Wichita eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1886-1890, 1889-06-11
WHO IS INCONSISTENT.

The Wichita EAGLE takes the cake fol
consistency. 1t lauds prohibition, and
damns the metropolitan and the munich
pal suffrage laws, designed expressly for
the purpose of aiding the execution OF the
| Murray law. 1t says men should be pun
ished for making. selling or drinking
| liquor, and yet in an other well prepared
| editorial on the Topeka lynching, sneers
scornfully at the "goody goody, namby-
pamby, heightened, lofty civilization
| notions and foolishness" preached in
this state. 1t derides what 1t calls
''the Miss Nancy notions which have
controlled our Legislatures largely Tor
save and send to heaven every Kan
san" Such breaks as this are not uncom-
| mon in the EAGLE, and betoken restless
| and uneasy spirit. The shafts thus aimed
| at the "Miss Nancy's" are well directed
and hit home. But tomorrow or the next
day the EAGLE will dull their edge or eX-
tract the poison from the wounds made
by them, by screaming incoherently in
favor of prohibition. How would little
consistency do down there at the EAGLE
Office, or is it to be got only IN connection
with a consulate or something equally as
good?-Emporia News.
A consulate has not been asked for,
nor is something equally as good de-
sired. Our aim has been and is simply
the solemn truth. The average Kansas
Legislature does not, and has not for
years, acted up to the aggregated con-
victions of its individual members. who
ever seem to be trying to respond to
some ideal demand, which, if it exists
at all, exists only in the brains OF
a cranky crew whose sole busI-
ness seems to be to influence the
governor in his appointments and the
legislature in its enactments. The Re
publicans of Wichita have named neither
of its commissions. While the EAGLE
believes in temperance, we cannot deny
the fact, nor can the News, that under
the laws Of Kansas for selling keg of
beer man may be sentenced for
longer term of confinement and to a
greater punishment than he can be for
Llanslaughter in any of the degrees.
That has been done, and right in this
town. In the meantime the News will
not dare deny that many Of the best, of
the purest, of the noblest, of the most
conscientious of all the people Of OUR
hOld DCSi W OO q bCiACii-
cial beverage, but actually drink it either
as a beverage or as a medicine. And
does it become a mortal otfense for
man, or a newspaper, to speak OF these
inconsistencies? Our state constitution
says prohibition" and our state laws
say prohibition" now, because the EA-
GLE stands by the laws and the consti-
tuition. must it, necessarily, demand
that the church member, the minister
and the young mother, who drinks the
prohibited article, shall be fined, sent to
Jail and disgraced only because the man
who let them have it is served that way?
In other words would the News have us
hypocritical only that we might appear
consistent? Is it not the more noble,
and the better way, to stand by the con-
stitution and by the laws of your coun-
try and yet be free in criticising the
wrongs that are committed under them,
and in their name; and, yet even go
farther, and criticize the instruments, the |
very men who enact in the spirit of the |
demogogue rather than in that Of the |
patriot.