Wichita eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1886-1890, 1889-03-03
THE NOTE Is IN THY BROTHERS. EYE.
The BEAM IN THINE OWN.

puliuihs city, but who, upon the othef
hand, expect to be supported largely by
the results of the building of others, get to-
gether and through the public prints sol
EMMY declare that "to be law-abiding and
morally safe is quite as serviceable IN at
tracing good citizens and building up the
city as palace blocks, wholesale establish
ments and colossal packing houses" they
insult the average intelligence of an insane
asylum. Law and order are all right,
morality commendable, and Wichita
boasts as much of each as any city of its
size in the United States, and the man, or
set of men, or combination of men and
women, who asesrt to the contrary simply
SANDER as intelligent. sober, religious and
moral community as can be found on the
American continent; q community of peo
pie who support more churches, more
school houses, more charitable homes, and
more houses of refuge and hospitals, and
greater number of literary, art and musical
societies, for the age of the city and for
the number Of its people than any city in
the world, today, or of any that history
makes note, so far as we know. And
further, if the spirit that dominated that
meeting, is to dominate tbs future of
Wichita. then Wichita will have no future
as commercial city, nor future as a bus
mess center, and no future in anything
save IN dry rot. " hen it comes to men
whose business methods have been no
sfSlighter than probably they ought to
fSeFe been, getting up and bowling and
t4wailing the immaginary sins of others,
they should be sat down on. We openly
assert, and we defy that whole crowd to
shov TO the contrary, that no community
anywhere, great or small, contributes
more largely to churches, so generously
charities, Sd munifciently to education, as
| does Wichita according to her age and
population. On Friday afternoon we saw
a drunket man being led along the side
walk by companion, the first sight of
the kind we had seen in more than three
months. In any city of forty thousand
people, of any other state, the same dis
grace, or misfortune, can be seen dozen
times every day in the year, not excepting
Sundays
We have no mora use for white caps for
regulating the morals Of a community
than we have for white caps to regulate
secular life. AT tha4 meeting great stress
was laid upon the compliment paid the in
| telligence of our cityAbs- Colonel Bayne,
but when Geo. Litzenbtrg called their at
tention to the fact thai Notwithstanding
Bayne's estimate still, III the estimation of
''the law and order league" Wichita
hadn't enough "intelligence' to govern
itself. but must be saddled with police
commission, certain gentlemen flew all to
pieces in personal abuse of the editor of
~ L L., IL 30
read those slanderous resolutions, not for
getting that the same element that gave
Wichita the police commission and who
control it today. compiled and passed those
resolutions. The mayor and city council
are as powerless as the people themselves,
there being no executive authority outside
of the commission and their police force,
both of which the elements which called
that meeting control, aud nave
controlled for nearly two years.
First declaring themselves to
to be 'all good citizens" they proceed 20
denounce the city government, which is
their own creature; TO complain OF Sun
day amusements, which nobody can stop
but themselves; to cite the violation of
Sunday laws with nobody to command
the police but themselves; to whine about
the non-suppression of gambling when
they have taken all power to suppress it
out of the hands of the mayor, whom they
now pretend.to hold responsible; to the only
partial suppression of joints. when, if there
is single joint in the town. they and their
commission are alone responsible: to the
licensing of the social evil' when such IL
cense is fixed by their own officers, if there
: L.. 81.
own police judge, who is kept in power
not by the people but by this law and or
der league. They thcn declare that as re-
suit of lawlessness and the non-enforcement
of laval in their own hands-there is
today in Wichita, ''VICE, FREQUENT
THEFTS, BURGLARIES, ASSAULTS, MURDERS
AND OTHER CRIMES WHICH DISGRACE THE
CITY," And so they go on for a half col
umn more whining about matters which
are wholly in their own hands, denouncing
the inefficiency of officers whom they them
selves named-being their own particular
pets whom they control, closing with a wall
which is direct insult to nineteen out of
twenty citizens who have been deprived of
all voice in choosing their governing
power, and to the mayor and city council,
who are utterly unable to enforce a single
mandate, ignoring that they, the law and
order league, or the ones who controlled that
meeting, including the Illuminating presi-
dent and its principal speaker, were alone
responsible for the present executive gov
eminent Of this city; that when they got
tired OF their first commission they
simply named another, and can name
still another tomorrow. and they say to
this people that "uNDER THIS POLICY (the
police commission policy THE CITY Is
MADE TO PRESENT The DEGRADED sPECTA-
Gle OF GOVERNMENT ALLOWING CRIME
AND VICE THAT IT MAY REAP THE GOLDEN
HARVEST OF FINES
Now, we say, and we say what every
body knows, that Wichita and her people
are in no way responsible for the power
swayed by this law and order league, no
more than the people of Indiana are re
sponsible for the White Caps They and
their police commission are over and above
the mayor and the city council, are over
and above the EAGLE, whom at that meet
ing they pretended TO hold responsible for
all the vileness which they have recited as
fourishing under their police commission
system, and over and above everybody.
The late Governor John \. Martin was
putty in their hands, as was the state ex-
ecutive council Nineteen hundred and
forty names OF business men sent up TO
Topeka against their demand for a police
commission did not not weigh so much as the
kick of flea. They got the measure they
wanted, they got the absolute and undis-
puted executive control of this city, and
have had it for two years, and if the
wrongs exist which they recite, they and
they alone are responsible, and they insult