The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1890-05-25
"HELLIoNs" AND "RAFs"
why man, he doth bestride the narrow world
Like COLOSSUS, and we petty men
Walk under his huge legs and peep about
gc1rs slfcr la ora g-f4s

| WHY man, he doth bestride the narrow world
| Like "a COLOSSUS, and we petty men
| Walk under his huge legs and peep about
| To ind ourselves dishonorable graves
RATS and 'tHellions" are among the
more expressive epithets in which with
'"blood in its eyes" the Topeka Capital
welcomed a convention of representative
men of the state of Kansas to inhospit-
able hours and infamy. Among the
''hellions" and rats were one hundred
men of Wichita, many Of whom will be
found in their places in our churches
this morning, the rest in the bosoms of
their families, but all probably thanking
heaven that the escaped with their lives
if not with their regulations. However
much Topeka may have been ashamed
| Of the presence of these men, they are
nevertheless a part and portion of Wich-
tia and citizens of Kansas. If their
presence threatened contamination to
the capital building or was an insuffer-
able stencil in the nostrils of his excel
lency, Lyman I. Humphrey, they never
theless contributed very largely to the
building Of the one, and they had to a
man, voted for the election of him whose
exalted position rendered it possible for
him to show them less consideration than
would have been shown a delegation of
anarchists or a committee of convicts
from the states penitentiary. The men
who went from Wichita represented
much OF this city's wealth and enter
prise, much of its morality and good cit
izenship, and no more orderly or quiet
body of men, taking the convention as a
whole, ever assembled in Topeka. No
more honorable, sober, high minded, CON
scientious men ever more mOdestly or
more humbly begged a hearing from the
executive head of any government.
They went there as Republicans,
and only as republicans, in the attitude
of humble petitioners who only desired
to make their request formally matter
Of record. They did not go there to crit
icize the governor nor TO abuse those
who believe that prohibition prohibits,
but simply went asking the small privi-
iege Of a hearing, begging that the peo-
pie be permitted an opportunity to peace
fully again record their later convictions,
touching a specified policy, at the ballot
box, the place OF last resort and appeal
for law-abiding citizens. Nobody was
drunk, nobody noisy, nobody boistrous;
only were all calmly earnest and respect
ful. While few individuals may have
felt indignant over the denoument the
majority felt humiliation for themselves
and shame for the head of their party
who evidently had listened to the advice
Of the men who could descend to stig-
Matte their fellow citizens as "Hellions"
and rats" rather than follow the inn
pulses of his own heart and brain.
As for the writer these lines, indi-
vidually, he envied the comparatively
happy lot of the victim of exilement by
administrative process in the far off ST.
berian frontier of benighted Russia. AS
we looked away to the green rolling hills
beyond the Kaw and remembered that
within sight of where we then sat
that we had helped old Ossawato-
ME Brown across the river with his OK
wagon and last cargo of blackmen who
under his guidance were fleeing for
freedom, that our first vote was cast
within a hundred feet of where the
words ''hellions' and 'rats" were written
and that that vote was against the
Lecompton constitution, since which
time we have never bolted or
scratched a Republican ticket,
we felt like exclaiming with
troubled jeremiah, ''oh, that my head
was waters and mine eyes a fountain of
tears deep enough to drown myself or
somebody else.