Wichita eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1886-1890, 1889-05-03
REVOLUTION IN KANSAS"

| q
EAGLE, and the following is the article in
full: When, therefore, the
| Wichita EAGLE advocates such policy
! il becomes the champion of lawlessness
and of all the heresies which would over
turn government and social order.-Leav-
| enworth Times.
The Times don't seem to like the
EAGLES off-handed and straight for
ward denunciation of some of the blum
dering work of the last legislature.
Neither will the members of that body.
But that fact makes no sort of differ
ence to US. The very first duty Of the
press is to keep the people informed,
especially as to public affairs; and, sec
ondly, to denounce in the plainest terms,
in the name of the people, every thing Of
public character which is not right. The
public official, first and foremost, as
servant of the people, when either
from incapacity, ignorance or
design, goes wrong should
be forthwith called to the bar of honest
public Judgment to answer. The EAGLE
don't believe with the Times that when
an outrage has been committed by leg
islative body, that either the press or
people should wait and in respectful
terms ask a repeal or correction. Upon
the other hand, legislators are elected in
the sole capacity of representatives and
for the sole purpose of crystalizing into
enactments the unmistakable and well
defined sentiments of their constituents.
b,,c 70 nd
this sentiment When they do ninety
nine times in a hundred there are per-
sonal ends or corrupt forces being
served, and the members who are re-
sponsible should not be petitioned to
undo the wrong, should not even be per-
mitted an explanation, but should be
summarily denounced and bounced. The
Times talk about the sacred regard for
suffrage and constitutionality is as far
away as the cry of the mountain whang
doodle for its young. Enactments both
rotten and oppressive, by the score, may
be passed by every legislature and
all be constitutional Under the consti-
tuition supervisors of elections, superyis-
ors of officers, commissioners of police
and commissioners of a dozen other
things, all big salaried officers, could be
saddled upon every ward of every city
in the state, but the fact that the su-
preme court might rightly hold such
laws constitutional would be no reason
why the people shouldn't rise up and
hang the authors of such laws, or at
least get themselves ready through the
press to Dust such representatives at
the next election.
The Times bewails the ''lurid" revolu-
ton which the EAGLE advocates. The
EAGLE is not for ''lurid" revolution but
for peaceful yet none the less en-
phatic revolution. As for the other OBJ
jections of the Times the EAGLE will
leave it to either of the supreme judges
of the state or to ex-Chief Justice King
man to say whether in all the legislative
history of Kansas SO many outrages and
blunders and discreditable things gener-
ally were ever done or committed as
during the last two sessions. The Times
and everybody else may tamely
submit and quietly wait and
hope, but the EAGLE will
not, and its a waste of breath for the
Times or for anybody else to criticise the
EAGLE in that particular The last two
or three legislatures have simply kept
every important material interest in
Kansas in a sweat and uncertainty, so
long as those bodies remained in session.
We believe that we are able to show
hundred millions more taxable returns
today, had the last legislatures never
convened, or converting, had never
passed a bill outside of the regular APP
preparations. IL Is fact, a notorious
fact, a fact commonly talked of and
admitted, that the last legislatures had
not only strong Doodle elements in them
but that their multitudinous clerical
forces, combined with their officers and
the LOBBY practically run the entire legis-
lative machine.
No, no, Mr.. Times, we are no anarch-
list; but the truth is, Kansas has grown
too much one-sided and revolution is de-
manded for the well being of the state.
Because the EAGLE has been in the habit
of persisting in talking plain and in re-
fusing to swallow all that these legis-
latures have been enacting, in the name
of Repubicanism, the threat is, and the
effort has been made, to establish So
called Republican paper in opposition to
it. All right; it's their privilege, and
the opportunity seems ripe, and the
EAGLE may go tc the wall, but it will
make more trouble dying that it ever did
in its living.