Wichita eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1883-1888, 1885-02-27
THE PEopLE BEING ROBBED.
The House Consents to the Giving
Away Of Fifty Thousand Dollars.

The House Consents to the Giving
Away Of Fifty Thousand Dollars.
So great was the excitement attend
ing the campaign last fall that about
two-thirds of the candidates who were
elected TO the Kansas legislature evil
IDENTIFY imagined that they were run
ming for congress. That probably
would have mattered little had these
fellows, after: reaching Topeka,
been able to divcst themselves of the
idea that they we're actually seated in
the national capitol with four humid
red million surplus to vote away. Set
ting beneath gorgeously frescoed CELL
ings, with boys to wait on them, and
enjoying three straight meals of
Topeka hash per day, constitutes a
career which has evidently completely
turned their pumpkin heads
and each imagines that the central
screw of his cane seated chair runs
down into the apex of the recently
finished Washington monument from
which sublime altitude he makes such
disclosure TO the world as is onl:
offered by the monkey who success
fully turns the top of the pole. Ut
terly oblivious to the fact that but q
few short winter days have elapsed
since he himself was selling wheat at
forty-five cents bushel and taking
his pay in a hand-me-down suit which
yet covers his swelling importance. he
runs his arms down into the peoples
money up to his elbows and with a
prodigality that would stump the
pension bureau at Washington,
losses it out to every fool or knave
who may happen to apply. The pet
tifoger who, through the long hot
days of asst summer was wont TO ham,
mer the stitching and glue out of the
compiled statutes in some Justices
ice; from nine a. IN. till shutdown,
for y retainer of two and half, be-
cones on the floor of the Kansas leg
islature this winter, Daniel Webster,
the cells of whose brain are only re-
positories for embryo magma charters
and undeveloped fundamental laws.
The day before yesterday the house
voted. sixty-seven to fifty, to donate
Leavenworth City fifty thousand dol
lars of the peoples money, which sum
had been pledged by Leavenworlh to
beat Wichita, Fit. Scott and other
growing towns in the scramble for the
National soldiers home TO be located
in Kansas 1t would have been more
satisfactory TO the other localities
that wanted chance at that institu-
ton for the legislature to have invest
ed that $4,000 in the Louisiana lot
terry scheme. Had Wichita under
stood that the highest local bid was 10
be accepted and that the state of Kan
sas would, before even survey of the
grounds were made, reimburse the
successful bidder, Wichita would have
bid twice what Leavenworth did, and
given fonds to pay at least half of
the amount herself.
In the name Of the tax payers of the
state the EAGLE wants to ask the legis-
lature if they really know what they
are doing? Leavenworth as locality
has not only United States military
plant, which includes fort and school
and the state pennitentiary, but pri-
va,e and sectarian asylums, which the
state has been called upon repeatedly
to aid. The legislatures of the state OF
Kansas have in the past made appro-
priations for the orphans home, the
Catholic widows home, or home OF
similar name, the bad woman's home
ani how many more homes we don't
know, but all purely private institu-
tions located at Leavenworth. One or
two legislatures went SO far as 10 take
the hard-earned money of the people
to erect or help erect a building for
one of these Leavenworth institutions.
In the name of decor cy and all that is
fair, what will Leavenworth next ask
for? It would have been money
in the pockets of the tax payers
to have coded the county and city to
Missouri. If she keeps on it would be
cheaper to fence her in and feed and
clothe her entire population out of the
peoples treasury. Fifty thousand
dollars more this winter! If George
L. Anthony, the champion of this Cob
bic, was governor now ana Wichita
should come up with such bill he
would veto it before his attorney gen.
eral could get half way up stairs. Pri-
vate asylums upon every street, the
penitentiary upon one side, the mill
tary establishment upon the other, all
sustained by public moneys. and now
the state is asked to pay fifty thou
sand dollars for another teat for Leav-
anworili TO suck.
The old political bosses of the pocket
have decreed it, and the men
who misrepresent rural Kansas
with alacrity has voted it, but if any
man who voted to take that amount
of money out of the state treasury
not less than two thousand dollars Of
which will come out of the people of
Sedgwick county, should ever be re-
turned to the legislature, or in any
manner be trusted by the people with
a. Irresponsible position, we shall have
lost part of our faith in the people
themselves.