 1t
has divided republicans by a line as
vivid as that which during the war
marked the difference between the
friend of the government and the cop
perllead.
We have reached point in the con-
sideration of this matter, where We are
confronted with the question: "Shall
we swallow all these convictions, and
stullify ourself, as republican, when
no paramount issue is presented in the
interest of which one might be justified
in surrendering something's" The de-
nand is made by two classes; those
who claim the right to force US to agree
with them by reason of the fact that
they have captured the party (mainly
through the cowardiee OF the politi-
ticiansl, and second, by class who do
not believe word they say, whose con-
ception of the treatment of the public
questions is governed either by cowar-
dice or public plunder. We have been
q republican since we were eighteen
years old, and hays voted the ticket
without a scratch until we voted for
Geo. w. Click. There was a time
when we would have yielded any other
belief on earth to the general good of
the party. But the party has so nearly
finished its mission that we decline to
believe that the moon is made of green
cheese solely because two other repub-
licans say so OF want an office.
Now we are an -prohlbitionist.
We believe prohibition to be a fraud
and an evil. We are in favor of re-sub-
mission or any other proposition to get
rid of it. The republican platform fa-
vors prohibition and opposes re-sub-
mission. 1t proposes 10 other policy
OF government or morals. In their zeal
in behalf Of this sole question the party
is placed in the Infamous attitude of
meddling in a local saloon brawl and
endorsing dirty court because of its
superserviceable devotion to this one
law. The lack of republican senti-
ment and sympathy prompting this
course is shown in the fact that the
leader of this element in the convention
in his paper of two separate issues
prior to the convention, boldly assert
ed that if they did not have their way
on this question Blaine and Logan
would not be permitted to carry six
states, and that from $4,000 to 20 900 re-
publicans would ''leave" the party in
Kansas. The candidate for governor
was nominated, as we gather from the
speech presenting his name, because of
his republican record ayailed him moths
ing until he changed his opiiiioh con-
corning prohibition-as one Of his anti
prohibition managers stated, HE had
to get the nomination" With no re-
publicanism offered US beyond getting
the Offices and differing radically and
conscientiously on the only issue pre-
sented, what is our dhtyT 1t is very
plain. We will not have a word of it.
The whole republican machine has
become rotten, seething mass of hy-
pocrisy and duplicity since this ques.
ton entered. AS in the convention of
two years ago voting for st. John, SC
we find in this last scores of anti-pro.
hibitionists voting likewise who ate
utterly unable to express their contempt
for prohibition. We find as we did two
years ago., scores who yell the loudest
as the first to hunt saloon. The CON.
vention voted down re-stibmission, the